Hi everyone. My name is Jenny. My fiance and I just recently brought home a 1 1/2 year yellow lab named Honey. Honey is for the most part a very sweet dog and I think she's been dying for the type of attention and training that we are trying to give her. We rescued her from a family who lost their house in the big foreclosure mess and they just couldn't afford her any more. I know they loved the dog because they had a difficult time giving her up but they also never gave her any proper training or attention. Before we brought her home I did some research on various training methods and that's how I found this site. I am very interested in clicker training. This brings us to the first issue we are having, getting and holding her attention.
Honey seems to be getting it inside the house a little. She'll give me eye contact 10 times in a row while I'm facing forward but as soon as turn my head to the side I get nothing from her. I know that much of the future training of Honey depends on if I can get her attention so this one seems important to me.
We also live in a townhouse with no yard so that means the only way she gets to go out is on walks. Which is fine, we were glad to be able to do that for her because she never got walks from her previous owners. But, she is going to pull mine and my fiance's arms off. She weighs 55 pounds but she's VERY strong. Before we even head out for our walks I've been trying to get her attention like inside the house before we take off. That just doesn't happen. As soon as we are outside she refuses to listen to me. The clicker seems to lose all impact outside the house. When she starts pulling on the leash I've started to stop walking and just stand there. As soon as she loosens the tension on the leash I click and try to give her a treat. I say try because no matter what treat I try to give her she's not interested at all. This includes playing a game of tug which she loves to do inside the house.
When we do actually manage to walk, in between pulling episodes, and we encounter people walking, riding bikes, or with dogs she pulls even harder and starts barking like mad. But that only happens about 50% of the time, there's no rhyme or reason to her excited behavior. Both my fiance and myself put ourselves between her and the people but since she ignores us and we can't get her attention it has resulted in me almost getting knocked over as she yanked my fiance through me to get to the prize.
And since we have to walk her the loose leash training is something we need to get her to understand sooner than later.
Any tips and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.
reinforcement
What is rewarding?
When you go out on a walk, treeats or tug is not rewarding for her. (I assume you have tried with the combination "hungry dog - delicious treats"?)
So you need to figure out what it is she wants, and give her that as a reward. You are on the right road by stopping when the leash is tight and walking when it loosens, keep that up, everytime. It might mean that walking 200 yards takes half an hour - so be it. Be 100% consequent, if she ever manages to walk forward dragging you, then you are giving reinforcement of dragging on a variable schedule and that makes the behaviour very hard to change.
you might consider walking backwards as soon as the leash gets tight, instead of just stopping.
A gentle leader or Halti might be a help initially (remember never jerk the leash) - mostly to avoid you getting pulled off your feet.
(use c/t to teach her to like getting the headcollar on)
Also train loose lead walking inside in hte house. Use the 300 peck method described in another article on this site by Aidan Bindoff.
Eye contact can be difficult for some dogs. Maybe working with targetting will be a good place to start. You could do 5 eyecontact for c/t then five target to hand for c/t then eye contact again.
If you throw the treat after eyecontact it can help her learn to go for the treat and come back to offer eye contact again. Then you can start to throw the treat not just in front of you, but farther away, or to the sides. Remember to increase distance and direction slowly and not at the same time.
You turning your head to the side is too big a step for her from you facing forward. So you must find a way to create intermittent steps. Like maybe facing a little to the side.
Remember: dogs just do what works for them - she is not trying to p*** you off. She is not refusing to listen to you. She is just too overwhelmed by other input to be able to give you attention.
Easier said than done, the whole trick is to always be the most exciting thing around.
You might benefit from using a bit of "nothing in life is free" - measure out her daily ration of food. Then you give her a quarter of her daily ration as her breakfast, and let her "work" for the rest. Using it as treats for clickertraining (= mental stimulation), let her find some herself, by hiding it in interactive toys, scatter some dried food around if you can live with that. When it is time for her evening meal give her whatever is left of her daily ration.
I am willing to bet that she jumps all over the place when you take her leash out to go for a walk. Work on "sit" c/t. "sit while i go to the place where the leash is" - c/t etc. until you can do "sit while I find the leash and put it on you" -c/t and we go.
good luck
Christina