I have no idea how to train my dog

[puginamug]

It sounds ridiculous I know.

We had a dog who is 16 months old. I took him to puppy classes where we learnt sit/stay/recall. He's not great at them though.

He's off lead quite a lot and his recall is OK but not bullet proof and I would like it to be more so. His sit and stay has also gone off the boil and now is a bit more when he feels like it.

The issue I seem to have is that he knows exactly when it is 'training' and when it's not. Basically, if I have a treat in my hand he's as good as gold and does exactly what I want him to do but I'm incapable of getting him to apply this across the board.

I worry I should be playing with him more/training him more, but no idea how to go about it. I've tried videos but I can't seem to find any that work for either me or him.

I watch some and attempt them but neither of them can really get the hang of it or work out how to embed it into everyday life.

He can do
Sit and paw (for a treat)
Down (but doesn't always stay down)
In your basket (but doesn't always stay)
Waiting at gates/doors before we go through them sometimes but not always.
Recall, but not bullet proof.

I admit he's not really training at all.

These are the things I would like him to do.

Drop - he's a bugger for stealing and running off
Recall every time (especially when distracted)
Be off lead but stay close by
Not go out of the front door or upstairs (we currently have to keep the living room door shut at all times).

And some more 'tricky; type things to keep him entertained.

Despite my username, he is a cocker spaniel.

Get a professional trainer in - look for recommendations in your area. Sounds like he's pretty good at the moment but some real time, hands on advice will be invaluable.

I did get a professional trainer in, to help us with not stealing from the table.

He behaved perfectly while she was there, to be the point where she couldn't actually demonstrate anything!

He knows, little bugger!

There are lots of online training packages that you could do. Club Dogwood and Absolute Dogs are the two that spring to mind. They will teach you to train as well as helping train your dog.

With regard to him knowing when he is training, do you continue with the treat when you want him to do it in real life? If not, you need to do this. You can't drop the treat until you are 100% sure the behaviour will be repeated without it. If you drop the treat too early, the training doesn't stick. You have to be more exciting than anything else and the treat/reward plays a part of that.

Get a decent trainer to come and help you and show you what to do. Not the one you had before!

A trainer does not need to see unwanted behaviour to show you how to prevent it. I dont need to see a dog stealing from the table to show you how to prevent it.

Drop is easy though really easy, so easy noone believe it but the fantastic Chirag Patel method work so well.

Get a treat and say drop and give your dog the treat.
Do this at least 8 times a day.
Your dog has nothing in its mouth just say drop and give your dog a treat
After a few days your dog will hear the word drop and come to you. Give them a treat
You can now try this when they have something in their mouth, drop they open their mouth for the treat drop the item and they get the treat.So simple but so powerful.

It does from what you have said in that you have lured the training and just need to be shown how to remove the treat lure and just use the cue word and also you need a bit of help to proof the behaviours.

That could work. I think I did it the wrong way round, so started when he had something in his mouth. M
He would drop in return for a treat but then started stealing things deliberately so I would give him a treat in exchange!

So simple but so powerful.

If only it worked! I'm sure it works for the majority but nobody could ever tell me what to do for a dog that won't drop for a treat. At least my pup nicely demonstrated that for the trainer :-)

Chirag Patel's counting game was a similar flop!

Also a CS owner. They're too bloody smart!

Can I recommend the Spaniel Inner Circle? Run by a spaniel specialist trainer, you get access to squillions of training videos, and a forum with the trainer on tap, weekly zooms which range from Q&A sessions to guest speakers. It's been great for us.

Very very important to train the drop command to start with the dog not having anything to drop.

Your dog will be classically conditioned to open his mouth on the drop cue. If you train with a toy and ask to drop you are training operantly and it will not work for all dogs.

It's impossible to know without seeing him. We need photos.

Initially this is not a problem look at it as an opportunity to re-enforce the drop command.

However when it becomes an attention seeking behaviour then you need to look at the bigger picture and why your dog is demanding attention. Look at the dogs day and maybe training a calm or increasing brain games. Hard to be specific without more information

The issues you have had though are very common issues and why I would again getting a 121 trainer in. Dog training is not rocket science but minor tweaks, timing and detail can make a huge difference to the outcomes.

Online training rarely covers the individual detail required to get fast results.

He has a good walk every day, most of it off less and in the woods, so gets plenty of stimulation.

I'm not great at brain games. I tried buying him some puzzle toys but he just chewed them. I hide treats etc.

I think that's what I mean by not knowing how to train him. If i could stimulate him a bit more it might all be easier.

You have to work a spaniel's brain: scent work, gundog training etc all tick those boxes.

We did a gundog course and am doing basic scentwork with him. Mantrailing will be next summer, but continued gundog classes this winter too.

Very very important to train the drop command to start with the dog not having anything to drop.

Our pup wouldn't take a treat from the floor so we failed at the first hurdle!

The thing about training especially when they're young is that you have to do it every day. Only for 5 mins or so but imo it needs to be reinforced daily.

With the sit and stay/bed and stay. Build up the time gradually. Get him to sit and stay for 10 seconds, and reward. Once he's got the hang of that build up the time. Be in the same room to begin with then start leaving the room, just for a couple of seconds then go back and reward. Again build it up gradually. If they move before you've given them the command to then no treat and just return them to the position you want.

Same with recall, get a long line and just practice random recall. Practice in the house, when out on a walk, practice, practice,practice.

A lot of what you want is more about environmental management than training, I think.

I mean, my dog is four and we still use child locks and baby gates and a "double door system" to prevent him from getting to places we don't want him to go.

Not because we can't be arsed with training, but because our priority is safety and that has to come from the owner first and foremost. So if you don't want him to go out the front or upstairs, use a baby gate or just shut the door. Dogs are opportunists so don't rely on him "knowing" where he can and can't go. If he sees an opportunity he'll likely do it anyway

Well use your imagination and train the dog in front of you! Hand the dog the treat then!!!!!

They don't need to take food from the floor to learn drop.

In an absolute nutshell: Dogs do what works.

If your dog is doing something, it is working for them in some way. Your job is to figure out how, how to stop it working and how to make what you want work better

Then your job is to stay ahead as they learn news ways to make the world work for them

e.g. your dog is stealing and buggering off. This works well for the dog. Your job is to make whatever he is stealing much harder to get and to make doing what you want much more rewarding. So, let's assume he is stealing from the dinner table. Firstly, place food on the table in a way it is harder to reach and put a bed the other side of the room. Have a small pot of chopped chicken or something else equally tasty, As you eat, periodically drop a piece of chicken on the bed. Do it frequently enough and the dog won't bother leaving the bed because he'll be waiting for the next treat, Once that happens, start to space out the treats further and further so that he's sat waiting for longer and longer. Until, eventually, he sits all through the meal for a small treat at the end. Don't move throuhg the statges too fast. Expect it to take dozens or more of meals to get there.

If he is stealing things like socks for a treat then use this. I have a spaniel that does this. Over time we have slowly shifted it so that I now have a spaniel that goes and fetches me both slippers when I ask. Much more useful! We did this by him learning to take socks for treats. Then, when the socks were no longer available to him he volunteered a slipper one day (they smell like socks). I rewarded him for it and stopped rewarding socks until he only chose slippers. Then I started to put a cue word in by repeating the same phrase every time he did it. And here we are: "get my slippers" results in just that. He gets to have fun, I get warm feet.

If you want a drop, exchange for treats does work but the exchange rate needs to be right. The thing to be dropped needs to be low value (at first) and the thing to be gained needs to be high value (at first). He needs to come off better off, almost all the time. Practise lots, in a million scenarios where it doesn't matter if the dog gets it wrong. Only ever used it to remove something high value when you really, really need to. e.g. Walking in Scotland recently, my dog found a rotting bottom half of a deer leg. Massively high value! But he couldn't keep it forever so he carried it for a bit and then I asked him to give it to me. I had nothing on me to trade so I was forced to rely on all the practice sessions we did. I never demanded it, I just asked and waited. He gave it up voluntarily, though reluctantly. He got a ton of praise for it (I asked everyone we were walking with he go over the top with praise as soon as he let go). But I could only expect him to give up something so wonderful because we'd done so much practice where he normally got the far better end of the deal.

For reading, try: smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0028644638/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

train the dog in front of you

Absolutely this! The dog in front of you in the one that is learning, not the one in the books. The thing that seperates off good trainers from average ones, is the ability to adapt the theory to the specific dog they have.

Which is not to make anyone feel bad - it's to highlight how, if your trainer is failing to train your dog because the theory doesn't seem to apply to them, it's the trainer that is weak, not the dog

The second you mentioned stealing and not dropping, I was about to ask if you have a Cocker Spaniel 😂

Basically, things build over time, and progress stops when you stop working on it. I understand because it's the same with my dog. I'll think I have him solid on something, but then I realise he's actually really sloppy in certain areas - and then I realise I haven't actually worked on that area in months and months. Hell, maybe even a year.

You can try following an online course, like Zak George's Perfect Pup or whatever it's called (if you go on his website, it should be linked there).

But basically, I would focus on one thing at a time, and just spend a few minutes a day working on that thing. Pick the things that are going to make the biggest different to your life, his safety, etc. So, recall is a great one. And waiting at gates / doors / etc.

For drop it, you can keep practising, but I would honestly just go for management right now. Keep stuff out of his reach, use pet gates, don't have socks lying around, put slippers and shoes away, etc. You can work on those things later.

My Cocker is 2 years old and only now starting to give up things he manages to steal. But it always requires a treat or other reward (like a ball to swap him for). He will, however, now let us hold whatever is in his mouth and will release it when we ask, even if there is sometimes a bit of resistance.

I also trained another Cocker previously who mastered drop it in literally a few sessions, purely by using toys and playing "swap". I'd throw a toy, he'd bring it back, I'd say drop it, and I wouldn't throw the next toy until he'd dropped the first. This then worked in every other scenario when I wanted him to drop something, even without a reward in my hand. So each dog is different! He was much, much harder to recall train and it took a year to master that. Whereas my Cocker has always had great recall and it's gotten even stronger over time.

For everything, start easy and work up over time. So for doors, make sure he's tethered to something and ask him to wait a second, then say "ok!" or "free!" or whatever your release word is. Then work up to 3 seconds, 7 seconds, etc., until he automatically waits when you go through a door or gate. This kind of thing takes months, maybe even 1yr +, so don't be discouraged. Just keep working at it. If he breaks before you release him, just calmly return him to his spot and try a shorter duration, release him, and end it there. Don't take chances with the front door. Obviously be careful and use internal doorways until he's reliable.

For recall and staying close, use a long line that trails on the ground. When he gets a meter or so ahead of you, call him back and give him a super high value treat / favourite toy / loads of excited praise. Rinse and repeat. If he ignores you, step on the line and keep him with you. Long lines can be annoying to use, and this process takes ages, but it will be worth it in the end to have a decade+ of solid off lead behaviour. :)

train the dog in front of you

Absolutely this! The dog in front of you in the one that is learning, not the one in the books. The thing that seperates off good trainers from average ones, is the ability to adapt the theory to the specific dog they have.

Yes, this is the point I was trying to make (badly). Well meaning people pointing to an online link and proclaiming something is simple is not helpful. One of the books we had stated if you do x, 90% of dogs will then do y with no other information about how you get the other 10% to do y. It's where good in person training is invaluable.

I could have screamed at all the people who told me I just needed higher value treats. What I needed was to find out what motivated my dog and it wasn't food (she's a lab so people don't generally believe me!).

There were loads of things we found really simple, leave it, impulse control, recall etc. but drop was really difficult and still a bit hit and miss to be honest but she's never picked up anything on a walk that wasn't hers so not a huge issue.

I hear so often that dogs are not treat motivated - daily in fact

It is not usually the value of the treat that is the issue but the environment that the training is taking place in.

You need to start all training in a quiet calm boring location, no distractions.

Proofing is where most training falls apart and 90% of owners never proof behaviours.

If your dog can not do the behaviour in your kitchen there is no way they will do it out and about with distractions. Build up gradually.

Treat placement is also vital and treat delivery makes a hugh difference to a successful outcome.

Going into the science too many owners and trainers rely on operant conditioning. The more training you can do using classical conditioning the more success you will have. Recall is the best example of this (and drop Cue)

Well, we managed to pass our level 1 through 3 gundog training once we swapped the treats for balls, toys and praise. I'd still be in the kitchen otherwise!

If you're on instagram, check out MK9plus training - I've got a cockapoo and can honestly say that since implementing some of the things from there, my boy is like a different dog. We've signed up to the website, too (£45 for 3 months, I think) and we're working through the videos on there.

There's a lot about knowing what your dog needs, and making them work for things. As PP said, things like scent work. One of the first things we did when we started watching the videos was playing fetch. We thought that was tiring him out, but actually all it does is amp him up. Replacing that with "find it" was invaluable!