Best methods for teaching focus? - Page 2

Hello again. Others that posted after me have also given you a good advice.

Quote: "He'll usually turn and look at me now, but it takes anywhere up to 15 minutes if there's something interesting going on. ---" End quote

If you are waiting 15 minutes for him to look at you, you have wasted 14 minutes and 59...okay, let's be generous 58 seconds.

Is he sitting by you for 15 minutes and checking out stuff around while you are holding the leash? Or,do you mean, we are walking for 15 minutes and he looks around before he will look at me?

The dog does not have to look at you at all times, that is unnatural and it doesn't serve anything. He is free to roam around you, walk and sniff and explore etc... but when you want attention, you shall get it with Watch me.

You can definitely add a leash correction (notcorrecting the hell out of it, but a fast snap out of it leash jerk" hen reward when he looks at you.

When I walk the dog on the leash, in public,  he is free to look wherever he wants. Every few minutes, I'll stopand say watch me, no particular reason, just reinforcing the behavior. He gives me a glance, I say good and resume walking. Seocn time I toss the ball, third time I give a treat and resume walking etc...

Same with "stay" or any other command. If he is running around without the leash, while hiking or whatever we are doing, I call him come.... he comes...just within reach.I say stay (meaning DON'T move). I pet him for a few seconds then release with Okay, and he goes out exploring. I am not doing anything but reinforcing behaviors.

In the beggining, I was doing it to accustom him to get the leash on and get into the car with no fuss and silly crap. One of the most annoying things when it comes to dogs for me is just being out of your reach slightly when it's time to buckle up and go home and that turns into a game of chase when the dog is teasing you and running around. Highly annoying to me. Come means come.

So, I would randomly call him up, do stay command and release. Sometimes ut a leaah on,walk a few steps, make him sit, take the leash off and resume walking. All that was totaly random. So, every time, the dog comes,he wonders, well, am I gettign a treat, he is gonna put the leash on, is the walk over, is he gonna pet me, is he tossing the ball...? I better get over there and check it out.

As some dogs become "leash aware"thinking, ah, shit ,the walk isover and they get silly. With this method, it's random.

It seems you have your work cut out for you with this dog, but it's not impossible and it's rather fun, if done with patience, consistency and incorporated into daily life. Even a walk in the park can be (kinda) training if you are creative to make it so, it doesn'talways have to be retrieving dumbells, jumping and scaling the wall, doing formal heel this and that.

As far as "helping" with squirrels... I am actualy fine with that and don't see a problem.

I taught him actively how to do it since he was 6 months old. Walking in the park on the leash, "hunting" squirrels together. As soon as we see one in the distance, leash off, go, go go... That is his favorite game and I am not going to take it away from him.

Pretty soon, just pointing to a tree, he'll go check it out (transferring that to blind search now, which was the original intent anyway). So, every time int he park, trees are schutzhund blinds and we do a full blown "tree search" when we are out.

To this day, every single walk in the park, he will come up to every single tree and "check them out", even if there are no squirrels there within miles.

Anyway, best of luck with your dog and teachng him focus.

 Thank you all for the responses.  It's definitely helped focus my thinking on how to help Falco.

Firstly, in regards to rewarding for behavior vs. correcting for the absence of behavior -- I don't have any choice but to reward (and I'm inclined to reward rather than correct until the dog has learned what is wanted anyway).  

It's a little hard to describe to anyone who hasn't met a dog with Falco's issues just how he behaves -- I'd certainly never encountered it before, and I worked for a vet as well as a breeder, on top of having my own dogs.  For the first few months I had him he acted more like an autistic than anything else. (He'd repeat behavior, and repeat, and repeat, and it wasn't a *choice*, he couldn't break the cycle.  Force him to snap out of it by leashing him or moving him into a different spot and he'd pick something else and start repeating that.) When I say he didn't pay attention, it was like trying to reach an autistic -- they are in their own world and can't even perceive what's outside it.  I don't have any science to back this up, but a knowledgeable friend pointed out that children reared in highly neglectful circumstances (Romanian orphanages are the source of the case studies) often develop behaviors that mimic autism, and that Falco seemed to be displaying the canine equivalent of self-soothing behavior.  It's not neurological in those human cases, they're otherwise normal, and can often recover to a greater or lesser extent if they're given proper care and support. Certainly that's been the case with my dog -- he went from "humans are almost completely irrelevant" and unable to hold a thought for more than two seconds to "I like people and want to pay attention to them" and being able to follow a series of commands.  The increments for which he can pay attention have increased. It was measured in fractions of a second at first.  Now without distractions I can train with him for 45 minutes or so before he looses the ability to focus.  Faced with distractions, though, he still tunes out to a greater or lesser degree.

I can't literally can't correct him or push him in more than the tiniest increments because it makes him shut down.  Administer a leash pop and he'll either 1) ignore it completely  2) start running in freaked out circles and/or digging like a maniac or 3) give way physically but check out mentally.  Once he's shut off it's impossible to get him to reengage without a considerable lag time to rest and recuperate.  I suspect that he only has a limited store of energy for mental ability.  Once it's used up it takes time to recharge.  I can't exercise him before training, for example, because then he can only pay attention for 5-15 minutes before his brain fries if he's been walked for more than half an hour immediately prior.  The energy store has gotten bigger, I'm certain, but still needs to be used in a measured fashion.  I'm also very careful about this -- I don't want do anything to cause him to regress and withdraw.  It's painful to witness, because when you look in his eyes the lights are on but nobody's home.  Under that glaze-over is a pleasant, reasonably intelligent GSD.  (Once he started thinking the little rat figured out how to get my attention when I'm at the computer, for example -- he turned off the power bar.  It only took one accidental time for him to work out how to take advantage of that, and then I had to then teach him that it wasn't a good idea, because turning off the power would mean he goes back into his crate. He's certainly not stupid.)

I think it comes back to the fact that there's nothing that's going to work other than time and effort, and yet more time and effort.  I'm going to try incorporating a variety of the suggestions you've all kindly given me.  For now,

Adi - Thank you !

 Whoops!  I forgot about the character limit.  Sorry.

For now, I'll carry on working on foundation behaviors (rewarding when he looks at me on his own on walks, rewarding for looking when I say his name, and also teach a hand signal for "watch me").  He does look now, just not often or consistently.  Then once he's better at it I'll start fading the rewards, put them on a variable schedule, and start introducing manufactured distractions (other people with toys).  

I also might have to lower my expectations for what he can achieve, because he may not be capable of more.  Falco's already more well behaved that 95% of the pet dogs we see out and about, so he's come a long way from the nearly unmanageable dog I brought home.  I'll also see if I can't introduce more of the "watch me" into our regular training around the house.  We already follow the NILIF principle where he works for his dinner, or to get attention (by retrieving his toys by name, for example) or to go outside (sit to put the leash on, sit to open the door), etc.  More work and time and effort, I suppose, and we'll see if Falco can't keep improving.  If not, he's a good boy anyway, and a lot of fun to be with and work with.

Your story about your dog hunting squirrels made me smile Adi.  It also reminded me of my previous dog.  We often went hiking, and one day he almost managed to catch a squirrel that ran up the tree and scolded him.  I called him back and we carried on.  Five hours later when we came back down the mountain and came to that section of trail he went back to the exact tree where he had encountered the squirrel.  This was in spite of the fact that we were in a forest full of trees, many of which also had squirrels.  His ability to recognize and remember the precise spot after such a brief encounter was pretty remarkable.

Thank you all for taking the time to make such helpful suggestions.  It's much appreciated!

You mentioned not having a hand signal for "Watch me".  I first taught my girl to watch me while using my right hand to tap my right cheek directly below my right eye.  She knows another command is likely to follow once I have her attention.  Everytime she looked at me with this command or hand signal (or both used together) I gave her a treat or toy.  Maybe you can use this to direct his attention to you.  Good luck!  Sounds like you have your hands full.

 Thank you DebiSue -- that sounds like a very clear signal that also is easy to keep straight for the human. :D  (I'm not joking entirely -- I have to keep mental track to make sure whether I'm asking for Touch, Stay, Give, or Paw.  The dog doesn't get confused, but I sometimes have to remind myself to be clear about what signal I'm using when we're working drills in quick succession.)

You'll get no complaints about suggesting a Koehler method from me mobjack.  While there are some specific techniques that I don't think are particularly constructive or effective, that doesn't mean I automatically write off entire training methods.  If I've learned anything from Falco it's that all dogs are unique, and no training method is 100% suitable for every dog and every circumstance.  What you've suggested here sounds excellent, and I plan to make good use of it.  Falco's already somewhat trained for off leash.  I regularly take him into carefully controlled quiet circumstances (open ground, fenced roads, no wildlife to chase) where we can play fetch, or he can play with other friendly dogs, and we can do some off leash walking together.  He's actually sufficiently bonded to me that he doesn't take off, and doesn't try to make a "chase me" game of being called to be leashed.  (I was very careful to teach him to come and be rewarded and then go back to playing/roaming loose, so that he doesn't associate coming and his collar being touched with an automatic end to the fun.)  It should therefore be simpler (I hope!) to take two steps back and teach checking in on the long line the way you describe.  This might just be the key to helping Falco understand that it's his responsibility to check in with me periodically, not just when I ask.  Thank you!

I get my focus from a fifteen foot line and a lot of creativity.
Takes about three weeks.
Has always worked for me and my particular needs.

 So you essentially mean you keep the dog's attention with unpredictable and fun behavior?  I think we can graduate to something like that, but first we have to get the "looking at the handler more often" part installed.  At the moment if he's watching a more potent distraction (like a cat -- cats are *very* high on his prey meter), you could practically let a bomb off behind Falco and he wouldn't turn his head.  Or rather we've made enough progress now that he will, but not quickly. 

Thanks for the input Two Moons.  I also really like your avatar -- it's very peaceful.