On September 12 2006, mnp13 wrote:I've been choking Riggs off of stuff for the past 6 months. It never made a dent.
You need to figure out what he wants MORE than the toy he has. Some dogs want air more (so the choke works). Some dogs want the toy that you have more (so the toy switch works). Some dogs want to be with you more (so calling them as you run away works).
Some dogs want Cheetos.
The problem I ran into with Riggs and choking him off was that if I did it over and over, he actually gripped harder on the toy and it took progressivly longer to choke him off every time. His tongue and eyelids were purple before he'd let go. This was even with him knowing that he was going to get the toy back almost immediately; because as soon as I got it from him I threw it again. I gave up because I was really worried about the physical damage I was doing to him by having to choke him over and over to let go of anything.
From there we went to the toy switch, which saw results slowly. The longer we played toy switch the faster he would spit out one to get the other. However, every session we seemed to start from scratch.
Last weekend, we double handled him to get him to stop diving for the toy in my hand. It got the point across realtively quickly and I've gone from there. He's at about 50% now for Cheetos. Once I get him up near 100% I'll start weaning him off of them.
On September 12 2006, mnp13 wrote:Original owner was Chris' wife April, and I would guess that he was ok there, but he was sold around 6 months (I think). for the next 2.5 years of his life he had no rules, no boundries, no anything. Then he got dumped back off at Chris' last year because he was out of control (go figure). Then he was in a kennel for a year with some training. Then he came to me, where I made some of his bad habits better and some of them worse.
He outed off of the decoy when I got him, but he and I have a few respect issues that only got worse when he got more and more snappy with me. What a dog will do infront of someone they respect is VERY different than what they will do with someone they are "testing." and no, he was not snappy like attacking me, snappy like "dive for the toy and grab it and your hand if you don't let go fast enough." Eventually I gave up because he was actually injuring my hands (and I type for a living.) Now we're back to working on it, and it's getting better.
The cheetos get him to out, but diving at them gets him in trouble as well. We have lots of things to work on all at the same time, and that gets to be a problem all by itself.
baby steps... baby steps...
On September 12 2006, mnp13 wrote:When your dog has a toy and you put your hand on it and it lets go of the toy that is an "out"
Outing off of a spring pole would be when the dog lets of it.
On September 12 2006, mnp13 wrote:When your dog has a toy and you put your hand on it and it lets go of the toy that is an "out"
Outing off of a spring pole would be when the dog lets of it.
On September 12 2006, mnp13 wrote:I want the out to mean "spit out / let go / drop whatever it is that you have in your mouth as soon as I say the word"... so I guess I just explained it wrong. oops.
And just a thought - you are giving your dog three commands before you make it out, basically teaching it that they only get consequences if they ignore you three times. Don't give commands that you can't back up
(and yes, I am working very hard at following my own advice!)
On September 12 2006, Romanwild wrote:I always use the word "release" because I thought it sounded cool but a single syllable is always better IMO.
I tought it to mean drop whatever is in your mouth. If they don't and I move towards them to take it they will drop it then. Bastards made me get up!
I agree Ant that bull breeds should learn it young if possible. Might help not using break sticks in the future.
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