Come issues and Barking

[greenrider007]

Hi again, I have another I would love to have advice on! My 8 month old mini aussie pup, is far to smart for me! I love her to pieces but she does need some work (granted I haven't been able to be consistent with her training).

What is the best way to teach come? She loves coming in until its her bedtime! She wont come near the door! Unless of course I have a bag of treats waiting for her or leave the door open and walk out of the room (not ok since we have white carpet and she loves mud!)How can I make coming fun without having to always have treats laying around?

Now for barking, she never used to, and my other aussie doesn't! We have been letting our older dog run around with them lately (he used to chase her when she was little, but hes good now) and now she decided she wanted to bark non stop! She barks at him mostly, he can be asleep in his bed and she will run over and bark at him. She barks at him if we are outside, but when we leave she stops (most of the time)! The collar works, but if we forget to put it on she knows it! Any suggestions! I'm all out of ideas.

[Aussienot]

I'm afraid I have more questions than answers for you. Why has her training been inconsistent? What have you done to try teach the come?

The best way to teach come is to always make it positive, and to never never never ever give the dog the choice when you are training. Don't give a come command you cannot enforce, ALWAYS enforce it once you've said it;and AWAYS praise and reward for coming, even if you had to chase the dog 15 blocks in your underwear in snow. Come is always positive. When you get to the dog and draw her into her she is the cleverest , good as gold, most wonderful dog ever. If you kick yourself for not having her on lead or at least on a long line, do it privately later.

A reward doesn't need to always be food - does she like balls? How animated and enthusiastic is your praise? Do you have any tug toys?

If you need to correct the dog, or bath or medicate the dog, you go to the dog. Don't call and then offer negative consequences when the dog complies.

The fact that she won't come when you are standing in the doorway makes me think she has perhaps been punished for coming to you? She's getting some sort of signal that coming in will end her fun, do you play with her once she's in?

How does the dog know that it's bedtime? What is her daily schedule? How much exercise does she get each day? How much individual attention from you does she get over what period of time each day?

And what kind of collar do you have to limit her barking? Environmental enrichment - toys, a digging pit, a radio, stuffed frozen kongs, chew bones are much better barking deterents than a sometimes used anti bark collar.

Apart from the fact that she some kind of hybred of a high energy working dog, and that she's gotten to 8 months without much training, I don't know enough about your situation to provide a "Slot A into B" type answer.

[greenrider007]

I have recently been buisy with school work, my job, etc, so her training sessions are not as frequent as they used to be (now only a few times a week if that). My mom is the only other person who really knows how to train a dog, everyone else sort of counters what I've been trying to accomplish.

As for toys she loves anything that moves. That is unless she doesn't feel like coming in, then she doesn't care. She has never been punished for coming in the door, the only time I made the stupid mistake of yelling at her was after a 20 minute chase in the dark. Granted she didn't come, I had to catch her. I did kick myself for that though.

She doesn't really have a "bedtime" but whenever its dark she wont come in. As for exercise, we have a pretty big yard, so she'll chase the other dogs, or chase squirrels, etc. We just recently were able to take them for a walk without my other dog freaking out. In truth I have really been working more with leash training her than training our pup. We give them cow hooves which they love.

I hope I answered all your questions. I was intending to get them started in Agility once school got out as a form of exercise. I know I need to get busy training her before I even consider that though.

[dragoness]

She has probably learned to associate darkness with bedtime, and since she's not ready to sleep yet and wants to have more fun, she won't come then. If you want to undo this association, I'd say do a bunch of " decoy" comes. Bring the treats or whatever it takes to get her to you, or move so you're not right by the door, and call her. Reward her appropriately for coming, then let her back out to play a little more. Do this frequently enough that she never knows when you're asking her to come just as an excercise and when you're actually going to put her to bed. Then, start withdrawing the treats. Give a treat most of the time, but randomly just give praise only sometimes. Then gradually increase the praise only "come"s (keep it random) until you are only occasionally giving treats (and make sure she can't tell when you have one or don't. If she's too perceptive, then just always have a treat but don't always give it to her.)

Let me know if that helps!