i know this has been covered en nauseam ... but i just wanted to see if there was any other suggestions to help the process along , or keep the process as painless as possible.
He is 16 weeks and does great with distance, and time. For example, if the dogs are far enough away, good. If he's been near a dog for 5-10 mins good.
So what we do now is be mindful of the distance , and distract , distract, distract. And if he's ok, decrease the distance... slowly.
Stay calm yourself and try not to tighten up the leash. Yes, I know it is hard if the pup starts pulling, just make sure you don't tighten first. Shorten yes but make sure there is slack.
Also, try not to get frustrated. It is the old Three Steps Forward Two Steps Back routine. Much depends on the other dog. But even if the other dog is barking and jumping at the end of their leash, just keep moving calmly with yours and treat after a good pass. I found that trying to use the treat to distract from the other dog didn't work for me. In fact it might even hurt...consider this: " I see the other dog and bark and pull and go back to my person and get a treat! I like getting treats for barking and pulling.....". So I save treats or games of tug only for calm passes.
I also took my dogs to a small group class at about 1 1/2. This gave me a nice controlled place where my dogs could learn to work in a room with other people and dogs. Of course you don't have to wait that long. That just happened to be the right timing for mine.
update puppy is doing great! Alot of manhours have gone into this process.
We have sat outside dog parks, middle of our park, in our garage, and gone to a few dog events ( flooding).
He's improved tremendously, and just yesterday, he started to look at me for a treat when he saw a dog ( success!)
We started with distance, then decreased it slowly.. we distract , add distance, movement and add treat( High value like lunch meat) .
We keep the leash as loose a possible, and no corrections are given, just a leave it.
feels good when the dog "gets it" and it feels like you guys are on the same page. Don't get discouraged when your pup back slides. Just roll your training back a step or two and the progress on.
absolutely, there are alot 2 steps forward, one step back! He lets me know when he's "done" and I respect that. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out why hes being (%$$#@$) but i 'm catching on lol
Re update... i read alot of old threads and I always wonder how it all turned out, so I thought i would update a few
Sounds awesome... we're just going through this now so its good to read something positive.
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