NCDR: dog obedience

abby8279

Has anyone ever used Cesar Milan or any other type of dog obedience DVDs?  We need to work with our dog for things like barking and walking better on the leash but we don't want to spend the money on obedience classes.  We are willing to put the work in at home though.  Suggestions??

nanabanana06

Do not do Cesar Milan. That man uses terrible techniques. His approach is all about dominance and has a habit of making dogs worse and some cases aggressive. If you won't do a proffesional trainer or animal behaviorist check out kikopup on YouTube. I love her training techniques. Bonus is that most of its free since it's youtube. She focuses on positive reinforcement and clicker training. Love it! We use the same techniques for Ein.

Rrrrrachel

A good dog trainer is well worth it. Just my two cents and know that's not what you asked. My husband needs someone (other than me) watching and telling him when he's doing it wrong. Most of dog training is training the person, and an objective third party helps a lot!

km_md

We found a trainer that came to our house for a very reasonable cost and it helped out so much to have someone telling me exactly what to do since I've never had a dog before. So I don't have any advice on the DVDs. I found it too hard to do it properly on my own.

I worked a lot with our dog before I got pregnant and really need to get back into it. Our trainer focused on praise for the good stuff (and treats but our dog isn't a big treat eater), repitition and consistency. We worked on little things like sit and stay so that she learned that we are the boss and not her. She wears one of those collars with the chain that closes when we are training. This way it doesn't choke her but it makes a noise so she knows what she is not supposed to be doing.

She was horrible for walks and it still isn't perfect but it's much better. We had to use the collar and go for lots of walks and get her to stay by our side. During the walks we had to do lots of sits, stays, changing of speeds and directions, that sort of thing. To keep her interested and paying attention to what we were doing.

Sorry if none of that helps you but good luck with the training!

freezorburn

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but I seem to remember that when we adopted Happyfundog that there was a lot of free tips you could sign up for on his website. And I think there was a user forum as well. I remember Mastering the Walk being a big piece of it. Barking is a more complicated problem.

Edit: Wait, sorry. I just went back through my email history and I paid for the Sessions with Cesar course. It was pretty good. 

JEPES1348

We did dog obedience training and our trainer, who was also a veterinarian, did not recommend Cesar Milan for the same reason's Nana said.  He's aggressive and dominant, and can make other dogs behave similarly. There's also at least one video of him on YouTube getting a dog to become "submissive," when actually the dog passed out and its tongue was blue because he was choking the dog.  

bumpuser9353653

We found an e-collar to be really helpful. Our pup was a sensitive soul but very stubborn with a high prey drive (lookout squirrels!) so we kept the collar on "vibrate" which was more than enough to get her attention when we wanted to give a command. We only used the shock feature if she was really locked into something like a small animal or another dog and didn't respond to the vibrate.
Consistency is key, too. If you let them get away with something once, they've won and it's that much harder to get them to listen in the future.

freezorburn

I agree with PPs, there is no substitute for a real in-person trainer. I should have said in my previous post that we also did obedience classes with a real person. The online materials I talked about were a nice supplement to that. But I was also unemployed at the time so I REALLY had time to put in the work.

Just wanted to add about Cesar Milan -- I feel like the TV show mostly showed extreme cases and therefore misrepresents what he is about. In his books, and the online materials that I've viewed, he uses the term "leadership" rather than dominance. I don't try to dominate my dog. I DO try to make sure he gets his needs met in such a way that he is happy and healthy and knows how to behave. In any case, dog training really should be taken on an individual, case by case basis. Every dog is different.

Brandiewine11

I'd also recommend signing up for maybe 1-2 sessions with a trainer. They can show you the techniques that work best with your dog and then you can practice at home. I found it to work so much better than trying to do it on my own at first. Once you learn the techniques, you can apply them to almost anything.

Positive training methods (not like the Cesar Milan stuff which is dominance based) work so well for most dogs.

Around here there are trainers who will do private sessions for pretty reasonable prices and you can do just 1-2 to work on your specific issues. You don't have to sign up for a whole expensive session of classes. It's well worth the cost!

Things you can try/look at in the meantime:

For barking - work on teaching the "quiet" command. I'm sure you can google a video on this, but basically when the dog is barking, wait for them to take a break and be quiet for a short time. Give a treat (if food motivated). Eventually you work up to saying the word "quiet" and treating at the same time - name the behavior. You lengthen the amount of time they have to be quiet to get the treat. Eventually you say the word while they are barking in order to elicit the correct behavior.

We've also used a time-out to correct barking with a lot of success. Basically removing from the situation until they stop, then letting them back out.

You can also try clicker training (I was never coordinated enough to pull this off).

For walking on the leash, there are lots of tools to try depending on your dog - EZ-walk or SENSE-ation harness (with front clip - never a clip on the shoulders which encourages pulling), prong collar (only after learning method from a trainer first, etc.

When the dog pulls, stop walking until they let slack back into the leash or look back at you. Or immediately change direction. It takes a while but they get it eventually. You want to stop rewarding the pulling behavior.

Wow, that got really long. Sorry about that. Hope something works well for you!!

JEPES1348

I also agree with the shock collar. I avoided it for so long because I felt they were cruel. But as long as you, the trainer, is consistent, your dog will likely only need a few actual shocks before the behavior is corrected better. Our dog has only been shocked a handful of times, and on a lower setting, and now responds very well to "warning beeps," which are only a tone and don't even vibrate.

We adopted our older dog from a shelter when he was 2 or 3, and we're at least his 3rd owner. He has very bad behavior and gets absolutely nuts sometimes (and doesn't listen!), but the warning beeps set him straight, for the most part.

abby8279

Wow thank you guys for all the advice!  Based on the feedback I think that it's a good idea to meet with a trainer at least once to see which training techniques would be the best fit for our pup.  But I will also research some of the other things you guys referenced in the meantime.

Rrrrrachel

We use ecollars, too, and shock collar is a misnomer. They're not painful and when used appropriately they can be a great tool. That kind of training can be pretty expensive, though.

cprice02

Brandiewine11 said:

For walking on the leash, there are lots of tools to try depending on your dog - EZ-walk or SENSE-ation harness (with front clip - never a clip on the shoulders which encourages pulling), prong collar (only after learning method from a trainer first, etc.

When the dog pulls, stop walking until they let slack back into the leash or look back at you. Or immediately change direction. It takes a while but they get it eventually. You want to stop rewarding the pulling behavior.

These are both great suggestions for walking.  We used both of these with our dog and continue to when needed.  We used a harness like this at the suggestion of a trainer and it really helped.  

We took our dog to a group class at our local doggie daycare center.  We really liked doing the group thing.  It was a 6 week course, a cheaper option than one on one and we got a lot out of it.  

Like other people have mentioned consistency is key and positive reinforcement works wonders.  Also, you need to keep working with them after the class and continue to reinforce what was taught.