I have started working with a trainer to get my dog's obedience to a higher level than I have been able to take him with Ed's tapes alone and my inexperience. It looks like we will be starting up Schutzhund at some point as well. We train on Club nights just before club and my dog has started participating in the puppy drive building exercise at the club.

Right now my training routine is very much like a schutzhund obedience routine with 10-15 pace heel sits, downs, motion sits and downs etc.

My dog has never been good at higher level distractions (dogs and horses) and that is why I opted for getting a trainer to help. So far it has been great. I practice twice a day with him for 15 minutes or so and the trainer is very impressed with our progress - thanks to foundation work we have been doing all along with EDs videos.

At club there a lot of dogs and he doesn't usually get to greet or play these dogs so he is better with them as distraction. Today, at the park I had big focus problems. I would ask the trainer about this but he is very busy and I bug him too much and I can't wait until saturday for an answer so I am asking you guys.

There were 3 loose dogs at the park today while we were doing our training. One of them is a dog he knows and plays with - so it came running up to him while we were doing obedience. The owner recoginized that we were training and called his dog back.

ANyhow, with these dogs run around and crossing our heeling path I could not keep his focus in a heel. He kept sniffing the ground or looking at the other dogs. Corrections only worked for a few seconds and his attention was lost again. During sit stays and down stays he did not break but he wouldn't stop looking around his shoulder at the other dogs.

What should I do in this situation? I cut the training short after 5 minutes or so. And everything was out of rythm and how because I was flustered by his lack of response.

Should I have correct the snot out of him or just quit early like and did and save the heavy distractions for later on when he has progressed further??

How old is your dog?

He is almost 17 months.

A 17 month old dog is definatly mature enough to learn that IT MUST FOCUS and if it does not then it will be corrected.

If the handler is a new trainer its a good idea to seek advise from a good experienced trainer that understands hard and soft dogsand DRIVE.

It's a mistake to take a dog that has focus problems to the park for training - unless you want to TEST YOUR TRAINING. If your dog is not focuing at homein the back yard its not going to focus in the park with dogs running around.

Depending on how long you have been training the dog should not have these problems at this age.

I have been training him since 8 weeks. He has good focus at home. I train him at the park as well. Usually, I go to a prak where there are rarely any dogs and they are usually little ones that stay far away. He is much better with them but still loses focus often. However, when I correct him snaps back and stays focused.

The park I was at today had 3 bigs dogs, loose and in close vicinity. They arrived after I had started training. I was correcting him every 30 seconds or so and I felt like no matter what I was doing it wasn't working.

This is the first dog I have ever trained. The only exp. I have is untrained dogs growing up and the Leerburg Videos and Website.

My dog gets very worked up when other dogs are around and seems to have 3 different and inconsistent reactions (1. he is unphased by the corrections, 2. he whines like a baby like I just killed him - even if it is a light correction or after I corrected him and then simply grab him by the scruff, 3. he has an aggressive sounding, gutteral growl/bark - that pisses me off so I correct hard and it usually turns to the whining explained in 2. The trainer feels his is too clingy and that we babyed him too much and that we need to up the level of corrections so he gets the point.

"Depending on how long you have been training the dog should not have these problems at this age."

You would think so. I have been trying really hard, but I finally gave in and sought out an experienced trainer to help me. Either way, I have learned so much over the past year and a half and starting up with Schutzhund training has got my very excited - however far off that may be.

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It's a mistake to take a dog that has focus problems to the park for training - unless you want to TEST YOUR TRAINING. If your dog is not focuing at homein the back yard its not going to focus in the park with dogs running around.

Exactly. Don't work around any potentially distracting areas while you're trying to "teach" him something, or while building focus. Those places are for proofing, or testing your dog as ED said, after he's an expert at home and knows what you expect of him, to see how he reacts in a distracting environment.

So work with him at home, get the focus down solid with drive building, then slowly introduce distractions. As a matter of fact, you shouldn't even be correcting him for what he hasn't learned yet. Get rid of your correction collar for now, and work on solely drive building. Keep it all positive. Even though he's not a little pup, he still needs to go through the steps.