Armed with an e-collar remote, a few pieces of hotdog and a leash walking thru places such as petsmart with many people that are constantly trying to distract you while you're trying to work your dog under distraction, how does everyone do it? I'm tired of everyone asking me what I'm training him for whenever people see the "IN TRAINING WORKING DOG DO NOT PET" vest on him - I'm tempted to add another patch that says "DONT TALK TO ME OR MY HANDLER" - while someones asking me crap, my dog breaks his sit/stay n walks around sniffing stuff, I can't react fast enough to get my dog back into a sit/stay and correct him, if I do interupt someone to make a correction I get dirty looks for being "too hard on my dog"... I can't take it anymore... there's got to be a better way to train under distractions...

Does anyone have any tips? My dog is never returning to petsmart from this day forth.

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My dog is never returning to petsmart from this day forth

Looks like your already on the right track, LOL!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Don't attract attention to yourself with a vest on your dog let alone one that says anything.
Find a "public" that is a bunch of dog people that really don't care what you are doing but even in the midst of a conversation, without pause will tell you your dog broke and go right back to the conversation about work or the weather.

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Armed with an e-collar remote, a few pieces of hotdog and a leash . . . while someones asking me crap, my dog breaks his sit/stay n walks around sniffing stuff, I can't react fast enough to get my dog back into a sit/stay and correct him

Don't let yourself get so distracted that you lose sight of why you're there. It's not to answer questions, it's to train your dog with distractions present. By the time you get to this level of distraction you should be quick enough on the button that you dog only starts to break his sit. It's also possible that you're waiting for him to stand up instead of merely shift his weight in order to do so. If he's "walking around" it sounds as if you're correcting way to late.

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if I do interupt someone to make a correction I get dirty looks for being "too hard on my dog"

Ignore this reaction.

In my opinion Petsmart is not a place to train a dog. Besides the fact that there are a lot of airheads there - its also a place where there can be extreme distraction - it may be a place to finish training but not do normal training.

Whats wrong with the line" Sorry I cant talk now" and walk away.

Remember the vast majority of Petsmart employees are not very goiod dog trainers.

you wrote:

people that are constantly trying to distract you while you're trying to work your dog under distraction,

>Sorry Mike, but what is the problem? You want to work your
>dog under distraction and they are supplying distractions?

Regards
Thomas

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you wrote:

people that are constantly trying to distract you while you're trying to work your dog under distraction,

>Sorry Mike, but what is the problem? You want to work your
>dog under distraction and they are supplying distractions?

Regards
Thomas

There is a difference between distracting ME and distracting my DOG. There's also certain levels of distraction, there's the distraction of ignoring other dogs that are in the store and walking past all the dog urine without stopping to sniff at it, and there's people running up to you all hyper going "aww! what a cute dog! can i pet him? whats his name? hi cujo! aww look he's all excited! oh no! daddy's gonna zap you if you don't sit! you better listen to daddy! aww he's so cute in his lil vest, what's he training for? golly gee I hope you're not training him to be a service dog for disabled people, they treat their dogs like crap!" yap yap yap.... I have a very excitable happy puppy, if you act excited towards him he goes nuts wagging his tail n running around, it gets very hectic, then trying to control him and correct him with some idiot standing in front of you... ugh. Then because I act stand offish and don't feel like talking to my dog in a happy squeeky voice I'm being too hard on my dog. No thanks.

Thanks everyone for your input, I will take the advice and find a better place to train - I hadn't taken my boy to PetSmart for about 6 months till the other day when I took him on a flat collar, he drove me nuts sniffing at everything, so the next day I went back with a prong, but you get dirty looks for poppin a happy doggy with a prong collar so I got sick of it and left, today I gave it a last try with the e-collar, he behaved very well but the above type yapping from annoying people made it very difficult to stay consistent, especially while trying to hold 3 things with 2 hands. I am very happy that he didn't go running towards every dog he sees - this used to be a huge issue that I'm glad I've finally managed to minimize, but there's still work to be done, in a more suitable environment.

I think Kevin hit the nail on the head.

At some point in training working around the public is a good thing, but walking into Petsmart (home of every freaking dog idiot for miles around) with a sign on your dog that reads "working dog, don't pet" is only asking for it.

That would be like walking into a Star Trek convention with William Shattner holding a sign that says "not here to talk about Star Trek".


I like parks around office buildings, not public parks. I like open air markets where people are buying stuff and eating. . .not paying attention to the idiot with a dog walking around, or minimalls where people are walking around shopping.

Most people don't give a crap what you're doing and that eliminates a good portion of the gawkers and geeks bugging you.

I have used, parks, NOT dog parks, small shopping centers,playgrounds etc. Places where the distractions are there but you can keep your distance & the people there are busy doing their own thing & not really paying attention to you & you dog...but it allows enough distracton for the dog to start to proof him under distraction. Move a bit closer to the 'action' & to the busier places as you dog progress in being able to handle more & more distractions to be proofed to. I take my dog to stores, banks, Home Depot,(when I stop to look at something..she just lies down & watches all the people walk by) basketball courts with kids playing ball at the other end, 6-10 feet away from kids on skateboards, schools fields with scoccer games 20 feet away on one side of us & softball games 20 feet away on the other side & cricket being played in the middle of it all another 20 feet away & she doesn't pay attention to anything but me. She will do down stays, fetch, recalls, heel etc with all this going on around her. She is 23 months and has been doing this for the last 5 months. You just need to start slowly & add the disrtactions slowly. Start in you front yard with a longline when there is people walking by & kids on bikes etc & progress to more public places with greater & greater distraction. Just move forward slowly adding closness to the action, types of actions & etc. Just like teaching the down stay. Start with short times & short distances. when you increase distance shorten time. When you increase time shorten distance to the distraction. Use a longline until you are absolutly sure it is safe to take them off it in a public park/playgroung area. ALways on a leash in a store or shopping area or vehicle traffic area. And yes I do go into Petsmart etc & she behaves just the same as any other store & just watches the people & other dogs. She has no interest in the other dogs. I do get a kick out of all the other people in there trying to hang onto their little foo foo's while they are dragging them thru the store sniffing all the stuff & trying to run after all the other dogs. The dogs bark at my dog & she ignores them. I am often asked how I trained my dog to not bother with all the stuff & other dogs. I just shrug....not worth going into 'cause they dont' REALY want to know. It would be far more time & effort than they would ever want to invest. I hope that some of this helps you. Just remember it all takes time...alot of time & patience. But time well worth spending.

I'm glad this topic has come up. As a novice handler I've made lots of mistakes distraction training my dog. Mostly I've let people interfere. I used to feel weird answering questions but you really have to take control of the situation. I put my dog in a down, look the person in the eye and say "please ignore the dog because I'm training him"..usually at that point they lose interest. I'm not sure if this is the best way to handle it but I'm not experienced enough to let myself get distracted with families hovering over us and asking all kinds of questions.
Personally, I think Ed should mail us all some business cards that just say http://www.leerburg.com. We can hand them out and walk away........