Training stubborn dogs

[Snappymcsnappy]

Any tips?

Sometimes my brothers Dachshund comes to stay.
He's a delightful little character, super friendly, gentle, lovely and tolerant with kids.

But he couldn't be more different from my collie who lives to please and tries very hard to be obedient and keep order.

He is very, very stubborn!
Has zero recall, only obeys commands if he feels like it.
Training with toys is out as he has no real interest in them and he's not particularly food motivated either!

I have convinced him to wait quietly instead of barging through the door(the door doesn't open otherwise) but that is about it so far.

I would like to train him not to pull and also to recall reliably so he can go offlead with my dog but I am at a bit of a loss how to do this without the aid of toys or treats?

What sort of food are you using?

I'd up treats to the most delicious available - sausages, cheese, squeezy liver pate, chicken, dried sprats etc etc - and see if that motivates the dog more.

We've had success with stopping pulling using the stop start method (stop walking when the dog pulls, wait until dog stops pulling, start walking, and repeat consistently - definitely one to do when your collie is off lead for his sake!). The difference with this method is that the reward for not pulling is being able to walk forward, which is clearly what the dog wants. Switching from a collar to a Perfect Fit harness also seems to have had a positive effect on the last remnants of pulling.

There are no stubborn dogs just dogs who are not being offered the correct motivator for them.

All dogs are food orientated otherwise they would die! However there are reasons why a dog may not want to take treats during training.

Dogs can feel anxious during training especially the so called "stubborn" dogs as they have only had negative experiences during training sessions and that can mean they do not want the treats. The dog may also have just been fed,is fed too much or being offered rewards that it does not really want.

What I would do is to try offering the best food ever,so try with cooked chicken, hotdogs,cheese,beef,cooked lamb or ham. This should be really really small pieces.

If the dog is not eating this then you know you have an environment in which the dog is not happy. So maybe move to a different location, or drop the food on the floor rather than make the dog take it from your hand, move to a quieter location without so many distractions.

I would also ditch the bowl for a while(I never ever fed my dogs from a bowl!) make sure all food comes from you. Yep time consuming but the behaviour from your dog will improve immediately - you will pretty much have recall sorted without doing much else

I am a trainer and if I had money for the number of times I have been told that there dog is a stubborn non eating dog I would be able to retire.

You need to find the motivator for the dog. Mine isn't particularly interested in treats off lead but he will do anything if he knows I have a ball in my hand. On lead when he knows I won't have a ball then he will accept certain treats.

What treats are you using? Have you tried the high value cheese, sausage, chicken, dried liver type of treats?

What do you feed your dogs from ?

I love this book for help with the trickier dogs... amazon.co.uk/When-Pigs-Fly-Training-Impossible-ebook/dp/B003852KFM/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1531480507&sr=8-5&keywords=fly+dog+book]]

Vallhala you sound exactly like the last puppy trainer who I took my dog too. I explained he wasn't food orientated, she told me I was wrong. Each week she told me to up the "value" of the reward until she asked me to leave the class as he was impossible to train. We've since had him to a behaviourist who said he is not food orientated.

No experienced behaviourist will say a dog is not food orientated - it is just not true.

Why does your dog eat at all then? I assume they do eat at some point in the week?

I agree that some dogs need a change to their life style,change to their environment to enable them to be able to accept food treats BUT that is a completely different thing to not being food orientated.

I have collies they would die for a tennis ball but they will still work for food - all dogs need food

I love a challenge there has never been a dog yet in many years working with them that I have not worked out a way for them to happily work for treats. I know your dog would not be the first one

Also any trainer that has a dog that is "impossible to train" would not be a trainer in my eyes - just someone that has been able to train a few dogs to do a few behaviours.

Maybe what Skarossinkplungerridesagain means is not that the dog doesn't like food/treats but that the dog doesn't value the food high enough for the behaviour you are trying to train and given that you do need to feed the dog at some point rather than starving them everytime you expect to reward that behaviour then food isn't a good motivator for that particular dog.

Valahalla please don't be so arrogant as to accuse me of lying. My dog is a rescue who was seriously abused as a puppy. We struggle to get him to eat as he has so many issues around food and because he is so active we struggle to keep weight on him. We have been told by the vets that we must do anything to get food in to him so withholding food so he is hungry enough for rewards is not going to happen. I'm actually struggling to believe any dog trainer would recommend withholding food for any dog.

What BiteyShark said is absolute the case, he does not rate any reward highly enough to make the required work worthwhile. Having spent a year locked in a shed means that any time he is out of the house everything is far too exciting to be thinking about anything else.

Wooooow hang on Skaronssinkplungedesagain no way did I accuse you of lying.

I am a professional and hear everyday that dogs are not motivated by food - as I said in both my posts, dogs may appear not to be motivated However there are ways that this can be remedied.

I absolutely NOWHERE said that you should withhold food

Dogs that don't eat(as I said earlier) are often in situations that they find difficult, they may be stressed, there may be too many distractions, there may be many issues. As a dog trainer I would work on finding an environment that the dog is happy to eat in.

You will notice that unlike many on this thread I have not suggested high value treats as this is not the issue -there will be no treat that is high value enough if the dog is in an emotional state which is what a so called "non food orientated dog is" As I have said before all dogs are food orientated.

Blimey I have no interest in upsetting you this is just a thread about dogs and food

What I meant by I love a challenge there has never been a dog yet in many years working with them that I have not worked out a way for them to happily work for treats. I know your dog would not be the first one is that I would work to change the emotional state of your dog so that they were able to accept treats. This is what I do, this is what I am qualified to do, this is what I have spent years studying.

Ask me to do anything that does not include dogs and I am incompetent (especially communicating on social media by the looks of it but dogs I can do

I have recently rehomed a very high anxiety dog. I was told by his previous owner that he was not interested in food and they could not train him with treats. It took two weeks to get him to an emotional state where he would take food from my hand. Following that breakthrough there has been no stopping him! He loves treats and, although we are only at the point where he gets treats for simply looking at me, he is really starting to offer behaviour for treats. It’s lovely to see.
Every dog is different but I would guess that if your dog is not responding to the motivation you are offering then you are asking too much of the dog and you need to take it back a few steps.