# Correct response for stubborn refusal?



## fjm

I think it is less stubbornness, more not enough repeats in the training. We all tend to start training, get to the stage where the dog responds, and then reckon they have "got it" forever more. At 17 weeks she is still a baby, with a short attention span and lots and lots to learn. The way to get a reliable response is to train it, over and over, in short bursts, in different rooms, at different times of day, building up first distance, then duration, then distraction - and going back to the beginning for each one. Just because she understands what Sit means in the kitchen doesn't mean she will understand it means the same thing in the garden. Take a look at "Train your dog like a pro" by Jean Donaldson - very helpful for reminding us that once or twice does not mean got it for always!

I would be wary of yelling No! - what exactly are you trying to tell her? No - don't do what you are doing? No - run away from me? No - your owner is behaving erratically, be scared? Turning away for a few seconds and ignoring her is better, but recognising she needs more training is probably better. And I would up the rate of rewards for a while, too, especially while she is so young, but vary them with games and life rewards, as well as food treats.


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## JE-UK

I save a strong "NO!!" for life-threatening situations. Much like swearing, the less you use it, the more impressive it is . I would roar NO!! at my dog if he were preparing to chase a cat into a road, not if he 'forgot' how to sit.

Two things - be careful what you teach the puppy at this age, and be aware that they have the attention span of a gnat.

I grew up fighting with proponents of the old yank-and-crank methods of training, and I've always trained with food. I love the trend now towards completely positive training, and that's what I've tried to do with my 16 month old dog.

I want being with me, and working with me, to be the all-time best-ever thing in his little life. Working with/for me means attention, treats, games, happy voices. 

When Vasco doesn't do something I've asked him to do, it is for one of two reasons. Either he doesn't understand, or I haven't made it rewarding enough. If I'm training a particular thing with food rewards, are my rewards good enough? If I'm training with toys/games as a reward, is the toy more fun than whatever else he is currently interested in? 

I'd be careful with any negative feedback to the dog at this point. When V was that age, if he wasn't interested in training, I'd sometimes turn away and go do something else. In other words, I was offering interaction (on my terms), he chose not to interact, I then chose not to interact. When he tried to entice me to play, I'd start again with a very short training session, then reward with a game.

Training sessions at that age should be super short, max 5 minutes. But you can do a dozen a day. I did training before we went for a walk, before feeding, before playing with the puppy, any opportunity, but short and positive. You want to be the best thing in your dog's life, the ultimate GTFP.


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## Feralpudel

I think the key question is does Lilith understand what is being asked of her when you give her a specific command? Certain commands such as sit, down, stay, and come are incredibly useful in day-to-day life, and can save a dog's life. If Lilith ignores a first command, help her be right. If she accepts being placed into position, you can gently scoop her into a sit, for example, or she can be placed back into a stay. This should not involve any emotion. Try very hard not to repeat a command, as it just teaches her that it's OK to ignore the first one. 

Helping her to do what you just asked her to do removes the sticky question of doggie "intent." It may be that she is entering a teenage phase, or she may not yet understand that commands aren't optional/negotiable. In either case, helping her be right with a minimum of emotion on your part should improve her consistency. 

Google Sue Ailsby Dragonfly Lllama for her webpage. She describes a series of levels of training that can help you understand how a dog can be expected to progress from a very rudimentary understanding of a command to performing that command consistently in demanding circumstances.


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## cbrand

Poodles will absolutely test you. They are smart and at some point, I think all of them try to find out if you are going to enforce what is being asked of them, or if they can choose for themselves when and what they will comply with. I think this is a critical training time because all too many Poodles end up realizing that their owners won't/can't set boundaries and the Poodles end up running the show.

Yelling NO is completely ineffective. The word NO should only be used when the dog is doing a behavior that MUST STOP IMMEDIATELY: counter surfing, running into the street etc. It can not be used when a dog does not comply with a given direction.

In training, I like to use both treats and physical corrections. I think a fair, well-timed and consistent correction helps solidify training. Corrections don't have to be hard and the Poodle quickly understands that the correction is a logical consequence on non-compliance, just as it comes to realize that treats are a logical consequence of compliance. In my experience in competitive Obedience, dogs trained with both treats and corrections get farther in their training than dogs trained with positive training only (in fact, I don't know a single competition person who only uses positive training).

So, what to do when Fluffy doesn't sit? I do all of my training always on leash. I try to never, never, never, never ask for a behavior that I can't either enforce or treat. All this assumes that Fluffy has a training foundation. This is not the way to initially train a sit. This is correction for a dog that knows the command and is refusing to comply. If I say SIT and Fluffy's butt doesn't hit the ground, I would deliver quick collar pop upwards on the collar while simultaneously pushing down on the hind quarters. Once the bottom is down, it is time to PARTY PARTY PARTY. The dog will quickly come to understand that if it sits it gets PARTY/TREATS and if it doesn't, it gets a correction. Poodles are smart enough to know which side their bread is buttered on!


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## Lilith

Yeah, 'no!' definitely didn't feel "right". I tried it twice and abadoned it when the 2nd time failed.

We do 'sit' and other basic commands (or used to) at home, outside, at the cafe, at the park ("high 5!", our version of 'give paw', was a huge favorite of the kids),... I'm confident she knows the commands. She knows 'sit' from up or down position, on or off leash. She knows it as "sente" (portuguese). Other random strangers in the park would tell her "Lili, SIT!" (or, "LeeLee, SENTE!"), and down she would go (either language). She has to sit in order to get meals, or to start play sessions, or to have me throw her ball.

It could definitely be that she doesn't understand that SIT is not a game she can choose to play but is a command, though, as opposed to stubbornness. Hard to tell. But suddenly we're down to about a 60% compliance rate with 'sit' (at home, where she was originally trained, and where there are few if any distractions), and probably more like 30% with 'down' (for that reason a friend told me it was stubbornness, or 'teenage rebellion' as one post mentioned, as 'down' gives up more power to me). She does 'high 5' still with 100% accuracy (and tries to give paw when I tell her 'down' until she sees that will not win her praise or a treat, then she will go down).

She sometimes also will go as close to the floor as she can without actually relaxing into a 'down' and pause to see if that will work, then jumps back up and gets rowdy when it doesn't win her the treat. Hence my assumption that she is 'testing'.

Good suggestions from you all, though (as usual!), and that website is very interesting. Will incorporate and keep on working at it! Want to get this right with the basic commands so that I increase probability of success with the really critical 'stay' and 'come here' (which we had just started - she actually does 'stay' pretty well yet but it's likely because it's new and not boring,.. I know boredom is probably contributing, but it's hard to move forward when I can't get her to do the basics) :dog:

Thanks all!


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## CharismaticMillie

Cbrand has given excellent advice. I had the same issue with Millie. I was using purely positive training and I was confident that she knew exactly what "sit" and "down" meant. She was also at a 60% compliance rate, or so. I began using collar corrections and she immediately learned that she was required to comply. She now does "sit" and "down" with exuberance and a 99% compliance rate. Positive reinforment is wonderful, but some dogs do need a simple correction as guidance. This piece trains them that your commands are not negotiable.


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## PaddleAddict

Just my two cents, but we recently started a training class with a wonderful trainer. It's 100% positive (no corrections). This week in class, the trainer wanted to get Jager to lie down without asking him. So he asked for a sit, click treat, then just stood there and said nothing and didn't move. Jager immediately sat, of course, and when that did not elicit a click/treat, he stood, then sat again, then jumped up on the trainer's legs, then sat again. Finally, he went into a down and it was a party with a click and a few treats. For the rest of class, whenever we happened to be near the trainer, Jager would stare up at him and then immediately plaster himself to the ground, all the while wagging his tail and staring up at the trainer as if he was thinking "I know this game, this is what he wants!" He thought it was so much fun.

The more we have practiced togther this past month, the more reliable he has become with his responses, even when I don't have a treat on hand. I think he is just enjoying the positive training so much, trying to earn clicks and treats, having to think (and he's so smart). We have been practicing loose leash walking and he is so good at it now, even when I am not actively treating him.

Also, if I REALLY want to get a fast response we work with his toys (sit or down earns a fetch game, which he loves). His toys are actually higher value to him than most treats (other than chicken).

I know some people think a combo of positive training and corrections works best and I don't have anything against it, but it's just not for me anymore. I have worked this way with dogs I've owned in the past (a golden retriever and then a shepherd mix), and it DID work, but my dogs weren't nearly as excited and happy about training as Jager is with just the positive training. Everytime I bring out the clicker, he gets so excited, wondering what the new "game" will be.


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## Karma'sACat

That is ALOT of things for a 17 week old pup to remember. I would slow down and go back to basics. Lots of short sessions in various places. Are you clicker training? This really helped Lola understand exactly what she was getting rewarded for. If you are, are you clicking at the right time? You want to make sure you are clicking as soon as the behavior happens, not after.
Also, are you using any hand signals or just words? Hand signals are exceptionally helpful to dogs and I start with those and add the words (which are harder for dogs to understand) in later once they know the behavior.


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## JE-UK

Be careful too that you aren't asking the dog for something with confusing signals.

For a dog, sitting in front of you is a different task than sitting at a distance. For a puppy, sitting in the park may be seen as a different task than sitting at the vet's office.

I have to watch my body language, as Vasco is very sensitive to posture and unintentional hand commands. Dogs are brilliant at ready body language, and you may be using the same verbal command but in different postures, so the dog may not be reading them as the same commands.

My obedience trainer has a standard training completely with positive methods, and the dog is fantastic. Sharp obedience competitor and working on gundog now.


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## fjm

While I prefer reward based methods, I don't think a gentle penalty does much harm (although I have read too much about neck and throat damage to ever use a leash correction). But I would use them very warily at 17 weeks. It was always believed that traditional dog training - involving lots of push and pull - was too much for puppies less than 6 months old. I think that as Karma says you have a very bright, intelligent pup, who is learning fast, but may need early stuff revisiting as she learns more and more about the world. I know many dogs who dislike lying flat to the ground, particularly on certain surfaces. I have always considered it more a matter of comfort than status - mine do not like cold, hard surfaces in contact with warm tummies, especially Poppy when she has just been clipped! Bit like the bum-hovering sit when the pavement is wet.

And I absolutely agree about the lightbulb moment when they discover something for themselves. My two now know that they have to lie quietly while I refill the Dog Brick. Poppy can hardly contain her excitement, but every time she jumps up I stop filling. It took less than two minutes for her to get the message!


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## Lilith

Hmm.. yeah I probably should pay attention to my body language. She is indeed exquisitely sensitive to cues. "sit" and "down" were so generalized, though (with other people successfully getting her to do these as well - which to me means she knew the word not just the body language) that I'm still certain it's a lack of understanding that the commands are commands and not requests. And FJM, you might also be right that she doesn't feel comfortable in a flat down - I'll have to start watching to see if her performance is better on some surfaces than others.

But for other things we're doing it will be helpful to me to watch the body language. And actually I have not used hand cues for sit or down, so perhaps I'll add those to reinforce (and add some novelty). Will try going to more leash training as well so that I can enforce as well as praise. And we were using the clicker but I got lazy with it, so that's also something we can go back to...


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## FozziesMom

You are getting great advice and I especialyl want to back up the parts about not yelling in this instance. Poodles can be quite sensitive and if you yell you may frighten the dog which lessens trust and compliance.

Now a tip I learned just recently. Fozz is now 15 months and "down" is still not 100% compliance .I talked to the trainer who is teaching our nosework class and asked for her advice. she said, to always give the treat ON THE GROUND. We had been giving the treat at mouth level and so Fozzie wasn't making the connection. I started doing "down" work again but this time putting my finger on the ground (not just pointing down at waist height), and then giving the treat on the ground. This has resulted in marked improvement in down in just two weeks. 

Now if I could just find the equivalent of this for "stay" .


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## fjm

Very good point, FM. For Stay, are you rewarding for position, or when he has already moved? I am now reading How to Train Your Dog Like a Pro - wow, makes me realise how much I expect my dogs to make huge intuitive leaps in learning! It is an excellent, detailed guide to the nuts and bolts of training, and explains why so many of us are not terribly successful!


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## JE-UK

I've recently changed how I'm working stays, because we are now working on longer and longer stays.

I DON'T reward at the end, on the release.

Instead, I put Vasco in a stay, (sit, stand, or down) then walk away and loop back, treat, reinforce the STAY cue, walk away again, etc. etc. Over time, I'm making my loops bigger and longer.

I'm trying to build reliable stays, and so far seems to be working. The other day, I released him and he STILL held his stay, so that's a good sign!

Stay is REALLY hard for a poodle that wants to be glued to me all the time!


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## Feralpudel

Lilith said:


> And actually I have not used hand cues for sit or down, so perhaps I'll add those to reinforce (and add some novelty).


I've found dogs respond more quickly to hand signals than voice, assuming he is looking at you! I use both routinely for sit and down especially. The hand signal is great if she is going through a "I don't wanna" teenage phase because you can hold it to remind her that you've told her to do something, whereas you'd feel pretty silly saying downnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. 

Definitely try working with the clicker to condition fast, happy sits and downs. Puppy pushups are a great exercise for a bored pup in class, or a dog at home that needs a little work to do. Assuming Lilith also knows a stand command, you just rotate among stand, down, and sit in quick succession, interspersed with praise and treats. You can also mix in tricks such as a palm touch and backup. The goal is fast, happy, reflexive compliance.


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## Lilith

Did you all see this news report yesterday? Made me laugh,..
_"At the end of the day, dogs may rely on humans, but they also use their skills to manipulate their owners and the world they live in. "_



Inside the science of how dogs think 
By Randi Kaye, AC360 Correspondent 
November 18, 2010 10:40 a.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

· Brian Hare and a team of graduate students at Duke University study how dogs think 

· Domestication has made dogs more intelligent, but they're still not perfect, Hare says 

· Dogs are social and understand the different relationships they have with different people 

· Hare: "They can solve almost any problem if they rely on people"



(CNN) -- Sit! Shake! Quit barking! Get off the couch! Go find your toy!

Ever wonder what your dog is thinking as it gazes at you while you are barking commands?

Duke University's Canine Cognition Center in Durham, North Carolina, is one of the few labs in the country focused on how dogs think.

"We're excited about describing the psychology of our dogs," says professor Brian Hare, the lab's director. "Different dogs solve different problems differently. And what we want to understand is: What is it that either makes dogs remarkable as a species or what is it that constrains the ability of dogs to solve problems?"

To test the dogs' ability, Hare and a team of graduate students put dogs through a variety of games similar to those you might play with young children.

"We don't want to look at cute pet tricks. What we want to know is, what does the dog understand about its world?" Hare said.

Hare has been analyzing our four-legged friends for about 15 years. He says dogs have figured out how to read human behavior and human gestures better than any other species has, even chimpanzees. 

"The way they think about their world is that people are superimportant and they can solve almost any problem if they rely on people," says Hare.

Children start relying on adults' gestures when they're about a year old. That's about the same age that dogs start to recognize and rely on humans, too, Hare says.

When both I and Hare tried to direct Hare's dog Tazzie to a cup that had a treat in it, Tazzie took his master's cue and went toward the cup. I was a stranger to Tazzie, so the dog didn't rely on my information.

"He's grown up with me," says Hare. "We do lots of stuff together. He's never met you before, so he's saying, look, if they're both telling me where to go, I'm going to trust the guy who I'm with all the time."

According to Hare, this proves dogs are complex social animals who understand they have different relationships with different people.

"They really narrow in and pay attention to you and they want to know what it is about the world that you can help them with," he says.

Researchers at Duke are studying dogs to better understand their limitations. If they can identify why dogs make mistakes, they believe they can help them improve. That could mean making dogs better at working with people with disabilities or better at working with the military.

"They are a very different species and they think about the world differently than we do. And we need to figure out what are the constraints on how they solve problems, how is it that they think differently from us. And I think that we're going to be able to have a much, even richer relationship with dogs than we already do if we figure all that out," says Hare.

The professor says even though domestication has made dogs smarter, they are not perfect. Still, they're so smart, he says, that they can understand the principle of connectivity. 

"They know they're connected on a leash and [dogs reason] 'Well, now I have to listen, because if I don't do what you say you can stop me. Where if I'm ... not on a leash, well, yeah, I know the command but I don't have to listen to you now,'" explains Hare.

And just like children, dogs also understand that if you turn your back, they can misbehave, especially after their owners have told them not to do something. 

"Your dog takes the food you just told it not to take, and you're really upset because your dog disobeyed you, and you think that your dog is not obedient. Well, no, no, no, your dog was obedient but it realized that it could get away with it," says Hare.

At the end of the day, dogs may rely on humans, but they also use their skills to manipulate their owners and the world they live in. And even though dog owners like to think they're in command, the professor says it may actually be Fido who is really in charge.


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## Rocketagility

First thing you say is My Pup 17 weeks! Ok why are you putting so much pressure on your baby dog? Train your dog with positive reinforcements and stop using negitives like NO and ah ah and yuck and any other Non Reward Marker.

Next I beleive dogs learn things and put them in short term memory and then move that info to long term memory during this move (2 weeks) they stop being as responsive to the command that you thought you had, just work through this period.

As for your training book through it away!

Your puppy is not testing you at all get that out of your head I bet your dog would try and do anything you asked with in her powers, it is your job to encourage your dog and shape your dog and guide your dog like a leader and not a dictator.

So with my latest dog I was going to our dog club every night for an hour to train my puppy and at first he was awesome he worked for the full hour and we had a ball and the stuff he can do is just great. But as time went on our training session got shorter and shorter, now the thing that changed was I expected more and more and I was using Non Reward Markers like No and ah ah and Yuck etc. So basically my dog started to shutdown and get frustrated. I had become a bad trainer, I then went to 2 very key seminars one showing that I had poisoned the cue with my dog and then one with Susan Garrett that showed me how to train using Shaping and operant conditioning. I then went back to training without the use of NRM and the word NO and our training sessions went back to an hour long and I now have a happier dog that will keep trying.

Just be consistant and learn about shaping also one command and wait and then reward. I see older dogs that just shut out there owners and don't do simple commands like you say and the owner is pleading with there dog or pushing them with there hands etc. I then say step back a bit use one command and wait one dog we waited 5 minutes for the sit but that dog did sit and he was rewarded the next sit took half the time and before to long the dog now knows what to do and he knows he wont be nagged or physically corrected.

Find a good positive dog training class.


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## Rocketagility

Lilith said:


> Will try going to more leash training as well so that I can enforce as well as praise. And we were using the clicker but I got lazy with it, so that's also something we can go back to...


So leash training as in correction? Enforce? Then you say you got lazy with the clicker. Look you are trying to use a force based method with a positive type method you are not being fair to your dog start with one method and master it. How would you like it if someone slapped you when you made a mistake but a minute later thay are smiling and telling you how good you are? You would want nothing to do with someone like that and basically that is what your dog thinks about you I am sure.

You can put a leash on your dog to manage where it goes and what it can do and to help keep it focused on you.


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## Lilith

Rocketagility said:


> So leash training as in correction? Enforce? Look you are trying to use a force based method with a positive type method you are not being fair to your dog start with one method and master it. How would you like it if someone slapped you when you made a mistake but a minute later thay are smiling and telling you how good you are? You would want nothing to do with someone like that and basically that is what your dog thinks about you I am sure.
> 
> You can put a leash on your dog to manage where it goes and what it can do and to help keep it focused on you.




Wow, Rocketagility, you must see a lot of really bad owners out there. But thanks for your concern for my pup.

If you read the posts, you will see that I even abadoned the idea of a "NO!" after 2 attempts. I'm much too much of a softie for strict punishments. I tried it because I was reading training books and attempting to be a good owner (yes, I did throw that book out and replace it with better books - several weeks ago). 

My pup was responding to "sit" from even strangers in the park by the time she was 9 weeks old. At 17 weeks I wasn't expecting her to jump through hoops or bring a beer from the fridge - I was expecting her to do the same "sit" and "down" that she had been doing for 8 weeks at that point. It's hard to imagine she was confused about the word "sit" or didn't know what was expected of her if she would perform the command for complete strangers reliably. 

In any case, we got over it. Lots of good advice on this thread helped enormously and we are back to about 90% with the basics, and she's doing great with "stay" and "come" (though we're nowhere close to being able to try these in distraction-prone environments yet). Her behavior now and before the period when I started this thread is such a contrast to whatever little 'phase' she went through. She was a nightmare for about a month, then got over it. Hard to tell what was going on. 

So please relax and know that I am about as far from a 'dictator' as one can get (though my friends will get a laugh from that description - they are always on my case for spoiling the dog too much and allowing her to rule the house... ha!). In fact the troubles I have in training often stem from my tendency to want to allow anything and to think it all cute and funny weighed against my knowledge that this is not a good approach for her and I do indeed need to know how to set and keep rules and boundaries for her to be healthy and socially accepted. 

If you have any tips for how to reinforce 'no jumping', though, I'm all ears. One of the reasons for needing to get her back to a reliable "sit" was to end the constant jumping all over my neighbors. The bigger she gets, the more of a problem this is becoming (plus we're heading into rainy season - big dog jumping on you is one thing, big MUDDY dog is reason to get angry at negligent dog owner,.. aka ME). Alas, she will happily "sit" for me again now, but NOT if the alternative is jump all over the neighbor. We've all been practicing the turn-shoulder-and-ignore-jumping-dog-so-she-gets-no-attention-until-she-calms-down routine. Nada. She just jumps all over our backsides. She's not very food motivated, and in fact she's not very toy or game-motivated either. She seems in fact to be mostly motivated by the chance to jump all over people... Ack. :banghead:


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## fjm

I may have already posted that Poppy's favourite game was jump-up-and-bite-a-bum. As you know, I am very much into reward based training, and was particularly careful with Poppy as she needed a lot of confidence building as a pup, but this HURT! Ignoring made no difference, and the response she got when it took people by surprise was extremely rewarding for her. One day it really hurt, and I turned round and roared at her with a genuine edge of anger in my voice. She looked at me long and carefully, then wagged her tail, and has hardly done it again since. I suspect Lilith would just see this as part of the game though, so all I can suggest is lots and lots of four feet on the ground rewards, in gradually more distracting environments ...


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## Lilith

Yeah, Lilith doesn't seem to lack in the confidence department. And not only did a strong "No!" never seem to work in the first place, she's now pretty immune to it. (I live in an apartment building and while I am at work Lilith spends her days with 4 different housekeepers from the various apartments, 3 different residential security guards, the dog-walker, visitors to the other apartments, and other random people. She hears "NAO!" quite a lot - like when she plays one of her favorite games of running into the open kitchen doors of the other apartments and sliding across the just-mopped-and-still-wet clean tile floors,... or ignoring her pee spot to instead pee on the top step of the basement apartment, causing that housekeeper to wash the steps yet _another_ time,..etc).

With the jumping thing I don't think she's understood yet that it's not something she is supposed to do. Really doesn't help that 2 of the guards are too scared of her to do anything other than back away and look thankful she didn't bite their faces off when she jumps up, the 3rd guard loves her so much he encourages the jumping, and a neighbor lets her jump all over his head and back as a playtime thing. Talk about lack of consistency! It's like herding cats trying to convince people to help me out with this!


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## Rocketagility

I hope this message works



Lilith said:


> Wow, Rocketagility, you must see a lot of really bad owners out there. But thanks for your concern for my pup.





Lilith said:


> Yes there are too many bad owners but more permissive ones, and even more that don’t even try training there dogs. Since you are trying to train your dog you are far from a bad owner.
> 
> If you read the posts, you will see that I even abandoned the idea of a "NO!" after 2 attempts. I'm much too much of a softie for strict punishments. I tried it because I was reading training books and attempting to be a good owner (yes, I did throw that book out and replace it with better books - several weeks ago). I am sure you are a good owner and you are trying don't give up, most poodles don’t mature till 3 year of age and they are very good at shaping there owners. Poodles are more like little kids than any other dog so they do get away with a lot. IMHO
> 
> My pup was responding to "sit" from even strangers in the park by the time she was 9 weeks old. At 17 weeks I wasn't expecting her to jump through hoops or bring a beer from the fridge - I was expecting her to do the same "sit" and "down" that she had been doing for 8 weeks at that point. It's hard to imagine she was confused about the word "sit" or didn't know what was expected of her if she would perform the command for complete strangers reliably. Sounds like you started out just great but your criteria relaxed and then Lilith got away with more and more. Don't worry it happened to me also when my Standard was a pup I started the NILIF program and that would fix things and then I would relax and then have to restart the NILIF program. Dog training is for life and it is never too late to teach a dog a new trick. I always have a new trick in the works with my dog.
> 
> In any case, we got over it. Lots of good advice on this thread helped enormously and we are back to about 90% with the basics, and she's doing great with "stay" and "come" (though we're nowhere close to being able to try these in distraction-prone environments yet). Her behavior now and before the period when I started this thread is such a contrast to whatever little 'phase' she went through. She was a nightmare for about a month, then got over it. Hard to tell what was going on.
> 
> So please relax and know that I am about as far from a 'dictator' as one can get (though my friends will get a laugh from that description - they are always on my case for spoiling the dog too much and allowing her to rule the house... ha!). In fact the troubles I have in training often stem from my tendency to want to allow anything and to think it all cute and funny weighed against my knowledge that this is not a good approach for her and I do indeed need to know how to set and keep rules and boundaries for her to be healthy and socially accepted. Sounds like you are answering your own problem/question right here remember set your criteria and don't be permissive it also helps if you bite your tongue when you think things are funny, I know it can be hard to do, sorry if I might of thought about you as a dictator.
> 
> If you have any tips for how to reinforce 'no jumping', though, I'm all ears. One of the reasons for needing to get her back to a reliable "sit" was to end the constant jumping all over my neighbors. The bigger she gets, the more of a problem this is becoming (plus we're heading into rainy season - big dog jumping on you is one thing, big MUDDY dog is reason to get angry at negligent dog owner,.. aka ME). Alas, she will happily "sit" for me again now, but NOT if the alternative is jump all over the neighbor. We've all been practicing the turn-shoulder-and-ignore-jumping-dog-so-she-gets-no-attention-until-she-calms-down routine. Nada. She just jumps all over our backsides. Put a Gentle Leader head halter on her and use it for a month with a leash even in the house you can remove it when she is not in your care or sleeping. She's not very food motivated, and in fact she's not very toy or game-motivated either. Ok I hear this so often and what it says to me is you need to go back to work and find things that you can reward your dog with. Look dogs want to get paid, and the dog that you see that doesn’t is either the one in a million dog or one that is ruled by fear of god. Try people food like cooked chicken or liver, cheese, bacon, spam, cook ham and many others are things you need to give a good try and see what works for your dog. Remember pea sized pieces use 30-40 rewards and keep your training sessions short (2-5min), if you are worried about your dog getting fat then take your dog for a run or make the main meal smaller. Heck I would remove all food and hand feed everything since you are training your dog, you need to know that your dog will take food from you. (If your dog gets sick and you want your dog to have some food in her stomach if your dog is trained to take food from your hand at least then you can gauge how sick your dog is) One other thing is how do I get my dog off the food rewards well basically as you train you very the rate and type of reinforcement, sometimes after I say YES I will say let go get a treat so sometimes I don’t always have treats on me. Toys wow can’t imagine a poodle not wanting to play with a toy, remember a poodle is a retriever somewhere in that dogs DNA there is dog that will return with a toy or a bird so get some cheap stuffed toys and some balls and play with your dog. Games, Ok your dog has made a game it is called jump up on people and make them react. Now your job is to make a game you like that your dog will also like. One game I play with my dog is I tell him to go away from me up the stairs and wait, I then release him and he then comes running and crashing down to the bottom in a 2O2O. He loves this game, you may not love this game but the point is find safe challenges for your dog, I always look for things that my dog can do on walks like jump bushes or picnic tables or small fences or slide down slides. Since I can’t see you interact with your dog I can only guess but since you want this dog to be near perfect with sits and downs at 9 weeks of age I wonder if you have done the same thing with games when you have tried playing start games as just that. Just a game don’t ask for sits and strict rules make it fun. You can add in some rules later as you build up a bond from play. She seems in fact to be mostly motivated by the chance to jump all over people... Ack. Ok your dog is jumping up because it is rewarded it is also happening because Poodles are really just big springs. lol Mine is no different he will jump up if a woman starts to giggle and go in to love him sometimes I have to intervene and stop the human if they get too excited, Rocket really loves woman they are high on his reinforcement list. Sounds like Lilith love people too that is a good thing.
> I did a test with my dog and tied him outside a restaurant in my view and he never jumps up on people that come to pat him. But when I am on the other end of the leash he thinks it is okay to jump up on woman and teenage girls so I do need to enforce a sit or a down or stop all interaction. If I let it continue I am just throwing away my criteria and letting my dog set his criteria for meeting people.
> My dog does shows in front of large crowds and after the show he is involved in pat and chats with the audience and he never jumps up so he is learning but I treat four on the floor and accept all the pats from all the people. I also have taught my dog to jump on my back in a back stall so every once in a while he forgets himself. You may not ever want to allow you dog to jump up.
> 
> Do your training sessions with your helper focused on just this one thing for a while. Have your dog sitting with you and have your helper approach and as soon as Lilith breaks her sit the helper quickly turns and walks away. You could also employ a kennel as an additional way to show Lilith that breaking a stay and or jumping up is not OK so a 5 minute timeout. You would be best served if you planned your training sessions when Lilith is hungry when she is exercised (tired) and in low distraction environments. Also have your helper know what to do practice without Lilith till you both know what you are going to do. Basically five minutes of good planned dog training is worth way more than just winging it.


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## Rocketagility

Lilith said:


> Yeah, Lilith doesn't seem to lack in the confidence department. And not only did a strong "No!" never seem to work in the first place, she's now pretty immune to it. (I live in an apartment building and while I am at work Lilith spends her days with 4 different housekeepers from the various apartments, 3 different residential security guards, the dog-walker, visitors to the other apartments, and other random people. She hears "NAO!" quite a lot - like when she plays one of her favorite games of running into the open kitchen doors of the other apartments and sliding across the just-mopped-and-still-wet clean tile floors,... or ignoring her pee spot What does this mean? Does she have a in door spot to pee? to instead pee on the top step of the basement apartment, causing that housekeeper to wash the steps yet _another_ time,..etc).
> 
> With the jumping thing I don't think she's understood yet that it's not something she is supposed to do. Really doesn't help that 2 of the guards are too scared of her to do anything other than back away and look thankful she didn't bite their faces off when she jumps up, the 3rd guard loves her so much he encourages the jumping, and a neighbor lets her jump all over his head and back as a playtime thing. Talk about lack of consistency! It's like herding cats trying to convince people to help me out with this!


It looks like with all the different people all doing things differently you are facing you just said it Lilith has no consistency. So again a head halter and a talk with everyone they can only speak with or touch Lilith when she is calm and they have to be calm also. As for the one guard that loves her too much well maybe you need to not only train him one on one but show him when and where and how he can play with Lilith. The too scared guards need to see that if they stand still and be a tree Lilith will settle down and show them that your puppy is just that a puppy nothing to be scared about. Good Luck


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## Lilith

Thanks! I'm going to need a lot of luck to go with a lot of work, I think!

Lilith has a long strip of fake grass outside that is her "pee spot". My apartment building is basically a huge house-like building with 4 floors - each a different apartment. The outside is just a small concrete area, a concrete driveway, and that's it. Tiny - and no dirt or grass. Was having trouble housetraining and some tips from this forum and another were to buy some fake grass as otherwise concrete is not that different from hard floors inside the house to a puppy (I also have no carpeting - it's hardwood and tile). It worked - and for a long while Lili only did her business on the fake grass. Now that Lilith goes out on her own during the day to pee she's expanded and decided anywhere on the concrete outside is ok. Including the outside concrete steps that lead to the basement level apartment. For whatever reason, it drives that housekeeper nuts and she will continually scrub down the stairs (despite the fact that they are outside). Which is why, I'm sure, my dog has decided that the only spot in the entire outside area that is unacceptable to someone is the one spot she loves the most to pee on. Animals have a sixth sense like that.  

I'm working on the guards, the dog-walker, and my one neighbor to up the consistency. It's like herding cats. Given the challenges and my own lack of dog-training skills, all I can say is that I am _ever so thankful_ that I got a well-bred, well-socialized, good-tempered little pup that is a joy to be around 90% of the time despite it all.


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## Marian

JE-UK said:


> I've recently changed how I'm working stays, because we are now working on longer and longer stays.
> 
> I DON'T reward at the end, on the release.
> 
> Instead, I put Vasco in a stay, (sit, stand, or down) then walk away and loop back, treat, reinforce the STAY cue, walk away again, etc. etc. Over time, I'm making my loops bigger and longer.
> 
> I'm trying to build reliable stays, and so far seems to be working. The other day, I released him and he STILL held his stay, so that's a good sign!
> 
> Stay is REALLY hard for a poodle that wants to be glued to me all the time!


That's how our trainer does it. She actually says "take it" as she's offering the treat in the down position. I think this is also teaching what "take it" means, just as a bonus. 

Teddy definitely tests me (as cbrand described it), and I try to be strong, but I hate feeling like a bully with such a little guy. He feels like a whole lot more than 12 pounds when he's decided he would rather sniff the light post than heel. It truly gets frustrating sometimes, but you just have to keep your cool.

NEVER LET THEM SEE YOU SWEAT! As they say.


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