tags - burningpains dogs
“Hi, my name is Danyielle and I rescued a five mnth old Shiloh Shepherd named Hunter. He is huge and yet easy to handle on a leash, in fact perfect! The problems arise from squirrels and cats. He has run off twice and gotten free several times. He’s smart but he gets so excited he won’t look at me when i call him but i know he heard me cuz he twitches his ear. I have the patience and want us to have a strong bond but most of all I want to be one of those owners who can play off leash with my dog and not worry that he’s gonna run out of an unfenced area or away from me to get a squirrel or cat or something. Everyone here seems to have had amazing results and im sad to find out i missed it all. I also wanted to find out how much this course costs. Ihope a new one will start soon. But in the meantime im still searching on how to fix this troubling problem of half okay recall with Hunter. He’s not used to life outside of a crate since he was in a mill but he’s still young so im looking desperately for help on this. I live in a country small town area of Illinois so we dont have dog training facilities just wide open space and id love to play frisbie with him out in a retired corn field!”
“I admit I am at loss at teaching my youngest (just 1) to recall away out of play with others (then my own dogs). I just don’t know how to get a good setup for practice. Another reason is I feel insecure about is which reward I should use. … learning every day :)))”
“I will admit that I have terrible recalls on my dogs – I haven’t put nearly the time into them as any number of other “tricks” or behaviors. Maybe it is because I didn’t think I would be successful, and if I didn’t try then I had a reason … afraid to fail I guess, which I know sounds bizarre considering how important this is. I want to fix this, I want to believe I can do better for my dogs, even tho I am concerned because I don’t have a strong Tug / toy drive with them either. It would be immensely helpful if food reward options were presented, too, I think I have exceptional timing with food rewards. Thank you, Susan.”
“I have a 10 month old collie bitch. We came to us 5 months ago with no recall at all. Now she has one in the home but not outside! It is so frustrating as I am “doing all the right things!” Or am I? Please help! I’m starting to get very disheartened with her behaviour.”
“I have a 2 and a half year old german shepherd female. Up until about 6 months ago she had amazing recall, and never left the property and always came when called. It started to happen every now and then that she would take off and not come when I called her. Now if I dont make sure she is on a chain before I take her out she is gone almost instantly and wont even look back. Shes almost been hit by cars several times and Im terrified that one day I wont be able to find her or she will eventually be hit by a car. Now when I take her to the beach or to a park she doesn’t take off and listens very well… Please I desperately need help and advice!”
We don’t “do” obedience, but if I put her in a sit or down stay she will stay a very long time and will recall quickly. But all other recalls or hit and miss – and mostly miss! Anything that moves in or around the backyard is more interesting to her. Got her as a rescue and for the first 6 months recalls and other things were pretty good. Then I went back to school and lost the connection. She has a bad case of SDS. As everyone has said – my fault for letting it go by the wayside, but it’s like I never know when she will connect and when she won’t.
“She’ll go in spells of paying attention and doing well in the backyard and then not. At the training field she is more likely than not to do a jump or two and then take off and ignore me. I have learned to NOT go after her – that is self-defeating for me and evidently self-rewarding for her. I go the other direction and ignore her. She does eventually come back – but it’s definitely not a “recall.” Hopefully I’ll take this kick in the pants to get back into due diligence and start over on her recall and our relationship as well. Tomorrow starts another round of ruff love in the crate. I did that during the two week Christmas break and had good success. But alas I didn’t follow through long enough or strong enough. Shame on me, shame on me, shame on me.”
“Susan, timing is everything. Just earlier this week, my local agility trainer asks me what my homework would be for this week and the answer was a resounding “Recalls”. It drives me nuts that after years of training my loveable girl still wonders off when “she feels like it”. Who’s to blame: ME. She does what she has been allowed to do on too many occassions, i.e. follow her nose and find whatever bit of edible substance in the area around her. Obviously my challenge is to make myself to be the one and only “go to” object.”
“Thank you for your information. I need help with my 5 mo old 3 pound Miki puppy. She may be about 4 lbs. she is afraid of the pull on the leash or harness. She will play with leash and harness, wear her harness, but if I attached the leash and let her just walk around by herself to get used to it . She freezes will not move or go forward with a treat or toy? Please help. She does search well that you taught us. Thank you very much. I want to help her with her fear.”
“Since so many of his distractions happen when we are on walks, should we not walk him? That’s where I am confused. I agree with everything you are saying. I am just not sure how to execute it without keeping him locked inside the house all day where he can’t get sticks, leaves, and rocks (all of which he loves to put into his mouth) and then we have to fish them out for fear of him swallowing something terrible.”
“I just took my large dog for a walk and he pulled and would not stop barking at this other dog, and it was a bit scary. He’s four. My parents had always spanked them to train them, and I just found myself hitting him for it once I immediately took him back. We had tried positive reinforcements beforehand and they did not do anything at all…so we’ve resorted to this. I know I’m awful and wrong but I just don’t know what to do.”
“Please, please help. I love them so much and I can’t believe how horrible I just was to my big dog. I really smacked him across the nose, like three times. He doesn’t deserve that, he is wonderful and incredible. I feel so awful. Please, please, please help me.”
“What do I do with an untrainable dog? He’s 5 months old, and showing absolutely no progress in any areas at all, and I don’t know what to do. I’ve spent so much time trying to train him that my fiance feels neglected.”
“How do I crate train my dog? He absolutely hates it, and refuses to go in, even when I give him treats, and put toys inside. I try to be patient, but I need to leave the house nearly every day, and I don’t know how to handle it.”
“We’re trying to teach the difference between “up”, “down”, and “sit” with food, but she’s so focused on getting the food itself that she don’t even hear the word and just immediately goes for what she thinks we want (like going “down” instead of sitting, “up” if we correct her, etc). It was both funny and painful seeing someone at the park hold a stick for her to fetch and tell her to “sit” and she slid all the way “down”. She will actually sit when commanded if there’s no food involved though, so honestly I just think she’s an adhd little fatty, haha.”
“My 11 month old dog knows how to sit after I tell him to sit 7 times and give up asking and walk away.”
“Hey guys! Ive been teaching my puppy the basic commands like sit stay down , but he does it when he wants to do it, not everytime i ask him to. What routine should I stick to to train my dog? Do I have to revise a trick if he already knows it? How many times a day should he be trained? How long should the sessions last? Sorry for asking a lot of questions in advance!”
“This is amazing, my dog is 3 and he can do most but definitely not that fast! Do you have any tips on leash training? My dog practically chokes himself on every walk the entire time!! and when I try different tactics like changing direction when he pulls he doesn’t stop pulling at all and sometimes pulls harder! I don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve also tried chain collars and harnesses. Currently I’m stopping whenever he pulls and make him come and sit in front of me but he has shown zero improvement.”
“Mine is the exact same way, but he causes fights now. If I let him near another dog, there is always a scuffle. If we slowly introduce them (hours) they will be fine. But he even got in a fight with my girlfriends family puppy and now it has a little scar on its eye 😞. The sad thing is that he never used to be this way and it just started randomly one day.”
“One issue I’m facing with my dog is that his reactions are very context-dependent. If I have high value treats with me he’ll be way more likely to just ignore other dogs, but the moment I stash them away or forget them at home he’ll revert back to his old reactive behaviours in no time. It’s quite frustrating because we have been training for more than a year, and it seems all the approaches we’ve tried only work as a management tool to distract and not to actually change his behaviours.”
“Man that’s awesome. My pup won’t stop biting everything it’s driving me insane. She’s still getting her adult teeth so I hope it ends then”
“I’m worried our dog will be jealous of baby. I’d hate to have to re-home him if he tries to bite.”
“I love them so so so much and don’t want them to feel left out or neglected (when baby arrives). It’s been worrying me a lot lately.”
“I feel terribly guilty about this but since I brought my newborn home, my tolerance for my dog has completely gone!”
“Having them together (baby and dog) makes me really nervous.”
“Following on from our conversation about my dog Kiwi, I was just wondering if you knew anyone who helped to get dogs adopted. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and feel that it would be best for Kiwi if she were somewhere that she could have regular walks and runs. Unfortunately I am unable to give her the attention she needs due to illness and have tried to contact adoption centres. They don’t want to know due to Kiwi’s issues with other dogs. We would be prepared to pay whoever took her on £30 a month to help cover her care. Just thought that I would run this past you. Sorry it came out of the blue but I feel guilty every day. She is in a loving home with a garden so there’s no rush. She just needs more input.”