Final question of the evening...I promise. Training/asking too much?

[Patches]

Hubby thinks I'm asking too much of Harvey. Wanted your opinions.

So far we have "sit", "down", "up" and "stand" pretty much sorted. I've been working on trust/take it the last couple of days and am pleased to say he will sit and trust without needing any restraining now, whilst looking at a few bits of kibble on the floor and waiting for the signal to "take it".

Hubby thinks I should take a step back and expecting a 13 week old to "trust" is a bit much. Is it really? Yes I've had to do alot of "ahh ahh" and stern "no's" when he was trying to lunge for the treats but I think I should start now...even if it takes several weeks to fine tune. Obviously I only ask it for a couple of seconds. He "sits/trust" then has to "look at mummy" to take his gaze off the treats and I then click fingers and say "take it" as soon as he's looked at me. The end result is that I will be able to get him to sit and trust whilst I place his food bowl on the floor.....as I cannot abide dogs that jump up at you when putting food down for them.

I was so impressed that he just sat and stayed still to the command "trust" without me having to hook a finger in his collar/hand on his chest if not wearing a collar (I had been doing that and waiting for him to stop pulling/pushing against me before giving the command "take it") that I was beaming...then hubby tells me not to take away his childhood and mischievous months!

He's so soft it's unreal! He'll thank me in the future, won't he?

Harvey recalls to "Harvey - come". He understands "off" when he's jumping up as he stops doing it and sits...whereby he is then stroked.

I'm so pleased with him. He's lapping up the attention/mental stimulation.

 

[soloabe]

I don't think its ever to early.

He will let you know when he has had enough and its not like you are asking for these behaviors for extended periods of time.

When he goes through his teenage years your OH will be thanking you that he will at least sit!

 

[CorvusCorax]

I would lay off doing *too* many sits/downs at a very young age to prevent damage to rubbery bones.

I would also keep training sessions very short at each time, a dog can go off the boil if it is faced with too much at a young age.

'No' is the first and most important command a dog can learn, it could help save their lives.

However yes, the mental stimulation is very important and IMO you can't teach recall early enough.

Me and mum had a fab time on the beach today doing recall with ours - I held them, she called, I didn't let go until they were jumping to get to her, then when she had them, I would run like mad up the beach, calling them and giving bear hugs when they caught up, then back to mum again.
Making recall fun is the best thing you can do

I'd be pleased with a puppy at his level at that age.
I'm going to PM you a video I never get tired of watching, show yer hubby!!!

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Actually, I think you're both right. I think it sounds as if what you do is somewhat reasonable but I also think that what your husband is saying, is somewhat reasonable. Puppyhood should be full of fun spiced with some training, so it is all down to how you balance it, one doesn't need to exclude the other.



I don't agree about that 'No' is the most important command a dog can learn, just to begin somewhere, e.g. for any 'No' training to be able to save your dogs life, it requires that the owner actually remembers to use 'No' in the life-threatening situation!

I know about several people who have not remembered to use 'No', they have used commands their dog had not been taught, they have used completely irrelevant words etc, what has mattered was if the tone in their voice, have made it clear that the puppy/dog was in great danger.



Another thing is that I've met and heard about so many owners who have taught their dogs that 'No' means nothing, because they hear it all the time, it is simply the word that seems to be in the beginning of each sentence. (I'm talking in general here, not about you Patches.)

E.g. "No, don't gnaw on the sofa", "No, don't gnaw on me", "No, leave the houseplants alone", "No, our shoes are not your toys", "No, don't pull on the lead", "No, don't pee indoors", "No, don't poo indoors", "No, don't run away when I want you to come", "No, don't bark", "No, don't object if I want to take your bone", "No, don't eat your food until I've said you can", "No, you shouldn't sit like that, you should sit as I want", "No, not now, go to your bed", "No, don't jump up on people", "No, don't steal food from the table", "No, don't eat whatever crap other people have left behind out on our walks", "No, the jogger isn't playing Catch-me-if-you-can with you", "No, don't do that", "No, don't do this", "No, don't do so" and "No, don't do such"...

And then the owner wonders why their dog doesn't care when they tell them 'No'? *sigh*


This might sound as if I'm against people learning their puppy/dog to respect a 'No' but I'm not. I'm all for a restricted use of the word 'No' but I also believe that a lot of training can be done just as well or maybe even better without the use of 'No'.



To get back to you and Harvey, why do you need to do a lot of 'Ah Ah' or stern 'No's in this particular training Patches? Is it a 'NO!' situation training as in "Don't eat the reward because I know it is rat poison!" (where I would give them another reward in the end and not let them eat the fake rat poisoned one) or are you simply training him to wait and/or look at you for permission before he gets to take the reward?

Why not simply place the reward so that if he doesn't wait, if he doesn't look at you, you put your hand or foot over the reward and simply not getting the reward when he wants it, will both become an unspoken 'No' and force him to use his own brain to figure out what he needs to do to get it.


Otherwise I'm with CaveCanem on everything and can only copy her and say that I think you should be pleased over where he already is, considering training and his age, keep the training sessions short and practise recall as much as possible.

 

[CorvusCorax]

I don't mean the actual word 'no', the word can be 'chocolate biscuits' - FI my dogs react to 'no' 'ah-ah' 'stop' 'enough' 'wait' - I mean the implication being that whatever the dog is doing right at that second, it must stop.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

One day when Jonna was a little puppy and she and my mother was walking around making sure the fence around our summer house garden was whole, mother spotted a hole just as Jonna went through it and she was quickly and suddenly almost halfway up on the road!

Because of course the hole was towards the road, where those people who does drive by, in general drives by quite fast coming down a small hill! Though there was no car in sight that day, my mother panicked and as I recall, she mostly just screamed something like "THE ROAD, JONNA IS ON THE ROAD! ARGH! YLVA! YLVA! THE ROOAAD!"

Luckily, Jonna understood fully well that the screams meant death and danger, run for your life and even luckier, she had enough sense to want to run home for safety! So she turned around and ran for her life back in through the hole, straight past my mother and on her way back to the front door of our house, I caught her.

I swear that the road is not any words that I had/have trained Jonna to respond on. As you say, if my mother had screamed CHOCOLATE BISCUITS! instead in the same panicky voice, Jonna would still have understood that it meant death and danger, run for your life!