Kingdom of Pets

Posted by Mishka'sMum
Jan 7, 2009

Three days ago we adopted a 7 month old Sheppard/Husky mix who has never been obedience trained, socialized, or leash trained. Because she is new to us we are also working through alpha dog training, and on top of everything else she has a jumping and bitting problem.

Currently we have incorporated all of this training into her daily routine the following ways:
-throughout the day we work on alpha training & enforce the jumping, bitting and obedience through correction, praise, etc.
-play time we work on jumping/bitting while catching snowballs
-walk time we work on leash training and socialization
-10 minute lesson time we work on obedience basics like sit, stay.

I have read SitStayFetch and the other bonus books. My husband and I have been applying all of the techniques with great success (thanks Daniel!) but I have a few questions:

1. Can dogs get training burn out? Even if their learning when they think its fun?
2. Instead of trying to teach her everything at once should we be focusing on the basic obedience training first and then try to fix the bitting/jumping problems?

Thanks for your input and feedback

Posted by eyeluvdogs
Jan 22, 2009

Hi there,
Your dog is very lucky that you adopted her, especially if she is 7 months old and hasn't had any training. It will be a big job, but I'm sure you will get rewarded for your efforts eventually.
Just like children dog can get enough of "school" and get bored.
However it seems that you are keeping the lessons short and interesting.
I would recommend that you focus on one thing at a time to make better progress.
You will find that if you focus on one new command, for example sit for ten minutes in the morning and then again ten minutes at night you will make really quick progress. Practice the new command throughout the day from then on and then incorporate the next one.
By following the basic alpha dog techniques (going through the door first, making her do something before you feed or pat her, eating first, making her get up from her favorite spot so you can sit there for a short while etc) you will see that her general obedience will improve as well.
It is however important that you don't ignore the other problems but that you still pull your knee up if she decides to jump up or tell her off and then ignore her if she nips you.

I'd be interested to know how you get on.

Too Much Training At Once