Other Dog Distractions; Max totally failed - Page 1

Well, we went to our 1st formal training class last night.  Max has been doing well against distractions, but I do not have exposer to other dogs outside of our family.  Last night was exausting to say the least.  Max acted like he had no training, no food drive, and no focus. If he could have, he would have given me the finger the whole night.
 
 
Is he too young to use the prong collar on?  Max is 11 months now.  The choke chain did nothing.  I am looking for something that will get his attention back on me during high distractions like other undisplined dogs.
 
If he is too young, any suggestions when food/treats did not even work?  Normally Max is high food driven, but last night he was too interested in the other dogs.  Someone suggested to me to make sure he is very tired and hungry before class; do not feed him for the day and wear his rear out (kind of hard, as it is a 1 1/2 drive to the class.

No, not too young for a prong at all although I'm not sure how much it'll help in this situation.  He'll eventually get used to the other dogs and calm down...at least that's what I keep telling myself about Jagger.  

My suggestion is to just give him time. The first night of class is rarely ever good with most dogs. Work on distractions as much as you can at home. Take him to busy locations where there are likely to be other dogs around. You can see if a prong might help, but mostly, I'd work on getting his attention and focus in ALL situations. Timing is crucial: the second you see his eyes start to wander, give a cue/correction to get his attention back on you.

Some dogs take longer than others. I had one dog that was so timid, it took nearly the entire 6 weeks of classes before she'd reliably take a treat from me!  Even if I held her head in my hands to try to get eye contact, she'd squirm away, and focus on the other dogs and people,

"is he too young for a prong collar?''  I would never give this ''yes/no Question, a yes/no answer. My belief is go ask the instructors of your group who witnessed your session. Speak candidly of your goals and your experience level. Watch the group in action. Are there good examples in the group? Do you want your dog to behave the way the rest of the group behaves [ positive or negative] I would say if you can not answer the questions above, leave your dog at home and go watch as many sessions or groups as you are able. If the instructor seems put off about you asking questions or just observing tell them your dog is in season or limping. I do prefer truth over [ white ] lies but this should be important to you and your dog's career.

I have nothing against prong collars and don't think he's too young, but you said yourself he hasn't had exposure to this level of distraction.  I would not change up the tool and method so fast.  You are expecting a lot. I would give him a class or two to make it clear what is expected and let him settle in before enforcing good behavior.  Also I don't agree with wearing him out.  I want my dogs to be alert and ready to work during training so that I can maximize the drive and intensity and use that to my advantage.  My dog is far more likely to just check out if I've run him into the ground beforehand.

Fawn,

I would ask two things. Is he pulling your arms out of their sockets? Does he have that intense stare the whole time, the one that says I want to eat you? 

 

This is a perfect example of why i start my dog training with puppies as soon as they are cleared by the vet for puppy class. They go every week from puppy hood to i retire them. I don't suffer from this sort of stuff because they have already been exposed and hardened to just about everything i can think of.  Waiting until you dog is nearly a year to start group training is going to now take you kicking his butt a bit to make YOU the most important thing in the class. He is of the prefect age for a prong. Just make sure you get it sized correctly. And i will yell you a training trick. Do NOT buy a large prong collar. I don't care how big your dog is. Buy the medium and add extra links (14 MM size) This gives a cleaner correction and allows more "Teeth" in the collar. Your dog can not break it so don't worry. And stay the heck away from the "Quick Release" type of collar as they will pop apart if the dog hits the end of the collar hard. Also for safety use a backup choke chain attached to the leash should the prong ever fail.
I've only had one prong fail and it was because one of the links got bent, is would sometime come apart.
Good luck and have fun.
Fry

Thank you all.  Lots of things to think about.  If time was on my side and I had a dog park near me, I know we would have this licked in a week or less.  Downside, I only have 4 more classes (1 per week) and we are trying to get ready for our CGC.  Being in the country and surrounded by ranches, dog exposer is a challenge.  I tried to learn from my mistakes with training Rose, but I still missed the dog distraction.

Now that I think this through, I think a prong collar now is ill timed and at best will only give me short term results.

I thought about using a high value food/treat for the class.  For Max, that would be any raw meat; he goes nuts for it.  I can see how using raw meat would be a disaster in a puppy class and ice cream does not work well as a training treat.

Never thought I would say this, but man I miss living in Dallas. 

He did not have an intense, "I am going to eat someone."  There was no aggression.  Max just wanted to be a 8 week old puppy and play with everyone; rather than an 11 month old puppy that knows what "sit," "down," "leave it," "heel," walking on a leash without pulling me off my feet, are.

I think a prong might actually be helpful but if you're taking this class for CGC I would use the prong outside of class and start to work it in but I don't know that I'd bother with it in class since you can't use it for the CGC anyway.

I never take my young dogs to a dog park and try to get them to pay attention to me.  Obedience starts at home with NO distraction and always involves more reward and play than actual obedience work (even for my adult, multi-titled dog).  First my dog should be able to perfectly perform CGC exercises in the basement with no other dogs or distraction.  Then we graduate to working with my other dogs loose.  Then we go outside and work in our backyard.  Then we move to the front yard where a dog or person might walk by.  I've done a lot of CGC but have never taken a dog to a dog park and asked for basic obedience with that level of distraction.  Unless you already have a really good obedience foundation with this dog I would not try to do that.  Anytime your dog is distracted from you, it is basically reinforcing that bad behavior so you need to correct it, but if it happens a lot or the dog doesn't respond to the corrections, you're just going backwards and won't make progress.  The trick is to work the dog consistently in a good state of drive so the dog is really excited about working with you and as you add distractions, he doesn't even notice them.  If you don't think you're at this point, I would not put the dog under any more distraction than what you currently get in class (and it sounds like even that might be a little much at this point but at least there you have a trainer and everyone is under control so you can work with the trainer to manipulate this environment to your advantage).  Remember you need to set the dog up for success and not train him at the distraction level you want him to work through as the end goal, but the distraction level he is capable of dealing with *right now*.