Sounds like some cool thing you might train your dog for, like, "Hey, my dog does crossover!" Sadly, it’s a state that many dogs and owners (and even trainers) find themselves in as they discover the wonders of positive reinforcement training. For those of us who started our lives and dogs with coercion based techniques, ie choke chains, leash pops, forcing the dog into a sit or down position etc, trying to figure out how to get an unruly or over excited dog to do anything nicely using rewards is, frankly, counter-intuitive.
Working with Caramel has helped me immensely as I used as little of my previous (coercion-based) knowledge as possible and now have a very clicker-savvy dog who is an active participant in training every day. She helps to remind me that Indy really needs a lot more patience and love while he figures out this new way of life. His typical response to the appearance of the clicker is "sit" then "sit harder" followed by "lie down" finished with demand barking because I still haven't given him that darned click. He knows sitting is good and down is good but other things have gotten him in trouble in the past so he's wary to try anything new. I have good news though, he's starting to figure out the target stick and he did learn to bark on cue so I remain hopeful that with a few more created behaviors he will truly begin to participate in the learning process.
Have a crossover dog? Experiences as a crossover owner or trainer? We'd love to hear your stories and how you have overcome some of the challenges you faced.
No comments:
Post a Comment