This is a great thread, Rich, and so very informative. Thanks so much for posting updates.

As Sandy said training takes time. A 1yr old should not be expected to have the maturity of an adult. It has been my experience that the culmination of my efforts at training come together at about 2yrs of age if the training is consistent.

I think that Rich has received some good info in this thread, not to mention, all the threads and articles on this site. It is up to him to figure out the way the pieces of the puzzle fit for him and his dog. There is not a set formula. Different things work for different dogs. I have 6, my interaction with each one is different due to differences of temperament and drives. One requires a flat-collar and "No", another uses a prong, one requires and e-collar,etc.....I guess it's different strokes for dogs too!

Regarding 30 minute down-stays. I had heard of them but I didn't think of doing them with my own dogs until I enrolled my 14 month old male Catahoula in a class called "Practical Pet". This class teaches the owners how to train manners. Like not going nuts at the door, not begging from the table, don't jump up etc. Of course it is all treat-based, but there are some good ideas. My dog is the oldest in the class, the others are 5-7 months old. The teacher tells ALL of us to be doing 30-minute downstays. I think it is a VERY good thing because it teaches restraint and self control. If the dog breaks you just put him back. They can even go to sleep! I don't see how this is unreasonable, even for a younger puppy.

Anyway, with my own adolescent male who is a cur breed (hound instincts) I had been having trouble getting him to pay attention to me. With the 30 minute downstays he now watches my face the entire time to make sure he's doing it right. Granted the first few times we did the downstays, he had no idea what I wanted and was confused. After about 5 sessions, he "gets it", and although we haven't had a perfect unbroken 30 minutes yet, he is sooo much better and pays much better attention to me during other training times too.

Here's what I do that I think helps them in the down-stay. I put my dog in the down and tell him to stay. After he realises what he is supposed to do (he doesn't know the words very well, but judges my body language), I turn into Slow Motion Girl. I move slowly somehwere I can sit down, and smile at him happily. The dog can tell by my face that he is doing the right thing. He keeps his eyes glued to my face.

He is allowed to sniff his butt, go to sleep, lick his leg, etc. But when he looks at me, I smile back to him so he knows I am happy. If he moves, I say "no" or "ah-ah", make a "mad" face, and put him back. Now this is a normally very hard dog, but he has figured out to watch my face and I do have to get up but he goes back very easily. Once he is down I am all smiles.

I believe the dogs know what facial expressions mean. If your dog is having trouble with long downs, try moving very slowly (so he doesn't think something is about to happen and he has to get up) and smile at him!

Yesterday I had a success of sorts. I took my dog for a walk with the e-collar. On the way home the chocolate lab who charges his fence, hackles up, barking, came out and did so. As we walked by, when my dog looked, I nicked him and said "no". He turned away, started looking straight forward again. Two more times he turned towards the lab and I repeated, "no" and nick. After that he ignored the lab. Prior to this he would have lunged and barked, and I would have had to fight him to get him back under control.

He reacts to the nick like a leash pop. The pager is something else. The pager scares him. By this I mean if I press the pager button he goes into avoidance. He tries to hide, he'll try to climb into my lap if I am sitting down, or crawl under a table or chair. I pressed the pager button yesterday, after I had taken the collar off of him and was holding it in my hand, and he reacted to it. He could hear it. The vibration of the page is very gentle. I know I've asked about the use of the page function before, but I'm going to try again.

I would like the page to be something that gets his attention. So that when the page goes off he knows a command is coming and he needs to look to me for direction. I think I can accomplish this by paging, then giving a command, until he associates that the page means something is about to happen. But now that I've figured out that the page scares him, how can I go about fixing this, so it doesn't scare him?

Hey Rich, good progress! The pager sounds like a tough one. I've never been in this situation, so take it for what it's worth. Sounds like you went too fast & didn't break the training down into little individual steps.

First step I'd take is to desensitize your dog to the noise of the pager, which might take a while. Have the pager in another room & have it go off while you're playing with your dog or giving him treats, so that it's just another noise in the background. Is there any way you could turn the volume down? Gradually decrease the distance when the dog's comfortable with it. I'd do this as SLOWLY as I possibly could, since the dog's already scared. Personally, I'd rather takes months with this first step than run the risk of going too fast & having to do this all over again.

Not sure what to do for step 2. I'd probably say, associate the sound of it with good things only, like super-duper, gone-to-heaven type of treats. He gets that treat only in this particular situation. Again, I'd rather go too slowly than too fast.

Step 3. Associate the recall with the page. Train him the same way you first taught the recall by standing in front of him w/a treat in your hand, page & call him while backing up a step so he comes to you to get the treat. Again, gradually increase the distance.

Good luck!

Eva,

Thank you for your advice.

There is no volume for the pager. When I hold the collar in my hand and press the page button on the remote, I feel a soft vibration and barely hear the unit. I have a Blackberry that vibrates when it is in silent mode, and it is much louder than the collar pager. Yet my dog can hear the collar from across the room.

Following your general advice, I could probably start with it across the house, and have a family member slowly move it towards the dog until we find the point where he first notices it, then work on your idea from there. Maybe once he notices the pager, feed him a treat every time I hit the button, while slowly moving it closer, until I can get it on him and page him with no fear reaction. Well, that is as good a project as any for the winter months

I have read people discussing this before, and Ed talks about it, the idea of using really really good heavenly food during training, as motivation. From what I can tell from working with my dog, he divides all treats into one of two categories: treats he really really loves, and treats he really really really loves


In hindsight, I can see that I did go too fast with the pager. When I first realized it was scaring him, it was a lightning bolt moment, and I wondered why I didn't see it before.

Today's latest: There is a family with a water spaniel in our neighborhood. They have an in ground fence. Every time we walk by the dog stands in the middle of the yard and barks at us. Today I repeated the same steps I used yesterday with the chocolate lab, with the same results. I think in order to get him to totally ignore the barking dogs I'm going to have to do something more structured. Either get someone else with a dog to work with me, or walk back and forth in front of the chocolate lab or water spaniel. That would probably bother the owners

It's been awhile since I updated this thread. Yesterday I learned a lesson. There are a couple of dogs in the neighborhood that really get my dog going. I've been controlling his dog aggression with the ecoller by stimming him as soon as I see any of the warning signs. I have gotten to the point where I can control him with my voice, without stim, if I catch him early enough. Yesterday I wasn't paying close enough attention and didn't see what was developing until he started to lunge at a couple of dogs being walked on leash across the street from us. I had to turn up the collar to get him to react to it, and I think the stim just made things worse. So the lesson I've learned is catch the dog early. I think I already knew that, but this experience reinforced it.

Hey Rich, I started a thread w/a similar question. So, if the dog is stimmed early, it will know NOT to do that behavior? I want to train my dog to not jump on people. So, if I use the e-collar for this, should I stim her when people are walking into the house? Or maybe if I see her breaking her sit position?

You really shouldn't need an ecollar to teach a dog from jumping on people, if the dog is that young and untrained it should still be on a leash. The ecoller is definitely a tool that the handler needs to learn to use first,
AL

Alex,

We trained our dog not to jump on people using a leash and prong collar. I'd have to go back and look again, but I think Ed's video has a section on using the e-collar to teach a dog not to jump on people. But even if it doesn't, it is well worth the money.

The point about stimming a dog aggressive dog early is that you want to catch him before he is too far gone. Here is what I see my dog do if he sees another dog. First, his ears go up and forward. Next, he furls his brow. Then his hackles go up. Then his tail comes up and starts wagging. Then he lunges and barks and growls at the other dog. This assumes he sees the dog from some distance. If we come around a corner and there the other dog is, surprise surprise, all the stages I just mentioned get compressed. My experience is the sooner I catch him in the process, the more success I have keeping him under control, and the lower level stim I can use, or none at all. If I wait until he is barking and lunging, well, that's pretty much too late. I just have to drag him away. I can do that. My wife can't. So she really needs to catch him early.

If I can find Ed's DVD somewhere around here, I'll look and see if he demonstrates how to use the e-collar to keep a dog from jumping on people. Better yet, go here and order the DVD yourself: http://www.leerburg.com/318.htm

Rich