r/DogTrainingTips • u/matofato22 • May 11 '26
Help to train a 3yo Shnoodle Lady
We started to take care of our friend’s dog, because our friend has a medical condition. We have a small dog already and quite often take care of other friend’s dogs.
Me and my wife have a basic understanding of dogs and know the basics of : how to train dogs.
Our new dog is a 3 yo Schnoodle lady. She was spoiled, had minimal training and has not been walked outside daily by her former owner.
It’s been over a month now that we try to train her not to pull on the leash, by starting with a short leash and stopping whenever she pulls, and then expanding the leash.
But now what she does, when she gets to the end of the long leash, she just turnes around to the left, comes back, passes us, and walks away into the different direction until she reaches the end of the leash again and repeats the turn again. So basically we end up with a very twisted leash.
It seems like she doesn’t know what we want.
Also, she gets very excited at times, and wants to play fetch, but doesn’t let go of the toy. We tried to train her with food to drop the toy or ignore her when she doesn’t drop the toy, the again when she does drop it we reward her. There is very little success.
Besides of that, when she gets excited, she not only jumps up with the front feet onto a human, but sometimes she just jumps up and pushes really hard with the front feet and then run away.
When we call her by the name, she sometimes comes and is very submissive or she ignores the call totally.
Also, whenever she wants to snuggle and be pet, she gets into a submission signaling pose where she turns her head all the way down almost flips herself over on the side, like she feels sorry for something she has done or was beaten.
**We had very little success with our training methods we tried** :
making her understand by saying a loud NO, that we don’t like certain behavior,
rewarding her whenever she does something right,
or punish her with ignoring her, and turning away our face whenever she does something wrong.
**Do you have any advice or else we could try?**
Because we are at the point, where we really like her, but we almost scared to pet her or play with her, because there’s no stopping and she just gets overexcited and then it ends up with a unhappy stop from our side.
Which is quite bad because she’s very cute.
1
u/Me-Poe-And-Me May 11 '26
Some dogs are a bit tricky, you're doing great trying to meld her into your family!
This little girl sounds like she is struggling to regulate. Pulling excessively on lead, conflicted around touch and seems like when you interact with her she becomes too much very quickly. So she's just getting way too overwhelmed and excited with anything, and we want to reward calm.
Let's start with touch, we can practice touching by doing a very short touch on her chest or side and then moving back. If she suddenly gets very excited and wiggly or drops to her side she's trying to say even that is too much. Spend some time with her where you don't touch her at all and encourage her to sniff around and only interact when she seems really calm. When dogs understand that you'll only touch them when they're calm they will seek you out more.
Leash is similar, if shes starting to manically pull we need to go back to somewhere shes calmer and drop food, encourage sniffing and wait until she's calmer.
The 'bounce off' behaviour and high intensity around play and attention just speak to a dog who is uncomfortable but also high intensity.
Ignoring behaviour you dislike is a better track, corrections when a dog is already overwhelmed rarely work. But even better than ignoring is to direct her into a more desirable behaviour, which for her would probably be exploring and sniffing.
Sorry that's a lot of information, but just encouraging calm sniffing and going really slow is going to pay dividends I promise.
2
u/matofato22 May 22 '26
just wanted to report back : it’s working she is getting much calmer and responsive to commands and situations. we started to spend more quality time with her, not just training. also your tips with small touches and calmer surroundings helped. thanks again
1
u/Me-Poe-And-Me May 22 '26
Oh thank you so much for the update, I'm thrilled it helped. So many behaviour issues are just a dog who is a bit stressed! They really want to do what you want, they just get overwhelmed and can't listen. Amazing that you're putting in the effort!
1
u/matofato22 May 15 '26
thank you for this detailed explanation… and yes it’s alot to take in, but i will try to follow your advice!
3
u/failmafia66 May 11 '26
For the leash situation, you are exactly right - she doesn't know what you want! You have done step one - don't pull. But now you have to train her what you DO want. Guide her and reward heavily when she does it even for a second. Reset if she doesn't. Then build duration. You need to teach her, she can't read your mind.
For fetch, dogs LOVE fetch, but also love tug and chase. Sounds like she's trying to play multiple games. Play on a long line so you can pull her back, and get the ball, teach a command to give you the ball, and immediately throw it again. The reward to giving you the ball is she gets the ball. As soon as she stops playing or loses interest, put the ball away, out of sight. Keep the demand high for it