backyard training and the irritating dogs next door

[WorkingmyMojo]

With the break in the weather a few weeks ago, I decided to move our training to the backyard. Great idea, right? Wrong! The neighbor likes to let her Chihuahuas out every time we are out. This wouldn't be a problem but my GSD doesn't like them and starts to protect his side of the fence. Meanwhile her 3 little dogs are running and barking their heads off. BTW, this has been a problem since we originally got him because her dogs receive no training and there is no pack leader. I should also had that her alpha tried to attack my GSD when he was 3 months old. The other side of this is he loves the neighbors on both sides of our house and they have to come and say hello to him. During all of this I'm trying to get a down/stay or even a retrieve. I end up irritated and that's no mood to train or teach anybody. Any chance for some type of training has been blown and it's back to training in the house. I'm at a loss for what to do. I know I need to work on focus but is there something else I can do/should be doing other than building a 6ft privacy fence? Should I put him on a lead? Also, our yard is fully fenced currently. Thanks for any advice you guys can give.

[4TheDawgies]

Why not go to an open field, a park, etc.

[Courtney]

My dad put slates in his chainlink fence...it was time consuming but worked well for them because of their neighbors dogs....actually my parents dogs are the offenders in this case!

[Courtney]

Shop Chain-Link Privacy Slats at Lowes.com

[StephenV]

Do your training in the yard on a lead, keeping his focus on you until he is desensitized to the chihuahuas. Use the lead to control and redirect his focus on you and reward him for ignoring them.

[jourdan]

Have you tried speaking with the neighbors? If there is a specific time of day that you could be out there training? Maybe ask your neighbor to bring the dogs inside during that time. I would try that first before buying a bunch of stuff to block view.


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[DunRingill]

I would use it as a training opportunity....initially scale back on what you originally planned on doing, and use extra high-power rewards. Definitely keep the dog on lead.

If this was my dog, I'd start out working as far away from the distractions as possible, and make the reward so big that he really wants MORE. Start out working on something EASY and end on success. You can always go back later and do more, but don't keep working until something goes wrong!

Ignore the noisy little pains in the butt, don't even acknowledge their presence. Don't even make comments to your dog about them. Completely ignore them. When you pay too much attention to something, your dog gets the idea that it's something important, something to worry about, and he joins you in paying attention to the distraction.

[Franksmom]

Sounds like close to what I had to work Frank through here, our neighbors have an invisible fence and 2 cattle dogs that go into full attack mode when I go out our door with my dogs. I can't put a fence in and Frank thought the dogs were free to come straight for him since he didn't understand there was a line there they wouldn't cross (I don't' trust the fence but it does seem to work for them)
I used the neighbor dogs to really work on distraction training, On leash of course, I used LAT a lot! along with the "leave it" command.
I take him out to our field to train every thing else.
He's gone from trying to go after them, to being able to do his on leash workout with the dogs there, I still do not trust him off leash with the dogs there.
It's taken time to train was not something that happened over night.

My other 2 dogs are border collies and I wish I could read their minds because at times I think it would go like this "Lets sit on the side walk, see here they come, ZAP!, yep they never learn" Doggy laughs, "lets do it again " doggy laughs, sometimes I swear I see those 2 smile.

[skew12]

maybe some thick bushes could muffle the sound a bit. at least on your dog's level.

[kam214]

Originally Posted by DunRingill

I would use it as a training opportunity....initially scale back on what you originally planned on doing, and use extra high-power rewards. Definitely keep the dog on lead.

If this was my dog, I'd start out working as far away from the distractions as possible, and make the reward so big that he really wants MORE. Start out working on something EASY and end on success. You can always go back later and do more, but don't keep working until something goes wrong!

Ignore the noisy little pains in the butt, don't even acknowledge their presence. Don't even make comments to your dog about them. Completely ignore them. When you pay too much attention to something, your dog gets the idea that it's something important, something to worry about, and he joins you in paying attention to the distraction.

THIS!!! 100%