Help,
She seems to listen well to commands while she is inside the house, but when outside the house she has dog ADD. She is so focused on tracking that she doesn't listen at all. Not only is it hard to walk her, but she has gotten out of the house 2 times and broken off her lease once, and she doesn't come when called. I am concerned she is going to get hit by a car, since we live on a mildly busy street, but have 2 very busy streets nearby.
Also wondering if it is a breed thing, in the fact that she has snapped at 3 people while resting, as if to say leave me alone when I am napping. One time the person didn't even touch her.
Daisy's Dad[/b]
1. Dogs do not genralize well that mean ask for say a sit inside the house is different to the dog than asking for a sit outside. One of the basic rules of training is you must vary where you train, and the distractions.
see
GREEN EGGS & HAM and DOG TRAINING?
Generalization versus Discrimination
"Dogs ARE poor generalizers, but excellent discriminators. Generalization is the ability to take something learned in one way and apply it elsewhere, when the conditions are different. Discrimination is the matter of picking up tiny details about a situation and recognizing them as factors in other situation. From a survival standpoint, it isn't good for a dog to generalize too readily... while it is essential for a dog to discriminate very readily."
Generalization
"Generalization is considerably more challenging for dogs. Except for aversives, which they generalize easily (though frequently inappropriately) as an instinctive survival mechanism, dogs must work as hard to learn to generalize as humans must work to discriminate.
When dog trainers speak of generalizing a behavior, their goal is to teach the dog that a cue and its associated behavior apply in more than one environment. This process includes more than practicing the behavior in more than one location, however. Let’s review the example I gave above: With improper generalization, sit may mean “Put your bum on the ground directly in front of mom when she is in the kitchen standing next to counter wearing a bait bag and holding a clicker and cookie.” There’s a lot more than location to generalize there.
The key to generalization is variability. Unless you want your naturally-discriminating dog to conclude that something in the environment is a necessary element of a behavior, you must make sure that nothing but the true cues (also called discriminative stimuli!) remain consistent during training. "
Keep in mind when outside the there are many more distractions.
see
Achieving Working Reliability Amidst Distractions
The short of it is dogs do what works for them. If the dog continues sent on a trial when you call it, It is litterally telling you it finds scent more rewarding than what it is likely you have in store for it. If you want the dog to come when called you need to teach the dog it is in his best interest to do so. If every time he comes when call he gets a piece of steak and then can go back to scent he is much more likely to come then in every time he is called and comes his leash is cliped on he is dragged in the house an placed in his crate. It is a matter of setting up realistic expectation and make it obvious that listen to you is in the dogs best interst.
You Get What You Reinforce, Not What You (Necessarily) Want
"I must admit that I have never had to train a dog that has had a prolonged (years) and severe leash (lunging) problem, but I have trained a fair number of dogs to maintain a loose leash. I maximized my success by restricting the training environment and the options of the dog. I would not leave the restricted environment (say a barn first, then the company grounds, and then a meadow, etc.) until the behavior was very good. I would expand the environment and increase the behavioral criteria only when the dog's behavior said it was time."
see
Hard to Train?
"A look at "difficult-to-train" breeds and the reality of what shapes these canine minds."
and specifical for training a really reliable recall
DEPOSITS INTO THE PERFECT RECALL ACCOUNT
LIST OF REINFORCERS
DISTRACTIONS FOR YOUR RECALL
Four Stages of Learning
2. Touch sensitive dogs also have a tendency to be resource guarders, you will want to keep an eye on that.
But let us look at the sleeping dog senario. Many time dogs are castigated as being agressive for what in reality is an appropriate reaction to rude behavior by others. see
HE JUST WANTS TO SAY "HI!
Let put it this way. Lets say you have a boss and ever time he wants you to move instead of asking he grabs you by the collar and pulls you along. You aren't going to take to kindly to this kind of treatment, you might even slap at his hand etc when he grab your collar. He will also proablable get good at anticipating when he is going to reach for it and try an stop him be for he does. You might swipe at him, similar to a dog snaping. try and stare him down, or yell angrally at him, like gowling. For the most part people would view this as appropriate behavior in the face of the ongoing rude behavior of "the boss". So if you train the dog to respond appropriate to a comman like off, you avoid this situation all together. In most cases like this there blame that needs to be share for the action of the dog.
some more article on relasionship based training
RELATIONSHIP BASED TRAINING
How Much Does Your Dog's Cooperation Weigh?
"Physical struggles aren't the point in relationship based training."
LEADERSHIP BASICS
"A simple guide to regaining your dog's respect in pleasant, non-confrontational ways."
TEACHING SELF CONTROL
"Teaching your dog self control as the foundation for all other learning."
