Penny Arcade

I started using a clicker with Penny this week.

She loves the treats she's getting. She doesn't love that she has to listen to get the treat. I think she might be confused about starting the training since we just started it (this method anyways; its the only one that's worked so far). She also obviously was never trained by her previous owners. Her jumping on people and furniture is out of control, though, and I want her to impulse control.

Right now she's sulking in the corner and giving me one of these: <_<
Also since we started training, she's having accidents in the house again. Mostly pee and today, when I stepped out for about five minutes, I came back in to poop in the living room (I had just taken her out before I left too).

*sigh* Poor, poor Penny. She just has it so rough.

Mikey T

this is not uncommon a bassets reaction to fusstration and stress is to do nothing. If you don't mind me asking how are you using the click be specific. There are no wrong answers but it is difficut to offer any useful advise when i dont know how the tool is being used. A clicker is like a hammer it can be used many ways to accomplish different task, pull a nail, pound a nail break suff into pieces, shape metal etc. each requirtes a slightly different technique to be effect. It does little good teaching some one to pound a nail when the want to remove one.

this is my suggestion and it can have a positive impact on the dogs fustration level as well during training of other behaviors . THe first thing i work on is what I call a default behavior. That is a behavior you want the dog to do when it does not know what to do. for most people it is a sit, I prefer a down it really does not matter it is up to use but youwant a behavior that the dog will perform on its own in the natural enviornment. SO I use a technique known as capturing, to teach the behavior. This behavior you can put on cue later but you do not have to. If you do not have one a treat bag or some other way of keeping treats near by all day long is require. Any time the dog performs the default behavior on it own click treat. When teach a default behavior it is the only training going on with the clicker so the only behavior reward ever is default one. The dog is going to offer it a lot more frequently without promting. When the dog is fustrate it will use the default behavior to get a treat.

Here arefew things most people get wrong in the impulse control with jumping up Keep in mind this dog as 100's more like 1000's of experienced being reward for jumping on people that need to be over come. This is how a normal training session goes dog jumps on person, person turn a way, dog puts foor feet on the ground , or sits, or downs, what ever the desired greeting behavior is , then dog gets reward. What is happening is that for the dog the intial behaivior of jump is being reward a long with the desire behavior and they will stay link as long as the dog has the oppurtunity to jump. Thing about using a leash to the control the dog when training and prevent actual jumping on people . You do not need to have the leash in your and you can tie it off to an object and act as a tether.

Mikey T

it can take a while for the dog to understand how to create a click. It take less time for them to understand that a treat follow every click but how to get the click can be fustrating for the dog. I would suggest my default behavior training above. for the following reason. Changing criteria for the click like 101 thing to do with a box etc can make it hard for the dog to comprehend it has control over the click rather than it just happening randomly., Because the behavior is one the dog natural does you have a lot more time in any given day to reward it.

Penny Arcade

I've been using the clicker to get her attention. She gets distracted easily, but when she hears the clicker she knows to come over to me and either sit or lay down. After that, she's given a command and she gets the treat if she does it properly. Its been working really well on her, but usually first starting out she'll do the wrong action for a command or try to walk off because she doesn't seem to want to have to work for the treats. Also, I haven't gotten to test the clicker when people are over; we just started and no one has come to visit in the past few days. I'm worried that the fact that people is going to distract her entirely.

When she jumps, I've been putting my arms behind my back and turning around. Once she's calmed, I turn around to greet/pet her. This works with me and my boyfriend, but whenever we have people over or my boyfriend's roommates play with her, they don't do this. They've been told to do this whenever she jumps, but no one seems to want to listen to us. So they ignore our wishes and we're stuck cleaning up her puddles (because she pees when she gets too excited or meets new people). Its a very big pain in the rear.

She did very well training last night. She even learned to stay (kinda lol).

CatherineM

We've been using the clicker too. We can't take Gandy to training because he gets so car sick. Poor thing barfs and poops after a block. We actually lined our mini-van with lino to make it easier to clean up.

Penny Arcade

Oh no. Poor Gandy. Penny does great in the car, but our local Petsmart is only two blocks away so we walk her there (when its not a million degrees outside). We might need either way though because she loves drooling in the car lol.

Do they make stomach medicine for dogs? Or even doggie-antihistamine maybe? I know antihistamines can work against motion sickness.

Mikey T

by using a lead you can prevent the jumping up even if other are notcooperative and you use greating and petting by quest as a reward for being calm.

Mikey T

IMHO it is not a good way to use the clicker It demisnishes the power of the clicker and create confusion on the part of the dog. Thew basic idea is a click is a reward market telling the dog that is what behavior you want. So when using a clicker to get attention you are also rewarding the distracted behavior.

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