|
Post by Dom on Aug 25, 2006 13:51:40 GMT -5
The crate has pretty much solved the house breaking issue. We have only had one accident in the house. I never liked crates but my view has completely changed. They are wonderful training tools. I leave the door open and Elsie will go in when she is tired. She also gets the added benifit of being able to hide toys from Sadie. Sadie is too big to get into the crate. She has tried and almost got stuck after Elsie rounded up all the toys and shoved them to the back of her crate. We hit a snag in training. She knows "sit", will wait for her release to eat, and will now lay down away from us when we are eating instead of trying to get to our plate. Beyond that I haven't been able to get her to understand much. I remember training Sadie when she was 12 weeks old. We would joke that her learning level was the length of a hotdog. Every time we taught a new command we would get one hotdog out and cut it into pieces. We would struggle through a command and after I gave her the last piece she suddenly knew the command. Training Sadie was gravy compared to trying with Elsie. I have been working with Elsie for 2 weeks on " down". She just doesn't "get it". I am doing something wrong. I have tried just about everything I can think of except putting a martingale on her and forcing her to down. The trainer said to let Elsie get settled in before putting a training collar on her so we haven't used one yet. The trainer wants us to use a choke chain (she calls it a P ring). I really don't feel comfortable with them. I would prefer something with some kind of safety to prevent damaging a dogs neck like a martingale or prong. We have only used a buckle collar on her so far. Walking on a loose leash? Bah not happening either. Clicker training and treats are not working at all. If I use the clicker, she just ignores the sound. If I have a treat, she focuses on my hand and sees and hears nothing else. My husband has gotten her to lay down but only if he sticks the treat to her nose then taps it on the ground. I haven't had much luck with "watch me". She tries her best not to make eye contact with us. She tends to look at our chest and a lot of times it is almost like she is looking "through us". Not sure if that makes sense. If I do manage to get her to actually look at my eyes she will break the contact within a second. I have tried to praise her when I catch her looking at me but as soon as I look at her she glances away. We have come across a few words that she reacts to by just shutting down completely. I was playing fetch with her outside last night and she was happily wagging her tail and bringing the rope to me. Then I tried to add " drop it" when she came to me. Bad move on my part. She did drop the rope but turned, started looking at the ground and began shaking. I couldn't get her to continue the game after that. This weekend my husband and I are going to take Elsie out and try to work with her away from Sadie. I have never had a dog in season so I am not sure if all those hormones are interfering. ???She goes from sluggish to hyper in a matter of minutes. She also gets distracted very easily. She has been in season for 2 of the 3 weeks we have had her. We may be taking her back to the Vet. She developed this strange interrupted snort three days after her Vet stay. It almost sounds like the noise a dog makes when they get water up their nose. Activity level and body position doesn't increase or decrease the frequency of it. I thought maybe kennel cough but she isn't coughing. It is more of a nasal sound. Well my Elsie update is getting a bit too long so I don't want to bore you all anymore. She really is a sweet dog. My husband and I are willing to devote the time. We realize that Elsie has had 2 years of negative conditioning to turn her into what she is now.
|
|
|
Post by beardiegirl on Aug 25, 2006 14:34:22 GMT -5
Hey Dom!! I'm really ITCHING to see photos of Elsie!! Has Elsie got "look at me" yet? You have probably tried this, but, after YEARS of trying to train Finn " down", I joined a training class and the trainer fixed it. She told me that I was not to use my hands, only my voice. So, first I set to the task of training him "look at me", then, I stood over him with a friend holding his leash (so he couldn't walk away), repeating the word down, and only DOWN (very loudly actually, the neighbors looked up HAHA. I think I spend so much time with Finn that I've got them convinced that I'm the crazy dog-teenager who is going to sit down on my haunches and howl at the moon any minute... ). After about five minutes he got the point. He couldn't get away. So he lay down for a good nap, only to be shrieked at and praised and given a piece of hot-dog (between his front paws). Another strategy is to get her all riled up (I know this sounds... harsh, but maybe you should put Sadie inside... with your husband to play with her perhaps... so she doesn't feel jealous While you and Elsie go for a "walkies" or play in the garden). Get her excited about the command "sit", then suddenly ask her to " down". Wait until she does it... I'm sure she'll eventually get the point, though I'm sure you've tried this. Maybe... though this is an odd way of thinking, she's frightened of the word " dow" like she is with " drop it". Maybe there was some negative re-enforcment when she was with her first owners? I know that you likely are already aware of these techniques...it sounds like you're doing a GREAT job with Elsie!! She couldn't ask for a better "mommy". --HAILS
|
|
|
Post by Nicole on Aug 25, 2006 14:46:51 GMT -5
I have been working with Elsie for 2 weeks on " down". She just doesn't "get it". I am doing something wrong. I have tried just about everything I can think of except putting a martingale on her and forcing her to down. The trainer said to let Elsie get settled in before putting a training collar on her so we haven't used one yet. The trainer wants us to use a choke chain (she calls it a P ring). I really don't feel comfortable with them. I would prefer something with some kind of safety to prevent damaging a dogs neck like a martingale or prong. We have only used a buckle collar on her so far. I don’t have a problem with forcing the down if you are gentle and it doesn’t cause her to shut down. Say down, put her in a down, then as soon as she hits the ground praise praise praise....up...repeat, repeat, repeat. I don't have the patience to mold behavior like this but you may want to. I would not use the choke and I really don’t think you need a prong with this dog at all. Based upon what you are saying, a "no" will probably send her into flight mode. You have to see where her shut down threshold is and act accordingly. Don't forget that she is sick also so she may not be the most attentive at this time. Walking on a loose leash? Bah not happening either. As soon as she hits the end of the leash say no and quickly change direction and walk the other way. You may walk back and forth for long while but this usually works I haven't had much luck with "watch me". She tries her best not to make eye contact with us. She tends to look at our chest and a lot of times it is almost like she is looking "through us". Not sure if that makes sense. That makes perfect sense. This is not at all surprising. Direct eye contact is a dominant challenge. She is a very submissive dog and this is uncomfortable for her. I would not force it. Let her look at you as she is comfortable. This may be at your chest or behind your head or out of the corner of the eye which is not a threatening gesture. As long as you can get her attention don't make her stare into your eyes. We have come across a few words that she reacts to by just shutting down completely. I was playing fetch with her outside last night and she was happily wagging her tail and bringing the rope to me. Then I tried to add " drop it" when she came to me. Bad move on my part. She did drop the rope but turned, started looking at the ground and began shaking. I couldn't get her to continue the game after that. Awww. Maybe your tone was too harsh. Make drop it a game. Swap toys or balls at first. If you give me that I will give you this. This weekend my husband and I are going to take Elsie out and try to work with her away from Sadie. I have never had a dog in season so I am not sure if all those hormones are interfering. Be careful about loose males if you take her out. It is a good idea to train her and bond with her away from Sadie. You should probably wait until after the heat has finished before doing anything that requires too much brain activity. ;D We may be taking her back to the Vet. She developed this strange interrupted snort three days after her Vet stay. It almost sounds like the noise a dog makes when they get water up their nose. Activity level and body position doesn't increase or decrease the frequency of it. I thought maybe kennel cough but she isn't coughing. It is more of a nasal sound. Don’t know if this is the same but Reign, my brothers dog has a snorting (backwards sneezing) issue which we believe is directly related to his rabies vaccine. It started 5 days after he got the vaccine and was quite severe for two years. The vet insisted it was allergies. I do believe that allergies can cause this but not in Reigns case. Just a thought. Well my Elsie update is getting a bit too long so I don't want to bore you all anymore. Not boring at all. She sounds like a complete sweetie. Be patient, get her well and I am sure everything else will fall into place.
|
|
|
Post by Dom on Aug 25, 2006 15:57:47 GMT -5
Beardiegirl, I plan on making a trip to Walmart tonight so I might be able to talk the hubby into a cheap digital camera. Our camera broke and we haven't replaced it yet. Elsie will not get excited. The neighbors we got her from have kids and they would correct her if she got excited. She will run and play with Sadie but when it comes to human interaction she just sits and at the most wags her tail. Nicole, I have never heard of a dog having a back wards sneeze before. She did get vaccinated. I am not sure if the snort happens when she is inhaling or exhaling. I don't think it is allergies either because she did fine the week we had her before the Vet. Would something like a humidifier help it? We are going to work on walking her this weekend. Every time we separate her from Sadie it takes her time to adjust so getting some alone time with the hubby and I might be what she needs. I will stay on guard duty (no male dogs allowed! ) while my husband plays and works with her. I will begin praising Elsie if she looks at me even if it isn't in the eyes. She has bonded to my husband more than I but she watches both of us a lot. If we move she springs up to see what we are doing. I don't think we need a choke chain either. She will stop a bad behavior by me just saying "EH". A martingale would probably be the most I would use. I think your right about the tone of my voice when I told her to drop. While playing, I was upbeat and had a higher pitch voice. I lowered the pitch with a softer voice when I said drop. I used the same pitch I use when giving Sadie a command. I should have realized that! Changing my tone when Sadie was a puppy was the "piece" I needed to get Sadie to understand me. She does not respond to a high excited voice at all. I dropped my tone and she did. I just need to find the right pitch for Elsie. She is very sensitive to pitch and tone. If I sound too excited she will begin to shut down too. I just realized my biggest problem. I have been trying to use the same training, voice, and hand gestures that I trained Sadie with. I had to adjust a lot after we got Sadie. She would only respond if we said commands in certain way. I am going to go hit myself in the head while repeating "Elsie is NOT Sadie" now. Thanks for the advice!
|
|
|
Post by Nicole on Aug 25, 2006 16:52:59 GMT -5
Nicole, I have never heard of a dog having a back wards sneeze before. She did get vaccinated. I am not sure if the snort happens when she is inhaling or exhaling. I don't think it is allergies either because she did fine the week we had her before the Vet. Would something like a humidifier help it? Dom, was she just vaccinated? Did she get a rabies vaccine. The snorting is called backward sneezing or reverse sneezing. It is hard to explain but it is like an in and out snort which can be short or long. This has been linked to the rabies vaccine. Your vet will probably deny this. Take a look at this thread. It is a two page thread. dogden.proboards21.com/index.cgi?board=Health&action=display&thread=1109633083I thought we had another thread about this also but I can't find it.
|
|
|
Post by Aussienot on Aug 25, 2006 23:54:07 GMT -5
Dom, your husband's approach of luring Elsie down with a piece of food is the way I would teach it. Have her sit, then put a piece of food right in front of her nose and slowly drag it down until it's on the ground between her feet. Most dogs will follow the food with their nose, and just naturally drop.
Once you can lure her down ten or twelve times (over several training sessions) you can fade the lure and transition to rewards for doing it on cue. Put the food away, and move your empty hand in exactly the same motion Reward her once she's down.
Once she's going down on cue, you start randomising the rewards.
If you are using food, what's happening that it's not working?
She does sound very submissive, and I would not escalate into a physical force training approach. You probably can force her into a down pretty easily, but at what cost to your relationship? I would not even be thinking of corrections at this time. She's not defying you, she is either to scared to learn or she simply doesn't understand. Either way she's in the learning stage.
I would definate put Sadie in another room when training the down. It puts Elsie in a very vunerable position, and Sadie's presence might be intimidating to her. I would always train individually, and only put them together in the proofing stage.
And yes, most bitches go a bit psycho when in season, so don't push anything until she cycles out of it.
A clicker doesn't work because of the sound. A clicker only works if the click sound and a reward are linked in the dog's mind. The dog needs to already know that the click sound preceeds a treat being delivered. To "load" the clicker, do a clicker training session. Click, and treat. Click and treat. C/T about twenty times, then stop. You can feed the dog her whole dinner when loading the clicker.
The next time you bring out the clicker and click she should look in your direction expecting a treat. At that point, you can start to use a clicker in your training.
|
|
|
Post by Nicole on Aug 26, 2006 6:43:54 GMT -5
She does sound very submissive, and I would not escalate into a physical force training approach. You probably can force her into a down pretty easily, but at what cost to your relationship? Just to be clear when I say force I am not talking about shoving the dog down or sitting on it. I am talking about guiding it by moving the front legs forward, perhaps lightly pushing down on the butt... that sort of thing. To show the dog what the behavior is. I don't think that ruins a relationship. It hasn't for me anyway. It isn't harsh or painful. I guide my dog all the time to show him what I want. Aussies way is a fine way also.
|
|
|
Post by Dom on Aug 26, 2006 21:19:24 GMT -5
Nicole, changing my tone did help!! Tonight I told her drop but I kept the same high pitch voice. She paused for a few seconds then came back to me wagging her tail and the game continued. Woot!! It is kinda hard changing after I have been conditioned for 2 years with Sadie. Sadie would look at me like I was stupid when I would give a command. My husband would do the same command and she would do it. I have a naturally high voice and my husband is low. I changed my speech pattern and Sadie understood. As far as Elsie with " down" she will only do it if I lure her with treats. I do not think she understands the command at all. She is completely focused on the treat and doesn't hear anything. Maybe I should try with no treats? Sometimes I wonder if training a puppy would be easier. One thing that makes me stick it out is that Sadie likes her. It is very rare for here to like any other dog. I know that sounds selfish and I feel bad for even saying it. My husband and I are still willing to work on whatever needs to be done to help Elsie adjust. I would not give her up and soon I feel there be a war with the neighbors. I will not discuss that here though
|
|
|
Post by kaos on Aug 27, 2006 16:16:38 GMT -5
I think Aussienot is spot in in her advice. Once Elsie is reliably following the food lure into a down, you can start to add the cue word 'down'. After a few repetitions you can try leaving the food out of view and using your hand in the same motion whilst saying 'down', then produce the food reward once she has complied. The hand signal can then be refined or faded out until you are just using the verbal cue.
Re the 'watch me' this is a really easy thing to teach with the clicker but of course you must have conditioned the clicker properly first. Once Elsie clearly understands that the sound of the click means a reward is coming you can use it to teach watch me. The key is to lower your criteria initially, so you might click every time she looks in your general direction. Over time you can then raise the criteria to gradually encourage her to give actual eye contact. You will find that the more clicker training you do (if you choose to continue with the clicker), the more your dog will come to understand the training game and start to try to guess the behaviours you are looking for. Initially with an adult dog trained using other methods it can seem very slow and frustrating, but eventually your dog will become 'clicker savy' and teaching new behaviours becomes extremely fast, effective and enjoyable for the dog.
|
|
|
Post by Dom on Aug 27, 2006 18:02:40 GMT -5
The clicker has been very helpful with Sadie. We got to the point that Sadie would be in the position I wanted and would click, add a command and she understood. I am not against any training tool. If it works for the dog then it works. Ok I lied, I have an a dislike for the choke chain. I am very much against any trainer that says only ONE tool (be it prong, clicker, choke chain, etc) will work for every dog. One thing I was worried about with luring Elsie to down is that she responds to the tap on the floor. I don't want that cue to mean down. It has been really difficult to get Elsie to respond to verbal commands. As I told Nicole, sometimes it seems it would have easier on us just to get a puppy and train. We are not giving up on this dog though. I feel we may be her last hope. She is normally a sweet dog not counting what happened today. I just wish my week vacation was not 8 months away. I would have more time during the day with her. My husband is recently out of surgery so the timing of this new addition to our family has been rough. After today's incident I have told my husband to beef up the supervision. Unfortunately, my mom witnessed Elsie lung at Sadie so that sent my mom into a "Panic mode". My mom is very fearful of dogs growling after her Rotty attacked her Pom and caused enough damage for her boyfriend to get stitches when the Rotty bit him twice at different times. This entire situation has been tiring for me. I want to add Elsie as a full addition to our family but sometimes I feel I don't have enough time to work with her. I am sure that everything will turn out right. I guess work and home is getting to me. Anyone know a good massage therapist that works at a discount? Oh btw, we got a digital camera Friday night at Walmart but the thing didn't work when we got home. LOL I hope to get pictures of Elsie up soon. I am off to introduce Sadie and Elsie together after the incident tonight. I am crossing my fingers that all goes well.
|
|
|
Post by Dom on Aug 27, 2006 21:51:13 GMT -5
Aussienot, sorry I didn't see your entire post. It is the weekend so I have one eye on the dogs and one eye on the screen. I started Elsie on the clicker by click and treat. Elsie completely ignores the clicker and focuses on the treat. I have tried to click and treat with her for a week now. I used no commands at first, just like with Sadie. Click and treat, click and treat. I have tried to hide the treat but nothing changes.
On a positive note. The entire growling incident has been forgiven by both Sadie and Elsie. I guess as long as I do not put food outside there will not be a problem. I have even gave them a little food in the house since then. Elsie did not react to Sadie being close to the food at all. Maybe putting the food outside triggered her reaction?
Nicole, again I am sorry for not responding earlier. Elsie did have vaccinations but she did not have a rabies shot. She had the combo parvo shot. I think she must be sick. She has been doing the snort thing since we gave vaccinations but Friday her eyes were draining a white yellowish stuff. Today she still has drainage but not as bad. I hope the snorting thing decreases with time.
|
|
|
Post by kaos on Aug 29, 2006 21:45:00 GMT -5
You could try having the food in one hand and the clicker in the other. Let Elsie know that it is there but make your hand into a fist and don't let her have it. Don't move your hand just keep it at dog height. She will probably try all sorts of things to make you drop the treat, but just ignore her until eventually in frustration she looks up at you. You have to be really quick and click at the right moment for the attention on you and away from the treat, then produce the treat. Repeat until she is automatically ignoring the treat and looking at you (initially I would accept any raising of eyes in the vague direction of your face). The best part about this training is you can do it in your armchair whilst still listening to the TV after a long day at work.
|
|
|
Post by Dom on Aug 30, 2006 9:47:19 GMT -5
Thanks Kaos. It may be the piece of the puzzle I needed. I will give it a try after I get over this migraine I have had for 4 days. My timing is very off right now. No need to confuse her worse with me clicking at the wrong time. My husband suggested using "touch" to lure her down so we aren't bending over and she is isn't focusing on a treat. We have a retractable pointer that has a golfball size squishy ball on the end. Basically touch the end of the ball with their nose and click and treat. We haven't tried it yet with Elsie. Do you think this might work? We trained Sadie to turn on the lamp in the living room by using it. It is a touch sensitive lamp. We are novices with the clicker but Sadie picked up on it rather quickly. We must have done something right. Sadie is kind of funny to watch after a few click and treat. She will run through ever body position you can think of if I am standing there not saying a command. As soon as I click she freezes and I add a command. It normally only takes her twice to connect the command to her action. After that I can either use command only or the clicker to get the response. The clicker is how she learned "Are you sad? (added later-you don't have a sister?") She drops to the ground and lays her head between her paws. This was when I was looking for a second dog and trying to talk my husband into it. The first time I said "Are you sad you don't have a sister or brother?" in front of my husband he told me he was going to hide the clicker from me. Sadie looked so pitiful.
|
|
|
Post by kaos on Aug 30, 2006 15:30:56 GMT -5
Sounds like you are definitely on the right track. Yes, I am sure you could teach down by targeting, although you might get more of a bow at first, presumably once you have that if you then start to withold the click she may well lie down - then bingo.
Yet another option, you could always try 'free shaping' the down, although this always seemed a bit too slow for me as I am impatient.
|
|