forums: Training

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4 posts, 2 voices

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Participants in this thread:	Luna Kelly Dunbar
Luna 118 posts	My dog has completed Puppy K and we are ready for the next level. How do you find the right trainer for a 4 month old puppy? Is it better to do group classes or hire a private trainer? I am inclined towards the group classes because my dog is obedient at home but gets very distracted with other people or dogs. She is so friendly, she just wants to play with everybody and won’t listen.
Kelly Dunbar Berkeley, CA 79 posts	Glad to hear Luna has completed her puppy class, but even happier to hear that you plan to continue her education. While extremely important, puppy class is merely the beginning of a young dog’s educational process. It lays the foundation for the real work of training your dog through adolescence, when the world has suddenly opened up and your obedient and clingy puppy starts to become distracted by everything from a leaf blowing in the wind to the irresistible allure of another dog’s rear end. Your instincts are spot on. A class should be sufficient as long as you are not experiencing any serious behavior problems. Try to find a class that does lots of proofing work and allows the dogs some off-leash time and teaches you how to best get your dog to want to come back to you more than anything else. A second-level class should focus on working through distractions, building a solid recall, and practice stay with distractions as well. And remember, if your dog is doing everything perfectly in early training, she probably just hasn’t been tested appropriately yet. For example, as you say, Luna is good at home where the distractions and novelty are low and the practice (rewarded repetitions) are high. It is time to gradually up the ante, setting her up for success and eventually getting her to respond to you reliably regardless of what she is doing or the distraction. When proofing in dog training work on duration, distance, and distraction separately at first and in that order. Let us know how it goes!
Luna 118 posts	Hey Kelly, it’s Luna again (or Luna-tick as my family has nicknamed her). She was sooooo bad yesterday, perhaps you read my post on behavior :( She barked at the other dogs constantly and pulled at the leash. It was very frustrating, to have a puppy who is well behaved and then come to the first begginer’s class and have her act like this. We liked the instructor, she was very relaxed and said she was not going to pay attention to her barking for now. She thought she was very stressed (maybe she picked up on our tension???), I honestly thought she was just barking to be with the other dogs and to get the instructor attention. Luna thinks everybody should talk to her and pet her :) Is it possible she is TOOO friendly? Luna was distracted through the whole class but was able to follow the couple of commands we were learning. This instructor uses a clicker so we tried that; not sure she’s got the concept yet. The other 2 dogs in the class barked aggresively before we started the class but were calm during the class. I just want to know if there is light at the end of the tunnel. She is such a sweet loving dog but “a total social sluth’ with other people and dogs. It is very difficult to try to deal with her when other people are around. She did things she had not done in a while, like jumped at the instructor to get treats! Any words of advice? Thanks for listening…
Kelly Dunbar Berkeley, CA 79 posts	Hi Luna I just wrote a lengthy response to your problem in the other forum. Here is the link to the page: http://dogtime.com/discussion/forums/3/topics/4…
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