I can attest to this 100%. I did my first 2 weeks of HSTD just cherry picking games and got almost no results. I reset, and got down with the games, started from scratch, and I am now seeing amazing results with my puppy, and older rescue dog. It's so much fun watching the layers developing into good choices!
The way Susan explains all dog training topics has been really eye opening (or ear opening lol) for me. Her podcasts and programs are top notch. My dogs and myself are better for being a part of this community ❤
I have a very difficult puppy right now, 5th puppy I've had of this particular breed. Your podcasts are SO helpful in keeping *me* in the right headspace as we get through puppy hood. Thank you so much for your knowledge and expertise, I'm forever grateful 🙏
Your team is amazing and so supportive. I just had an issue and emailed your them and Mackenzie got back to me in mere minutes and fixed the problem immediately. I am so thankful for you, your team, your programs and content.
Best training I have heard and seen. Been on 3 basic trainings for my dog but none explained the science of dog training and even the tons of videos on youtube. Makes a difference.
For that reason I’m glad I didn’t get any prior dog training experience, before I found Susan, and binge watch / listen to her podcast for almost a month. We enrolled in Crate Games, Pedicure Please, and then Home School. I am amazed by the progress my puppy is making since we introduced Susan’s training philosophy and methods less then two months ago. We also went to the local in person puppy program, but I quickly found it to be too overwhelming, difficult and distracting environment for my puppy. My puppy was just too eager and too happy to see other puppies, so as a result it was very challenging to get her attention, and each class left me confused and defeated.
Happy Valentine's Day to you as well Susan 💕 Already have both programs. Enjoying them both. I hit hills and valleys between fixed and growth mind sets in the last couple of years. Thx for always being encouraging. ✨️🐾
Thanks again, Susan. Love your exuberance in everything. It's so valuable for me at this time. I'm waiting for back surgery and you're helping to keep me sane!
Your training works!!! I have recalls on my 7 year and 3 year old collies off of wildlife, porcupine ( thank goodness) and running deer!!! Training my 9 month old scotch collie now with the recallers program Keep the podcasts coming !!!
Long time Recallers and Wag Nation team here, love learning, always want more. I look forward to checking out the books you referenced. Thank you! ❤️🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
The point you make about mindset is spot on. However dog trainers across the dog training style spectrum clearly underestimate how wildly overwhelming dog training information is to people who don’t do it for a living. It’s hard to know what’s “right,” for our dogs, specifically, between positive only and balanced training. It’s a reality that’s almost impossible for a dog trainer to explain without oversimplifying regardless of where they fall on the spectrum. If those of us that want well trained dogs aren’t getting our desired results, how are we to know when to abandon our current training practices or stick with them? We have no way of knowing if we stick with what we’re doing an extra week/month/year(s) that we’ll achieve the success we’re seeking; We also have no way of knowing if our dogs would be more receptive to a different approach. But here’s the biggest pickle: it’s impossible for us to know how much time is actually necessary to make reasonable assessments about which direction to go in. I appreciate you. I’m one of your members as I am also a member of a popular balanced trainers programs. All of you seem to care very much about the safety of dogs and of the humans they interact with. Thank you for all that you do.
There's a great book by Daniel Coyle ''The Talent Code'' all about learning skills and the brain that helped me to relax more. It's in those moments of struggle, intense focus and the moments where we mess up, make mistakes struggle to understand a concept etc that myelin is being laid down and the brain is making connections. If we manage to stay calm and relaxed it helps the whole process. I forget the exact mechanism lol but broadly speaking the more myelin that coats the 'wires' the faster the pathways fire for any particular skill. Great episode as usual Susan and team. Thankyou
I'm not sure I'm going to be able to word this comment clearly. I apologize if it's hard to follow what I'm saying. In the end, Susan, it's your big picture thinking/systems thinking mindset that gave me the certainty that it was worth trusting my very limited capacity (I'm on Disability) to the pursuit of your methods. It's so clear to me that you're changing human views of what is possible - not in dog training, but within the entire realm of human activity on the planet - when we lead with kindness and accountability. The thing I've given my very limited energy to over the past decade has been the climate justice movement; particularly grassroots, boots-on-the-ground, stand-with-the-most-affected-who-have-the-least-influence efforts. How you show people what's possible in dog communication/relationship-building is a mind-shift that just constantly echoes and reverberates with my experiences with the focus of, and the work being done within, the climate justice movement. Honestly, I think it boils down to the relentless pursuit of *justice.* Every question, every choice, seeks an answer that is centred around justice. Climate justice work: equitable outcomes for those who have been excluded from experiencing the "progress" other people have benefited from at the cost of destroying the natural world. +R: maybe it seems overblown to some to talk about dog training as justice, but I think it helps shift the extractive, domination/oppression-focused mindset to the way of thinking that is *actually* what is needed to face the future. A future where we mitigate the harms we've set in motion not just for those with the power to save their own status quo, but for everyone and for our other-than-human relatives. I'm actually not a spiritual person on any level, but it's clear to me that we're a part of a planetary-wide living system. We can't save ourselves without managing to keep the rest of that living system intact at the same time. +R dog training is something that WILL help shift human perception of the fundamentally interactive nature of every scrap of Life on Earth. And if we insist that no scrap of Life on this planet is expendable; that all of it needs to be fought for and protected and nurtured as best we can no matter what we face, then we also mitigate as much of the inexcusable and avoidable harm being done to our fellow humans as is possible. +R is a potent leverage-point. It reaches deep into a person's value system... and honestly, it can reach some of the people who MOST need to feel this transformation; so many of the 10% most affluent people on the planet have dogs, and have the resources to lavish time and attention on their dogs. And +R has the potential to reach them on a profoundly emotional level, in a profoundly transformative way. (pretty much everyone living above the poverty line in the US and Canada has an annual income that puts them in the most affluent 10% of humanity; not all of us here have the resources to lavish time and attention on our dogs the way it sounds like I'm talking about, above, but this is a relative thing) I'm not sure I've managed to word all of that in a useful way, but it encapsulates why I'm all-in with Recallers, even if I have to work slowly. It's another way that I can live loudly in the world - another way to show people an exciting alternative to the moral injury we all participate in, the way the dominant civilization on the planet frog-marches humanity through life from birth to death. I reject oppression as best I can with the resources available to me. I work to learn how to embrace connectivity, and consent, and the well-being of the All.
Wow Rebecca, thanks so much for writing this thoughtful and inspiring note ❤️ We've shared with the whole team ❤️ Super grateful to have you as part of this awesome community 💖
@@DogsThat When I finally decided to get another dog (my most recent good boy previously to getting Ceilidh lived a long and happy life in my pre- +R days, and died in late 2008), I did so *because* I'd found +R and it made me feel that I could face training a dog again (I'd done so poorly with the training thing with my last dog and it felt so awful that it took me 14 years to decide I was ready to try again). It already seemed like an utterly revolutionary concept to me; it obliterated my previous concept that either you were a *real* "dog person" who innately could communicate with dogs, or you were a normal person who couldn't get dogs to do what you wanted them to do. It showed me that EVERYONE is a dog person - our civilization doesn't raise us that way, but all of us are capable of learning a different way of being. Although I wouldn't have put it in those words yet. What I did NOT anticipate was that dog training would become part of my climate justice activism. But it 100% has. And I 100% believe in its power to transform hearts in ways that people are usually *extremely* resistant to embrace, because it's hard to undo ways of thinking if the transformation requested of you "smells" like it might fundamentally upend the status quo (we don't think that thought consciously, but I think that thought is at the heart of why people say +R "won't work") But dogs can reach in there and get us to consider it. Not everyone will be magically transformed all the way from "be kind to your dog" to "we urgently have to transform society to stop worsening the crisis we've already set in motion" the way I'd hope they would (& the way the thin membrane of Life on the planet needs), but it'll "prepare the ground" for the mind-shift, and plant some seeds.
Lol I love it when she clicks and says go get yourself a cookie . People must have complained they didn’t like cookies because now it’s changed to get yourself a favourite reinforcement which is really sad 😫😩 it’s not specific enough 😂😅😂 I would make a great dog - so willing to please 😂 - okay, I’m off to get a cuppa tea and a (vegan) cookie ( love all animals, not just your pets!) :) xxx
So P.C I don’t know how you do it. I think the reason some people don’t see success is that they don’t really embrace “Do land” they slip in old training methods. In or out, that’s what I found years ago with do land.
Happy Tuesday!!! I’m a long time watcher and finally took the leap of faith to enroll in Home School the Dog but was met with the waitlist 😅. Any chance slots are opening this spring?
I read about this package on your site and it sounds great, but I have had so many out of pocket expenses for this puppy this month that I really can't afford a paid program. He has grown huge very quickly and so I had to get him a 30 X 40" crate, plus pay the bill for an expensive vet visit for the rest of his shots, etc. I'm still paying off my Care Credit from when he was sick and hospitalized halfway through the first week I had him (which was thousands of dollars). Some of his less than desirable behaviors have improved, such as chewing on me, but I'm still trying to get him more comfortable with lying down and staying down (for some reason he really doesn't like that position unless he's either sleeping or getting ready for sleep). He will do it as long as I have food as a reward but as soon as that runs out he will jump back up and refuse to lie back down. I have been teaching him the "wait", and "free" command and trying to apply it to sitting before meals (which he's gotten pretty good at doing), and using it with "down" (which he still hasn't mastered). If there is no food coming he will get up eventually and pull toward his bowls even though I've been trying to wait longer to say the marking phrase to get him to the point that he will stay until I tell him "free". He gets very impatient, and I think still has a problem with impulse control. I want to wean him off the treats eventually so he doesn't expect it constantly in order to obey commands. He is getting better about heeling and not pulling on the leash without my having to give him a treat every few steps, but not all the time. Sometimes he barrels on ahead when he's impatient to go outside or to the kitchen to eat. He has gotten very consistent with the "search" game so I almost always start my training with that and then move to the more challenging commands. I have taught him the "around" command to go around me and then sit at my side and he's pretty consistent with that one too. I have not tried it without a food reward yet, though.
Hi @IAMGiftbearer it's so good your puppy has you to care for him, and we hope he is feeling much better now 🧡 Susan's video on duration positions will be a good help - th-cam.com/video/gNnnoqLbTzk/w-d-xo.html And below are Susan's videos for sit and down. 10 Ways to Train Sit - th-cam.com/video/WP9JRgKL2Ok/w-d-xo.html 10 Ways to Train Down - th-cam.com/video/E9IXKuewJDE/w-d-xo.html Teach Your Dog To Down On Cue: Easy Shaping With A Bed - th-cam.com/video/P3z76PAz9AE/w-d-xo.html
Hi @RckyMtnGal in Wag Nation we have fun scenting games, but not for air scenting specifically (so far, we're always adding to Wag Nation with a new trick everyone month and love suggestions from members on what they'd like in the program).
Hi Amanda, as you are already an awesome member of the fabulous Home School the Dog, we've something extra special for you, so send a note to us at wag@dogsthat.com and our amazing team will help out
Yikes!!!! Now I’m confused. I have a 10 month old male GSD who unfortunately has a severe unrepairable cardiac defect which means that he is not a surgical candidate for anything including neutering. We are working on the Recallers class but I have also had him in the the basic obedience class thru our local AKC to try to provide some socialization for him because he can’t participate in vigorous play with other dogs because of his heart defect. This session has not been our best experience as there is another male dog about his same size and also not neutered and a 1 year old female dog who is going thru her first heat cycle. This boy of mine has been unable to focus on anything and is peeing at least once in class. I had decided that there are just too many distractions for him and that my stress level and overall feelings of dread with this class session (this is his 3rd session of classes there) are negatively impacting our relationship and his usual feelings of overwhelming joy and enthusiasm. Now I am questioning if I am just a perfect illustration of a negative mindset:(
I’m not a professional dog trainer but I do have a puppy who can get easily overwhelmed by the environment. I don’t think looking after your dog’s heart condition would qualify as a negative mindset. Personally, I would not participate in the class 100% because it was in my puppy’s best interest at the time to just hang out outside for a bit. I know Susan has other videos where she talks about being your puppy’s advocate and adjusting the “normal” protocol that people put on us for the puppy’s benefit. I think they might be listed in the puppy playlist. I’m sure others would have much better advice than mine, but I hope things about your situation become clearer for you! ❤
If you are taking Recallers, then I would also pose the question in Recallers chat forums and you’ll probably come across someone with a similar experience, and maybe ask the team of coaches directly. It just occurred to me that we have chat groups in the programs! 😊 lol
I'm no expert but have a rescue dog that wasn't socialised in the' vital periods. We have been slowly making progress by gradually helping her stay calm in environments that she struggles with. The key is not to let her get to the point where she goes over threshhold. In the begining that was literally having our windows open for a few moments a day so she could experience the smells and sounds of the ouutside world untill she could cope with that. Then we worked on the front door one tiny step at a time, we would put her harness on and walk around our flat; towards the door and back, reinforce her calm behaviour; slowly build up to rattling the door handle, reinforce the calm behaviour; opening and closing the door, reinforce the calm behaviour etc etc. It sound tedious and it is! But, it's far more humane and better for her over all welfare than putting a slip lead on her and dragging her out, then proceeding to choke her into 'submission' because she's 'stuborn'. To my shame, I let a trainer do that at the same time telling me that I was 'too soft' and that the reason she was behaving the way she was ie terrified was bcause she didn't respect me as her leader I'd suggest taking a step back and working on eye contact and engagement games in quieter less distracting areas. learn as much as you can about stress signals and dog body languge to really see what your dog is communicating. My pooch, lets me know in subtle ways that she's uncomfortable that I havent read in any book, yet. She defocuses her eyes and stares off into the distance, when a sound triggers her for eg. Other people dont see it and think Im mad lol but I've used that communication many times to help stop her going over threshold. I totally empathise with the stress you're feeling and that feeling of dread but keep going! Your dog is lucky to have found you 🙂
Check out our special Wag Nation Valentine’s opportunity from the 17:51 minute mark in the video.
I can attest to this 100%. I did my first 2 weeks of HSTD just cherry picking games and got almost no results. I reset, and got down with the games, started from scratch, and I am now seeing amazing results with my puppy, and older rescue dog.
It's so much fun watching the layers developing into good choices!
The way Susan explains all dog training topics has been really eye opening (or ear opening lol) for me. Her podcasts and programs are top notch. My dogs and myself are better for being a part of this community ❤
We are so thankful you are part of our amazing community!
I have a very difficult puppy right now, 5th puppy I've had of this particular breed. Your podcasts are SO helpful in keeping *me* in the right headspace as we get through puppy hood. Thank you so much for your knowledge and expertise, I'm forever grateful 🙏
Your team is amazing and so supportive. I just had an issue and emailed your them and Mackenzie got back to me in mere minutes and fixed the problem immediately. I am so thankful for you, your team, your programs and content.
Thank you again Susan! You are the light in the dark ❤
Best training I have heard and seen. Been on 3 basic trainings for my dog but none explained the science of dog training and even the tons of videos on youtube. Makes a difference.
For that reason I’m glad I didn’t get any prior dog training experience, before I found Susan, and binge watch / listen to her podcast for almost a month. We enrolled in Crate Games, Pedicure Please, and then Home School. I am amazed by the progress my puppy is making since we introduced Susan’s training philosophy and methods less then two months ago.
We also went to the local in person puppy program, but I quickly found it to be too overwhelming, difficult and distracting environment for my puppy. My puppy was just too eager and too happy to see other puppies, so as a result it was very challenging to get her attention, and each class left me confused and defeated.
We are so glad you found us! Thank you for being part of our wonderful community
Happy Valentine's Day to you as well Susan 💕 Already have both programs. Enjoying them both. I hit hills and valleys between fixed and growth mind sets in the last couple of years. Thx for always being encouraging. ✨️🐾
Thanks again, Susan. Love your exuberance in everything. It's so valuable for me at this time. I'm waiting for back surgery and you're helping to keep me sane!
Your training works!!! I have recalls on my 7 year and 3 year old collies off of wildlife, porcupine ( thank goodness) and running deer!!! Training my 9 month old scotch collie now with the recallers program Keep the podcasts coming !!!
The training works when you put in the time to play the games, thank you for investing in your dogs, and BIG WOW to the porcupine Julie!!!
Long time Recallers and Wag Nation team here, love learning, always want more. I look forward to checking out the books you referenced. Thank you! ❤️🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
Children are wonderful trainers! They listen and follow directions. They don't have preconceived ideas.
Truth! They are like little sponges!!! I love working with kids.
The point you make about mindset is spot on. However dog trainers across the dog training style spectrum clearly underestimate how wildly overwhelming dog training information is to people who don’t do it for a living. It’s hard to know what’s “right,” for our dogs, specifically, between positive only and balanced training. It’s a reality that’s almost impossible for a dog trainer to explain without oversimplifying regardless of where they fall on the spectrum. If those of us that want well trained dogs aren’t getting our desired results, how are we to know when to abandon our current training practices or stick with them? We have no way of knowing if we stick with what we’re doing an extra week/month/year(s) that we’ll achieve the success we’re seeking; We also have no way of knowing if our dogs would be more receptive to a different approach. But here’s the biggest pickle: it’s impossible for us to know how much time is actually necessary to make reasonable assessments about which direction to go in. I appreciate you. I’m one of your members as I am also a member of a popular balanced trainers programs. All of you seem to care very much about the safety of dogs and of the humans they interact with. Thank you for all that you do.
Brilliant points you bring up Marc, worth a future podcast to talk about for sure. Thank you for taking the time for this very detailed concern.
Thank you for your guidance. The insights into these, I’ll say- invisible hurdles is an amazing help.
Thanks also for the book recommendations.✅👍⭐️🇺🇸
There's a great book by Daniel Coyle ''The Talent Code'' all about learning skills and the brain that helped me to relax more. It's in those moments of struggle, intense focus and the moments where we mess up, make mistakes struggle to understand a concept etc that myelin is being laid down and the brain is making connections. If we manage to stay calm and relaxed it helps the whole process. I forget the exact mechanism lol but broadly speaking the more myelin that coats the 'wires' the faster the pathways fire for any particular skill.
Great episode as usual Susan and team. Thankyou
I love that book and his Culture Code as well.
Thanks for those great book recommendations
I totally AGREE! 😃 Basically mindset is the beginning of the Belief Loop. 🙂 You might want to amend it. 😉
❤ this video popped up in my feed at the right time. Just what i needed to hear today.
It's kind of magical how TH-cam sometimes knows what we need. Thanks for commenting, we love that you're enjoying our videos! ❤️
Awesome, caring and supportive advice for us trainers! ❤😊🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾
Thank you for your kind words and thank you for watching! We appreciate you
This is amazing but why aren’t there any episodes about helping a rescue dog not mark indoors- especially? Or any dog for that matter…
I'm not sure I'm going to be able to word this comment clearly. I apologize if it's hard to follow what I'm saying.
In the end, Susan, it's your big picture thinking/systems thinking mindset that gave me the certainty that it was worth trusting my very limited capacity (I'm on Disability) to the pursuit of your methods. It's so clear to me that you're changing human views of what is possible - not in dog training, but within the entire realm of human activity on the planet - when we lead with kindness and accountability.
The thing I've given my very limited energy to over the past decade has been the climate justice movement; particularly grassroots, boots-on-the-ground, stand-with-the-most-affected-who-have-the-least-influence efforts.
How you show people what's possible in dog communication/relationship-building is a mind-shift that just constantly echoes and reverberates with my experiences with the focus of, and the work being done within, the climate justice movement.
Honestly, I think it boils down to the relentless pursuit of *justice.*
Every question, every choice, seeks an answer that is centred around justice.
Climate justice work: equitable outcomes for those who have been excluded from experiencing the "progress" other people have benefited from at the cost of destroying the natural world.
+R: maybe it seems overblown to some to talk about dog training as justice, but I think it helps shift the extractive, domination/oppression-focused mindset to the way of thinking that is *actually* what is needed to face the future. A future where we mitigate the harms we've set in motion not just for those with the power to save their own status quo, but for everyone and for our other-than-human relatives.
I'm actually not a spiritual person on any level, but it's clear to me that we're a part of a planetary-wide living system. We can't save ourselves without managing to keep the rest of that living system intact at the same time.
+R dog training is something that WILL help shift human perception of the fundamentally interactive nature of every scrap of Life on Earth. And if we insist that no scrap of Life on this planet is expendable; that all of it needs to be fought for and protected and nurtured as best we can no matter what we face, then we also mitigate as much of the inexcusable and avoidable harm being done to our fellow humans as is possible.
+R is a potent leverage-point. It reaches deep into a person's value system... and honestly, it can reach some of the people who MOST need to feel this transformation; so many of the 10% most affluent people on the planet have dogs, and have the resources to lavish time and attention on their dogs. And +R has the potential to reach them on a profoundly emotional level, in a profoundly transformative way.
(pretty much everyone living above the poverty line in the US and Canada has an annual income that puts them in the most affluent 10% of humanity; not all of us here have the resources to lavish time and attention on our dogs the way it sounds like I'm talking about, above, but this is a relative thing)
I'm not sure I've managed to word all of that in a useful way, but it encapsulates why I'm all-in with Recallers, even if I have to work slowly. It's another way that I can live loudly in the world - another way to show people an exciting alternative to the moral injury we all participate in, the way the dominant civilization on the planet frog-marches humanity through life from birth to death.
I reject oppression as best I can with the resources available to me.
I work to learn how to embrace connectivity, and consent, and the well-being of the All.
Wow Rebecca, thanks so much for writing this thoughtful and inspiring note ❤️ We've shared with the whole team ❤️
Super grateful to have you as part of this awesome community 💖
@@DogsThat When I finally decided to get another dog (my most recent good boy previously to getting Ceilidh lived a long and happy life in my pre- +R days, and died in late 2008), I did so *because* I'd found +R and it made me feel that I could face training a dog again (I'd done so poorly with the training thing with my last dog and it felt so awful that it took me 14 years to decide I was ready to try again).
It already seemed like an utterly revolutionary concept to me; it obliterated my previous concept that either you were a *real* "dog person" who innately could communicate with dogs, or you were a normal person who couldn't get dogs to do what you wanted them to do. It showed me that EVERYONE is a dog person - our civilization doesn't raise us that way, but all of us are capable of learning a different way of being.
Although I wouldn't have put it in those words yet.
What I did NOT anticipate was that dog training would become part of my climate justice activism.
But it 100% has.
And I 100% believe in its power to transform hearts in ways that people are usually *extremely* resistant to embrace, because it's hard to undo ways of thinking if the transformation requested of you "smells" like it might fundamentally upend the status quo (we don't think that thought consciously, but I think that thought is at the heart of why people say +R "won't work")
But dogs can reach in there and get us to consider it. Not everyone will be magically transformed all the way from "be kind to your dog" to "we urgently have to transform society to stop worsening the crisis we've already set in motion" the way I'd hope they would (& the way the thin membrane of Life on the planet needs), but it'll "prepare the ground" for the mind-shift, and plant some seeds.
Lol I love it when she clicks and says go get yourself a cookie . People must have complained they didn’t like cookies because now it’s changed to get yourself a favourite reinforcement which is really sad 😫😩 it’s not specific enough 😂😅😂 I would make a great dog - so willing to please 😂 - okay, I’m off to get a cuppa tea and a (vegan) cookie ( love all animals, not just your pets!) :) xxx
Hi Rosie! We have different endings that we use on the videos, so no worries, we didn't get rid of the "cookie" one 😊
Enjoy your snack!
So P.C I don’t know how you do it. I think the reason some people don’t see success is that they don’t really embrace “Do land” they slip in old training methods. In or out, that’s what I found years ago with do land.
Happy Tuesday!!! I’m a long time watcher and finally took the leap of faith to enroll in Home School the Dog but was met with the waitlist 😅. Any chance slots are opening this spring?
Hi Kandrisa! Send our team a note at wag@dogsthat.com and someone awesome will help!
Absolutely! Thanks for replying
Definitely get results but you we have to do the program and believe it works and it does ❤️❤️❤️❤️🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
I read about this package on your site and it sounds great, but I have had so many out of pocket expenses for this puppy this month that I really can't afford a paid program. He has grown huge very quickly and so I had to get him a 30 X 40" crate, plus pay the bill for an expensive vet visit for the rest of his shots, etc. I'm still paying off my Care Credit from when he was sick and hospitalized halfway through the first week I had him (which was thousands of dollars).
Some of his less than desirable behaviors have improved, such as chewing on me, but I'm still trying to get him more comfortable with lying down and staying down (for some reason he really doesn't like that position unless he's either sleeping or getting ready for sleep). He will do it as long as I have food as a reward but as soon as that runs out he will jump back up and refuse to lie back down. I have been teaching him the "wait", and "free" command and trying to apply it to sitting before meals (which he's gotten pretty good at doing), and using it with "down" (which he still hasn't mastered). If there is no food coming he will get up eventually and pull toward his bowls even though I've been trying to wait longer to say the marking phrase to get him to the point that he will stay until I tell him "free". He gets very impatient, and I think still has a problem with impulse control. I want to wean him off the treats eventually so he doesn't expect it constantly in order to obey commands. He is getting better about heeling and not pulling on the leash without my having to give him a treat every few steps, but not all the time. Sometimes he barrels on ahead when he's impatient to go outside or to the kitchen to eat.
He has gotten very consistent with the "search" game so I almost always start my training with that and then move to the more challenging commands.
I have taught him the "around" command to go around me and then sit at my side and he's pretty consistent with that one too. I have not tried it without a food reward yet, though.
Hi @IAMGiftbearer it's so good your puppy has you to care for him, and we hope he is feeling much better now 🧡
Susan's video on duration positions will be a good help - th-cam.com/video/gNnnoqLbTzk/w-d-xo.html
And below are Susan's videos for sit and down.
10 Ways to Train Sit - th-cam.com/video/WP9JRgKL2Ok/w-d-xo.html
10 Ways to Train Down - th-cam.com/video/E9IXKuewJDE/w-d-xo.html
Teach Your Dog To Down On Cue: Easy Shaping With A Bed - th-cam.com/video/P3z76PAz9AE/w-d-xo.html
Do you have a home school for air scent training?
Hi @RckyMtnGal in Wag Nation we have fun scenting games, but not for air scenting specifically (so far, we're always adding to Wag Nation with a new trick everyone month and love suggestions from members on what they'd like in the program).
What if we are already in homeschool the dog, i dont need the bundle I just want wag nation
Hi Amanda, as you are already an awesome member of the fabulous Home School the Dog, we've something extra special for you, so send a note to us at wag@dogsthat.com and our amazing team will help out
Yikes!!!! Now I’m confused. I have a 10 month old male GSD who unfortunately has a severe unrepairable cardiac defect which means that he is not a surgical candidate for anything including neutering. We are working on the Recallers class but I have also had him in the the basic obedience class thru our local AKC to try to provide some socialization for him because he can’t participate in vigorous play with other dogs because of his heart defect. This session has not been our best experience as there is another male dog about his same size and also not neutered and a 1 year old female dog who is going thru her first heat cycle. This boy of mine has been unable to focus on anything and is peeing at least once in class. I had decided that there are just too many distractions for him and that my stress level and overall feelings of dread with this class session (this is his 3rd session of classes there) are negatively impacting our relationship and his usual feelings of overwhelming joy and enthusiasm. Now I am questioning if I am just a perfect illustration of a negative mindset:(
I’m not a professional dog trainer but I do have a puppy who can get easily overwhelmed by the environment. I don’t think looking after your dog’s heart condition would qualify as a negative mindset. Personally, I would not participate in the class 100% because it was in my puppy’s best interest at the time to just hang out outside for a bit. I know Susan has other videos where she talks about being your puppy’s advocate and adjusting the “normal” protocol that people put on us for the puppy’s benefit. I think they might be listed in the puppy playlist. I’m sure others would have much better advice than mine, but I hope things about your situation become clearer for you! ❤
If you are taking Recallers, then I would also pose the question in Recallers chat forums and you’ll probably come across someone with a similar experience, and maybe ask the team of coaches directly. It just occurred to me that we have chat groups in the programs! 😊 lol
I'm no expert but have a rescue dog that wasn't socialised in the' vital periods. We have been slowly making progress by gradually helping her stay calm in environments that she struggles with. The key is not to let her get to the point where she goes over threshhold. In the begining that was literally having our windows open for a few moments a day so she could experience the smells and sounds of the ouutside world untill she could cope with that. Then we worked on the front door one tiny step at a time, we would put her harness on and walk around our flat; towards the door and back, reinforce her calm behaviour; slowly build up to rattling the door handle, reinforce the calm behaviour; opening and closing the door, reinforce the calm behaviour etc etc. It sound tedious and it is! But, it's far more humane and better for her over all welfare than putting a slip lead on her and dragging her out, then proceeding to choke her into 'submission' because she's 'stuborn'. To my shame, I let a trainer do that at the same time telling me that I was 'too soft' and that the reason she was behaving the way she was ie terrified was bcause she didn't respect me as her leader
I'd suggest taking a step back and working on eye contact and engagement games in quieter less distracting areas. learn as much as you can about stress signals and dog body languge to really see what your dog is communicating. My pooch, lets me know in subtle ways that she's uncomfortable that I havent read in any book, yet. She defocuses her eyes and stares off into the distance, when a sound triggers her for eg. Other people dont see it and think Im mad lol but I've used that communication many times to help stop her going over threshold.
I totally empathise with the stress you're feeling and that feeling of dread but keep going! Your dog is lucky to have found you 🙂