Listening outside of training

[sspbass]

My GSD Athena does excellent during our training sessions. She acts like its a race for her to see how fast she can do what I want. (just basic obedience)
When we are not training or there are other people around she's typically not very interested in listening. How do I go about getting her to listen outside of training as well as she does during training?

[Ucdcrush]

Are you providing a consequence when she does not obey in those other situations? Just to keep it simple, she is not obeying because she finds whatever else she's doing rewarding, and is apparently not worried about receiving a correction/punishment for not obeying.

How do you correct when the dog is disobedient during a training session?

One thing to try is to put her leash on when there are other people around etc., so you retain some control (even if it's just psychological control from the leash being there), then practice the obedience.

[sspbass]

typically the consequences of not listening are crate timeout if were inside or back on her leash if were outside. She's only 5 months old so I'm not sure how much to expect from her.

[jent]

I don't think "timeouts" are very effective forms of correction. They are not instant enough, you have to drag/move, the dog has already forgotten the negative behavior by the time they are being corrected.

First piece of advice:
* Don't give a command you can't enforce...if she does not listen to recall (for example) while other people are around, then don't try to recall her unless she is on a lanyard and it can be enforced....be prepared, and make sure your in a situation where you can enforce the command before people come over, etc. If you can't enforce it, then it is better to not issue a command at all.

* Your corrects need to be more instant...often times a load "barked" NO! can be very effective to most dogs. Firm, stern, and loud, dogs understand it....if she continues to disobey, then correction should become more severe.

[sit,stay]

Every time we interact with our dogs we are training them. That doesn't necessarily mean that what they are learning is what we want them to learn, but they are learning something with every interaction.

It sounds to me more like you haven't "proofed" the behavior enough. Yes, she listens when you're "training" and everything is geared towards that. But what about when things are not geared towards that? When there are tons of distractions?

She needs to learn how to respond appropriately when there are distractions, so start with little distractions that are far away and work on getting that rock solid response in that situation. And just keep adding more and more distractions, until she eventually learns that listening and responding is the same regardless of what is going on around her.

Train in different environments, too. She'll get the idea.
Sheilah

[doggiedad]

train and socialize outside of training.

Originally Posted by sspbass

My GSD Athena does excellent during our training sessions. She acts like its a race for her to see how fast she can do what I want. (just basic obedience)
When we are not training or there are other people around she's typically not very interested in listening. How do I go about getting her to listen outside of training as well as she does during training?

[benjamin1]

Originally Posted by Ucdcrush

Are you providing a consequence when she does not obey in those other situations? Just to keep it simple, she is not obeying because she finds whatever else she's doing rewarding, and is apparently not worried about receiving a correction/punishment for not obeying.

How do you correct when the dog is disobedient during a training session?

One thing to try is to put her leash on when there are other people around etc., so you retain some control (even if it's just psychological control from the leash being there), then practice the obedience.

yes, i find this works great reward means dog is doing good if punshiment means bad. The dog will start thinking this way if you keep doing.