Teaching Focus

[pfitzpa1]

So when the dog doesn't hold the look (looks away, or at the hands) what do you do. I started saying "no" when my dog looked away and she got a bit confused and stopped looking at me in the first place, so it seems like acknowledging the break is not a good thing.

I started again from scratch and omitted the no this time and it worked better. I used cat kibble as treats so I could do a lot of repeats.

[mnbue]

Originally Posted by Zisso

I truly enjoy this thread! My problem is that having a GSD at 1.5 yrs who was taught nothing prior to two months ago when I adopted him, he seems to have no will to THINK- if he doesn't get what is offered he will lose interest altogether and lay down, or watch the crows fly overhead, or.... - he will simply not pay attention no matter what I try. He will look up if I hold the treat or toy to my face, but he is looking at that item, not at me. Any suggestions?

My dog was never particularly food motivated, and I started all my training using a ball as a reward. That being said, when we started getting into training things that required more "fine detail", correct positioning etc, I found that the ball was *too much* motivation (he stopped thinking), so I found I had to try food, and initially had the same problem you're describing.

What eventually worked is that I didn't feed him for one meal (he normally gets his food split into two meals a day), then at the next meal time, I "charged" the YES marker with treats (aka his kibble) as per marker training...doing it only for as long as he was showing interest, and putting the kibble away once he lost focus. When he started looking hungry again, we tried again. Once he understood that the food (and the YES marker) were important, because that was the only way to get fed, he paid a lot more attention any time I brought food out.

As someone explained it once to me, some dogs have lots of motivation naturally, but you can always build motivation even in a lower-drive dog. And you build motivation by denying the dog something it wants, and then eventually making it possible to get it, but only with some real effort. Same thing with a toy - if he's always had easy access to lots of playthings, it's not that exciting to be asked to do something for one more. Now every time I feed my dog, I take about 30 seconds to make him run through a bunch of commands before he gets his bowl...and although he has a couple of chew toys to keep him from getting too bored in the house/dog run, we keep it to a minimum, and the "active toys" that he really likes (balls, tug etc) are only brought out when it's time to play/train with me.

[pravyored]

Hi.Iam trying to train my 1.5 yr male GSD, which was not trained earlier. Can anyone suggest me the best training book available in the market???