All the relentless dog training is getting me down

[Kammee]

I am so sad a lot of the time. I don’t feel strong enough to cope some days. I have tried so hard to train her and it just feels relentless. She still pulls on the lead. She barks in the garden at noises that she hears and then we have to bring her in because dont think it’s fair on the neighbours. Blinds are pulled closed cos she barks at the birds she see outside. I cant walk her on pavements due to her being scared of every car that goes past. She is improving in this area, but we still have to walk on quieter streets. She jumps up on people she knows and also sometimes strangers. Family members seem to be getting frustrated with her jumping up to say hello and expecting me to train this habit out of her. But it’s not even that high a priority for me. She jumps up to say hello that lasts about 10 seconds then she mostly leaves them alone after that. I know I need to deal with it but it’s one thing on a massive list of things that I need to train her for. And I am just exhausted by it. It feels quite isolating. Sorry not sure what I am posting here but just wanted to get it out.

I have taken her to a few different trainers but haven’t found many to be very helpful. She knows lots of commands - wait, leave, sit, stay, down, etc and does these really well. The things I need to improve I feel aren’t really taught by a trainer but require perseverance by me day in day out.

Yes icedcoffees there is a local area in town with quiet streets where we go to practise lead walking and she does it well there. It’s just everywhere else it tends to not work! Maybe over time it will transfer to more locations

We nearly got a working lab and I find myself looking at all the labs out and about walking nicely and wonder if I made the wrong choice. But I see on first page of this thread a poster said their lab is still hard work at 3. So maybe they can have training challenges too.

Thank you to everyone for your reassurances

Have you asked on local Facebook groups specific to your breed for recs on a trainer? At 7.5 months she’s still learning.

Pulling on the lead, you need to teach loose leash, by far the hardest and incredibly frustrating but worth it in the end. As soon as you feel a tightening in the lead stop walking. Tell her to walk nicely / stay close. For every loose leash step - treat and massive praise. Even if it’s two seconds! If she pulls you stop, wait for her to come back to you, carry on.

You do need to be consistent and persist with training daily both in and out of the house.

When on a walk do you use lead, harness, dogmatic? You need to arm yourself with the best treats (or toys, whatever she is more responsive to) and do the “one, two, three” game - YouTube it. Highly effective distraction game that you can use on approach and when passing people / dogs / things she’s afraid of. Massive praise for her everytime she focuses on you and not lunging. If she does lunge just carry on with distractions, don’t scold, she’s learning and will only reinforce fear, never use your hand, firm voice is all you need.

People visiting, put the lead on , ask her to sit, treat. People enter make sure she still sits. Meanwhile you need to tell the person to a) put their hand out flat and say no (we use touch so the dog needs to touch the persons hand to greet) and b) if a doesn’t work ask them to turn their back on her and ignore until she is calm and sitting again, and only at this point do they say hello to her.

In the garden, supervise her, distract her, until she no longer wants to react to these things.

YouTube Zak George.

Puppies are such hard work & nobody ever really tells you just how exhausting it is. But keep up with the consistent training. Find a good trainer to work with and you will get there.

Spaniels are very clever keep at it.

Op, spaniels are great. But hard work.

Alot ofbher behaviour sounds like she could be a but stressed, over stimulated.

Have you tried kongs or licky mats? It's good for enrichment, but licking also reduces stress and nervousness.

I thought you might say it's been two years of work, until you said she's only just out of puppyhood. Plus she's a spaniel.

Slow down, lower your expectations, value what she does do well. Try consistency - four trainers by 8 months?
Springers are extra hard work, so take pressure off yourself & imagine that she will only be a fully reliable trained pet at 2 or more years old. You will have a roller-coaster between now & then, & getting overly stressed about it will only make it harder for all of you.

Walking on quiet streets is easy because there are no distractions. You have to ‘proof’ the good behaviour by practising on busy streets. She needs to learn to ignore distractions but she can’t do that if there aren’t any. And yes it can take a long time. You get out what you put in.

Oh yes we do lickimats and kongs these are essential for her.

Mindyourownbuisness thank you for your suggestions. I have taught her 1.2.3 treat so maybe need to use it more when we are out. I have also taught her “touch” where she touches my fist with her nose for a treat. Do you mean to do that with visitors?

I know the theory with lead walking is to stop and not let them walk when lead is tight, which tends to work sometimes when it is just me and her. But if I have a friend coming along for a chat or the kids with me i symtruvgle to be consistent with this as everyone gets frustrated waiting for her

Are you anywhere near Fife. I can recommend a brilliant trainer.
TBH it sounds as though you are doing a great job. It is so difficult when others (who are not doing the training) expect perfection.

You are at the hardest stage, they are all bloody difficult at that age!
Cut yourself (and your dog) some slack. I also recommend working on one issue at a time. And spend lots of time just bonding with your dog, lots of cuddles,fuss, and chatting to her.

I think that’s it sourmilkghyll it’s easy to say “you need to stop her doing x, y, z “ but actually getting her to stop takes training and planning how to do it and putting training in to practise. Saying “don’t do that” to a dog just doesn’t work - if only it was that easy! No we aren’t in fife

How much off lead exercise does she get eat day. I found with mine she needed two good runs a day for her to be calm indoors. Also a halti head collar was a god send I couldn't walk her without it but it took a while for her to get used to it then it was brilliant. A harness will allow her to pull more than a Collar and lead. She's still very young. At 18 months onwards it al falls into place I found

I have a spaniel x.
Halti head collar stopped the pulling. He's actually much easier to walk off lead but the halti has really helped when he is on lead.
For jumping up I hold a finger up and say "get down" then when he sits go down to his level and make a huge massive fuss of him. It's really really helped. He will still jump a bit at strangers but mostly sits for a cuddle. He doesn't jump at me now so I rarely need to tell him to get down

I think you need to recognise what you said upthread - she isn't getting the welcome she wants. So what do you need to do to give her that when she isn't jumping?

@Kammee

Yes icedcoffees there is a local area in town with quiet streets where we go to practise lead walking and she does it well there. It’s just everywhere else it tends to not work! Maybe over time it will transfer to more locations

That sounds totally normal! It will improve over time, honestly.

Quiet streets = less distractions, so she's more likely to focus on you. But when you add in cars, bikes, kids, food, other dogs, nice smells etc. that focus is split between you and all the other exciting things!

But over time, those things become less interesting and exciting (with lots of practise) - but high value treats are your friend here. Don't just use her kibble, you want things like cheese, sausage, chicken, dried liver, sprats - the smellier the better!

@Kammee

Oh yes we do lickimats and kongs these are essential for her.

Mindyourownbuisness thank you for your suggestions. I have taught her 1.2.3 treat so maybe need to use it more when we are out. I have also taught her “touch” where she touches my fist with her nose for a treat. Do you mean to do that with visitors?

I know the theory with lead walking is to stop and not let them walk when lead is tight, which tends to work sometimes when it is just me and her. But if I have a friend coming along for a chat or the kids with me i symtruvgle to be consistent with this as everyone gets frustrated waiting for her

Fantastic, definitely do the 123 game on your lead walks, she needs to be focused (as in eye contact) with you.

Yes, the fist / touch do this with your visitors, they need to do the same hand shape that you’ve taught her along with your code word followed by lots of praise when she gets it right.

Who gets frustrated with her? You, your friends? Stop taking her on these walks, your only undoing the good and will get nowhere. One walk you are saying no this is wrong, the next you are telling her it’s ok to pull. She’s confused.

Ive never met a spaniel that wasnt completely mental till they got to about 3 or 4. Just keep doing what youre doing

I know the theory with lead walking is to stop and not let them walk when lead is tight, which tends to work sometimes when it is just me and her. But if I have a friend coming along for a chat or the kids with me i symtruvgle to be consistent with this as everyone gets frustrated waiting for her

Split the walks in two. Training walks are with you and her only - these are the walks where you focus on walking nicely. But if you're out with friends, training really isn't possible with such a young dog, so just make these the "fun" walks. I switch equipment between walks depending on what we're going to do, which helps.

I think you need to decide which things to really focus on and tackle now, she ideally needs to master a skill before learning a new one.

Not using treats freely is a mistake, why should she bother coming back to you etc if it isn’t a positive experience? Just being near you is a neutral experience until she learns that you are her only source of food and she is very likely to get a treat if she comes back.

Are you hand feeding?

We have a Shiba Inu, notoriously hard to train. He was hand fed by us from day one, he had to earn every single bit of kibble, we kept this up until he was just over a year old. We are his source of food, not bowls, or the floor, us. When he was a young pup he would get a treat for desirable behaviour, so if looked at us on a walk etc. He does agility, he can be walked off lead, even around birds etc. It has been hard work, but a year of hard work from all of us makes for an easier 10-14 years of dog ownership.

Regarding the running off, unless recall is 100% reliable use a longline, even if that means no offlead walks at all until recall is 100%.

Jumping up people is something I would focus on, dogs essentially shouldn’t be given the chance to do it, which is very hard. A reliable sit command is great at stopping jumping, then until the dog is sat it gets zero attention. Ours was terrible for jumping as a puppy, everytime he did it we would turn around, not say a word and ignore him, when his sit command was reliable we would say sit and if he did sit he would get a treat. We would practice several times a day, but more importantly we would not allow him to approach people or let strangers stroke him. As an adult he doesn’t jump up anyone unless we do the ‘up’ command, but he also completely ignores people when out and about unless we give a release command.

You need to be the centre of your dogs world, to do that you need to become a very generous dog treat dispenser.

Obsidian k9 training academy is fantastic, the first seven days are free. We’ve followed their system, it was easy to use/navigate, and if you put the work in the results are very good.

I feel your pain @Kammee , our springer is 7.5 yrs old now, but I remember the early days well!

The best training we ever did was mat training - getting her to go and sit/stand/lay on a mat - we used an old bath mat (a towel is good too - something you can take anywhere with you) as soon as she did it we said 'yes' - and I mean immediately, then a high value treat to begin with, and "good girl mat"

Once she had mastered that we could transfer the "yes" to lots of other things.

Foot on the lead is good for jumping up until you have her spot on sit and stay - you want to get her to do that regardless of who is in the house, near to you etc. Once she has the voice commands for those you can also teach hand commands (hand palm out facing her over her head for sit and then palm slightly above her head in front of her face for stay) really useful for crowded/noisy situations.

Out walking you need to be the most interesting thing there is to her if she's off the lead. Personally I'd keep her on a lead until you feel she responds to your commands very well. Springers are guided by their noses - ours loses her hearing when she smells something interesting!

The other thing I learned quickly was that you can't wear a springer out with exercise - you just make them fitter! But the training at home will tire them - so little and often is best.

They really are the most amazing dogs once you've cracked the training! Good luck - you will get there.

@Kammee

Well she will walk at heel. But I need to be regularly dipositing treats in to her mouth. I believe heel training can be done without this and I would like to get to that point

Using a clicker was a game-changer for this. Our trainer started us using treats & an enthusiastic voice to encourage walking. It did not work. I had to dispense treats & put on an Oscar-worthy display for glee for every step. Next session, the trainer changed tack: did a few minutes of walking with treats plus clicker, then clicker alone to signal approval of proper walking (at my pace, all 4 paws touching the ground, no pulling or jumping). It was a miracle. Suddenly my puppy had perfect clarity about what she was supposed to do & whether she was doing it. Look up Chelsea Canines. They're in London but do Zoom training.

Dishwasher licking I think is naturally tempting for any dog. Either keep out of the room or accept it. My dishwasher is at counter height so not an issue but my parents have bickered about this every day for years.

Thank you. I will definitely put these ideas in to practise. Jamiefraserssassenach I was just starting to get her to sit in “place” using a mat. We aren’t having much success just now as she keeps chewing it and thrashing it around whenever I get it out and put it down for her !

I would put her on a lead and get someone to walk towards her. As she goes to rush forward or jump up make sure the person is prepped to step back. Let them advance and if she does it again, again the person steps back. When she is eventually calm when that person approaches (sits/goes into a down/stands) then say yes or click (or what ever your word is) and reward. Repeat with different people and different situations.

It is hard work but is worth it. Is there anyone helping you? Could one of your kids do a child agility class with her? I'm sure you are doing better than you think. Our dog suddenly became so much calmer I wondered if he was OK.

Also, use stair gates and crates so she's not licking dishwasher etc.

Do you have a gun dog club near you OP? You do not need to have any desire to work her but gun dog trainers will have expertise with working dogs. We have springers who are trained to work (although only do very occasionally) and they are an absolute dream. She may need more stimulation that she is getting despite all the work you are putting in - I feel like you can't really just walk a springer, you want to keep them thinking and 'working' all the time when you're out and about. I cannot recommend gun dog training enough

Yes I think I will look in to a gun dog club.
Those who suggested agility, I think she is too young for this?