Thank you so much Alice. I've been very lucky in having gotten a puppy with an absolutely fabulous temperment and am working very hard to enhance his abilities. I know if he's not doing something correctly it's solely due to me not training it correctly so this board has been critical in my progress, due to people such as yourself.

Thanks for the great tip. I didn't know one location to another didn't necessarily translate for my dog. You hit the nail right on the head when you mentioned "totally crazy for other dogs". That's him all right. So yes, a great reward would be letting him come in direct contact with the other dog.

I can do this in addition to training opps at stores. I'll use the stores for distraction purposes but your idea can be used anywhere, anytime there's another dog, i.e. a nice quiet street. In fact, a nice quiet street to start would be ideal. Here I wouldn't have to worry about any other interference while he's in a down/stay (such as another dog coming on the scene). I live in a great neighborhood for this. Very wide streets, very quiet, very few cars. When we walk here, there is usually one person I pass while walking. And 50% of the time, they have a dog with them. And often it's a different person and dog each time so I should get a good amount of practice here!! I'm so excited!!

Thanks again Alice!

if you can manage it, the best way to do this is to avoid the necessity of corrections. of course, corrections are often unavoidable, but if you pay as close attention to your dog as it sounds like you do, you should be able to train this without too much correcting.

help him "win" by knowing his capacity to "stay" and always releasing him *before* he would have broken the stay. this means you have to increase the length of the stay *very* slowly.

if he does break it, just say a calm "no" and take him by the collar and bring him back to where he was sitting.

the reason i suggest this is because you are trying to teach him that good things *always* happen when he keeps a stay, and you want that association to be branded on his brain. every time he breaks a stay is an opportunity lost to make that positive association. so help him to not make a mistake by not asking too much from him too soon.

i'm glad you think my suggestion might help! sounds like you won the puppy lottery--lucky you!

 Quote: alice oliver

if you can manage it, the best way to do this is to avoid the necessity of corrections. of course, corrections are often unavoidable, but if you pay as close attention to your dog as it sounds like you do, you should be able to train this without too much correcting.

help him "win" by knowing his capacity to "stay" and always releasing him *before* he would have broken the stay. this means you have to increase the length of the stay *very* slowly.

if he does break it, just say a calm "no" and take him by the collar and bring him back to where he was sitting.

Great post, IMHO.

UGH!! You are not going to believe this...my first attempt at Alice's suggestion was a disaster. Not because of my dog, so that's a good thing, but here's what happened:

Just got back from taking Gunnar for a walk in my neighborhood - you know, the nice-quiet-street-where-nothing-happens neighborhood described in above post. His e-collar is on. This time though I put his prong collar on and took treats w/me.

Whole walk, we see no one and no dog. I'm thinking, "Oh well, better luck tomorrow" when all of a sudden a golden retriever (God, I'm really beginning to dislike those dogs) comes charging out of her house and at my dog! This is the same golden that only days ago was on leash w/the male owner and was straining and growling at my dog as we sat quietly watching the whole scene. It took a lot of effort for the man to get his dog under control. So much so that I couldn't help but laugh to myself when he had the audacity to ask ME if MY dog was under control. Gunnar was in a sit the whole time! Anyway, that was last week.

Today was the real disaster as far as smooth training opps go. Now being the complete novice that I am, I try to quickly process the following (I kid you not this all went thru my head as the golden is charging us):

Is this a great training opp so therefore, down my dog?

Is this going to turn into trip to the emergency room for me b/c I'm trying to protect my dog from being bitten and I get bitten instead?

Do I get the treats ready to praise my dog if I do down him?

Do I get the walking stick ready to bash the charging retriever?

Do I get the transmitter of the e-collar ready to page my dog in case he doesn't comply (even I know this is way too much of a distraction for him to down and stay ) ?

My head nearly exploded wondering what was the first and right thing to do . Here's what I did:

I decided Safety First, downed Gunnar quickly, stood in between him and the oncoming golden w/my stick blocking access to my dog. It worked pretty effectively and at this point I heard some teenager yelling, "Lucy, Lucy". The dog is not listening to the owner and trying to get to my dog but doesn't seem to like my walking stick and so is somewhat timid about going thru me and my stick to get to him. The teenager seems useless at this point so I decided to grab the pretty pink collar of the dog and hold her away from my dog and help the dumb ass teenager who lost the dog in the first place. The teenager seems confident her dog will now listen so I offer to let the dog go and she says to let her go. I do and the teenager takes her away.

Gunnar stayed behind me the whole time but did break the down once during all of this. I downed him again while holding the golden and took my other hand and yanked his prong collar toward the ground. He stayed from that moment on ! Even while the golden was only 20 feet away. I released him after about 45 seconds (once the golden was in its own yard and clearly ignoring me and my dog).

I lavishly praised Gunnar and gave him 2 treats for staying! Ya know, I may just train this dog despite my pathetic timing and serious lack of experience ! Like I said, "Oh well, better luck tomorrow"!

Judy, congrats!! That's fantastic - you should video tape the encounter next time, title the video "How To Be A Responsible Dog Owner" and send it to the owners of all those unruly loose dogs.

I'm happy that all your work paid off

Lol, the almost exact same scenario happened to me too this morning.

I was walking both my dogs (German shepherds) on leash up my street on the way to the park. One of the neighbour's foster dogs comes charging at us barking and growling while she stands at her door calling it back.
Now she's only had this adult male dog (guessing Catahoula mix, about 75 lbs) in her care for the past 3 days so obviously the dog ignores her (then again, her own dogs that have lived with her for years are no more obedient *ahem*).

Luckily I followed Ed's pack ground work advice to the letter since day one with my pup so he quietly stood by my side and looked at me, waiting for me to deal with the aggressive dog.

I stepped in front of my own dogs and yelled at the loose dog to get lost.
Instead of backing off like most dogs would, the crazy thing actually sped up towards me and for a moment I was worried that I may get jumped on and bitten...
I told both my dogs to get down and stay (which they did, luckily!! although my female was growling/snarling with hackles up the whole time, while my pup was pretty unconcerned), I dropped my dogs' leashes and charged at the loose dog, yelling louder. (I had to drop the leashes, couldn't do much with both my hands full).

Finally, about 1 meter from me, the loose dog decided not to engage me and backed off a little. It was still growling and barking and I had to put up quite a display of yelling and charging at it to keep it away. When I was confident enough that it wasn't going to bite me, I kicked it under the chin, it yelped, turned around and ran off.

The neighbour didn't even try to help this whole time and didn't even apologize!!! Even worse, she allowed another one of her dogs to get loose (that one didn't approach me, it learned a while ago what will happen to it if it approaches me and my dogs).
The neighbour then gave me some ridiculous excuse about how the dog was "abused" in his old home and that she didn't want to "upset" him too much by grabbing him and dragging him back to the house

Needless to say, if I had raised my pup (now a 100 lbs. 9-month-old) and my female (a 60 lbs. 10-yr-old GSD) the same way she raised her dogs, this morning could've resulted in a blood bath.

I can't express how happy I am to have found this website.

(Sorry for the off-topic post - still angry about this morning and needed to vent a little)

Yuko and Judy,

CONGRATULATIONS! Frightening and frustrating.... yikes!

Your training work (and the Leerburg information) was all worth every second.

 Quote: Yuko Blum

I can't express how happy I am to have found this website.

Ditto Yuko! And congrats and woo hoo to you on a job well done. When the owner doesn't apologize for appalling doggie behavior, it's so exasperating. The owner in your story should probably be given the name of this website!! Hint. Hint.

Thanks Connie!

And Judy, that's a great idea

I actually thought of something similar to that as I went on with my walk this morning... what if I printed out a dozen copies of Ed's "puppy ground work", "why dog parks are a bad idea" and "dealing with dominant/aggressive dogs" articles and posted them all over the streets and parks in my neighbourhood??

That should get people's attention shouldn't it??

Hey, it occurred to me as a joke but maybe it's not such a bad idea after all...

I think the best way to get people's attention is to walk or work a highly trained dog in a public place. It's like seeing an endangered species...people can't help but be in awe of such a site. It's so unusual they can't help but inquire, "Wow, what a great dog...who trained him/her?" And you can say, "Why Leerburg of course"!!

Hi Judy. Your post was interesting to me as we just recently started adding distractions to heeling for several teams training here who are sort of at the same "place" with our training program.

I agree with multiple posters before me, from what I have experienced in terms of advice offered.

The most interesting distraction training is going on with our dog Ferguson. LOL - it was TOUGH to convince him that SchH work might actually be fun for him. The drive building and foundational time was brutal. But now that he believes in what he's doing, he has proven to be quite strong. He is NOT easily distracted.

When we set this up in a training environment, we start with a large group of people (10 or more) standing very close to the edge of the field. Our trainer has the team heel on by within a couple feet of him, with him staying quiet. If the dog looks away from the handler, a well timed correction - at a level just enough for the dog to respond - is called for. That is quickly followed by praise level (correction + at least 1) when the dogs attention comes back to the handler.

As the dogs learn this, the distraction level goes up from the trainer, and eventually including the whole group.

Back to Ferguson who is not easily distracted.... When I first watched Ferguson doing this, I was thrilled needless to say. He went through several levels of increasing distraction without ever looking away from Gary. BUT... Dave explained (which all made sense to me) that on trial day, a new handler will most likely be nervous, and who knows what additional levels of distraction might come from the sidelines. He suggested it was important, in a training scenario, to create ENOUGH distraction for Ferguson to make a mistake, and then that's an opportunity for teaching him to NEVER get distracted. (well, in a prefect world.)

The bottom line with this theory (which makes sense to me) is that at some point, you HAVE to create a scenario where the dog makes a mistake in order to teach the dog, and to eventually proof the dog. Otherwise, we're operating on blind trust - and no secure knowledge of where his distraction thresholds really are.

All of the dogs in training here *know* that Dave is the "bad guy" when it comes time for protection work. So Dave just standing there is distraction enough for most of the dogs (understandably). Dave has had to "cheat" with Fergie and actually make noises and/or fling bit toys around the field so that Fergie can learn that fuss mean fuss.

The most important lesson to me in all if this is the importance of a very well timed correction at the appropriate level for the dog to respond, combined with an equally well timed praise - at least one level up from the correction level - totally works.

Getting all that timing down is the hard part.

I do believe that working on this issue - whether for competition or for everyday life - by setting up this stuff in training is key. You don't really know where your dog's threshold is until you see it. Once you see it, you can work with it to improve. I would rather know for sure where that is with all of the dogs here, than wait to find out based on random public occurances.

Best wishes to you in your training! This aspect has been a really fun learning experience for us - and helps us understand all of our dogs better.