Quote: Carolyn Litwhile

A comment about a long line got me thinking and I was wondering if anyone used a extremely long line (like 50' or even 100') on their dog while out playing with them in the yard, if they don't have good recall. I know it will get caught on things and be a pain, but at least then she would have the ability to run after toys and work out some of her energy. I use a 15' line, but that just doesn't leave enough room to really run, just as she is getting going I have to slow her down so she doesn't hit the end too hard. I still plan on working on her recall, but would this be a good compromise in the meanwhile?

I think this is a bad idea. When I first adopted Bella, and she was crazy, and had explosive disrespect for me, I thought I would try a little fetch to blow off some steam with her. So, I went and bought one of those 50' yellow nylon lines, and gave it a whirl. Well, I ended up with huge rope burns and Bella ended up with a monsterous correction because instead of bringing the toy back to me, zip!, she wizzed past me and I could just see the rope unwinding like in a cartoon...but belive me the pain was for real! Once your dog will obey your commands all the time, you can consider using one of these, but IMO, you already have the right tool for that situation, the remote collar.

 Quote: Carolyn Litwhile

I have never used a remote collar before and after my first short training session with my dog was wondering if her reactions were normal. Since she already knows sit and down, just doesn't always listen 100% I thought I would work on them and use the stim as a correction in addition to regular corrections so that she would start to understand that the stim was correction.

 Quote: Carolyn Litwhile

I again don't understand why people would assume that just because I am new to remote collar training that I can't understand the different between Kayla truely knowing a command and just not always choosing to listen and not actually 100% knowing the command and what is expected of her. These are things we have been working for quite awhile and with treats she is 100%.

This is why we are confused about the dog knowing the command. But I can see that you are just saying the dog will some times give you the finger, so to speak. Unless you have a treat, that is. If the dog chooses to not perform a command that she knows, she is disobeying you. From the time I started reading this thread, I thought there seems to be pack issues here. Who is the pack leader in your house?

Remeber even the champions dont allways listen. Thats why we trane consistantly. Remind the dog who is the pack leader this is very important

Oh yeah, rope burns. This happened to me too - almost needed stitches if you can believe it. The only way around this is to tie the dog to an object, like a tree - and then you risk "monstrous corrections" (had that happen too - I've had a nylon buckle "bulldog collar" actually split when a dog hit the end of the line at full tilt - I even have a photo)

I had a dog who was a master fence climber, and the rescue I volunteer with does not allow shock collars, so a long line it was. I've been there, done that - my dog's line was 36 feet. I've had long-line chewers too. Fun! So any questions about a long line - I just might know the answer.

Don't get me wrong - it does work as far as keeping the dog in the yard and such, and for exercising it's great (two-ball, anyone?). But just be careful the dog doesn't become "line wise" while training as in only listen when it has the line on. So that's something to consider too.

I've found pack-order "groundwork" helps tremendously with obedience as well.

Yes, the giving the finger thing is exactly what I deal with everyday with Kayla. At times she is so good and listens well and has such good obedience response and other times she is like "whatever". Have a treat and she does whatever is asked, but even then if it is a higher value treat she will bark at you telling you to give it to her. We do the sit/down/sit/down thing a lot and if you have a treat she really wants, she sits, barks, downs, barks, sit, barks, etc. I don't feel I shouldn't give her the treat then because techincally she does the command but the barking demanding it bugs me. So basically I think we do have a pack order problem in my house. When my husband is home I don't really see her listening much better to him, but she does prefer to play with him and will listen to me tell her to get a toy and then take it to him to play with and refuse to come over to me. Right now he is gone for a year so that just leaves the two of us. I really don't know what to do in order to get her to respect me more. I will attempt to explain what I have been/tried to do. Please bear with me as I am sure it is going to be long, but without that background will be hard to find what I could try differently.

Okay, first of all she is asked to wait in her kennel in the morning while I put her prong collar on. She generally does start out while I am doing this, but I then tell her to kennel and if she doesn't move back in I give a correction and then make her wait a few seconds in the kennel with the door open before giving the okay release. We go out on leash to pee and then get in the car to head to my mom's where she stays while I am at work. I don't ask for a sit or wait before letting her in the car very often, because well it is too much work (I know stupid excuse) she is very excited to get into the car. She is told "in the back" (no feet on console) while the car is moving and generally listens and if not, given a correction and goes into the back. Not really safe while driving, but at least I am consistant with her. When we stop she is told wait after I open her door and is listening very well to this and hops out after the okay release. In fact the other day once we got home and in the garage she didn't get out even after I started into the house and I realized I hadn't said okay. She stays in the kennel at Mom's till lunch break and we then play in the yard for those 15 minutes and gets to potty. Back to the kennel till after work. Head home and at dinner time she is asked to sit while I set her bowl down (in the morning she get her food in the kennel) then she must focus (eye contact) and wait for the okay release. This is going well and I can get her to do all that with only hand signals at this point. At night we have just been playing in the house throwing her balls as much as we can and I can stand at the stairs and say "go" she runs up and circles back and then does it again when I command. My effort at exercise, not great I know.
Other things we sometimes do is ask for sit and wait before heading out the door. Sit and downs before throwing her toy. I do always release her before the actual throw because she can't hold it once she sees I am going to throw.. I need to work on this on leash much more. Also for treats she is asked to wait and can lay the treat next to her, ask for focus and then give the okay. Just for fun have been working with her with a treat on her nose, she will let me put it there but has a ways to go before being able to then throw it up and catch it, she just moves and it drops on the ground. What else, she isn't allowed on the furniture and will push it as far as the couch once and awhile but hasn't jumped on the bed in months. She isn't allowed upstairs much because of the cat and I have recently being trying to eliminate the baby gate. Last night she went to go upstairs, I told her no and she came back down. She then went the long way around the couch and started to slowly walk up the stairs (I swear she thought she was going to sneak up there without me noticing) and soon as I turned and looked at her she turned and came back down the stairs.

I do so many of these things because I thought they taught respect and pack leadership, but she still pushes me all the time. What can I do differently? I hope it is okay to continue to use this thread although this question isn't really about remote collar training. But it does all relate in a way, because I had hoped the remote collar would give me the ability to correction her pretty much under any situation and thus make some good headway on the obedience and recall, but if the root of the problem is pack order we need to fix this first before the other training would really help. Thanks for listening to all this and I really welcome any suggestions.

How old is the dog and how long are your training times.

Kayla is 1 1/2. We haven't been doing really regular training sessions lately, if we do they are usually about 15 minutes. Most of the stuff I wrote in the last post is just done through out the day in our normal routine and only goes for a few minutes. If we are playing and I ask for a sit or down it is just a few times throughout the entire play session, not every time before I throw her toy.

You can try this worked on my dog Ask the dog to sitz it has 1 second to respond if it doesnt walk about 2 to 3 steps ask the dog to sitz again this will speed up the reaction time by keeping the dog moveing.Try to beat her to the bark remember we have 1.5 seconds to confirm the action.If she barks turn and reset up once she gets it rite put her up for about 30 minutes to think never reward for the bark.Just walk away I think that if you can beat her to the bark she mite assosiate that the bark is not needed then slowly extend the time she sitz. I know off a lady that trains when an advertisement comes on 2 to 3 minutes put the dog up till next advertisement sometimes to much time is stressfull to the dog

Peggy
I am not sure where I can up with the idea either. I really thought Ed mentioned it in the dvd, didn't think he actually shown it being done, but talked about it. Well, I should re-watch it anyway and maybe see what I misunderstood to mean that. (I know in the section of conditioning the dog to the collar he shows having all the collars on at once (e-collar, prong, and flat) or any combination, that might be where I got confused).

Have you ever read this: Groundwork for Establishing Pack Structure

I highly recommend it. You are on the right track with the things you are doing. But who is the pack leader? I think you are, but you still haven't said so yet. (unless I missed it. I know you said you agree that there are pack issues.) I think by default, since your husband will be gone for a year, you are the leader. You should at least be above the dog in the dog's mind.

Also, the Dealing With Dominant and Agressive Dogs DVD provides a good explanation of how to deal with dogs that are challenging your leadership. I am not saying you have one of these types of dogs, I am just saying the info in the DVD is good. Also, I am sure this one would be even more appropriate for your situation, although I don't have it: Establishing Pack Structure for the Family Pet

I am not trying to be a leerburg DVD monger here, I am just telling you that the Dominant Dogs video I have is very comprehensive and was quite helpful in showing me a few tricks in signaling our leadership to the dog. The groundwork article linked above was even more helpful to that end.

You have a good handle of these techniques, but you need to take it a step further. Instead of sometimes sitting and letting you go out the door first, sit everytime before you go out, then release, then sit on the outside of the door so you can turn around and close the door, then release and walk. This doesn't have to be a negative thing, you can involve treats everytime at first, and then intermitantly to make it fun for the dog to follow commands. But the point here is to control the dog's life. When it understands you are in control all the time, it will respect you more...And don't let up, your dog will notice!