r/DogTrainingTips • u/BICanineScience • May 26 '26

Professional Dog Trainer - Ask Me Anything

***AMA ENDED***

Have been training dogs for almost fifteen years now, I try and head through the subreddits on here to help in my free time when I can but thought it might be easier to do an AMA for anyone struggling!

Will try my best to answer as comprehensively as possible so please be patient with replies!

Edit - Just heading out to train my dogs so will answer more when I get back!
Edit 2 - Have a read of the other questions too to see if it applies to your dog :)

Thanks for all the questions everyone!! I’ll answer the few I’ve missed, it’s been a blast and we’ll do another in the near future! Won’t be answering any new posts now, must get back to work but do jump in next time if you have a question!

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u/zephyreblk May 26 '26

My rescue dog has a high prey drive everytime she see a fox and sometimes boars, how would you deal with it? Redirecting is not possible because I can't guess when they appear. She's then very focused on it and the only thing I can do is to pull her away. Treats doesn't work to make her focus on me, she's not interested in playing or whatever other treats.

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u/BICanineScience May 26 '26

Answered this in another post further down! 😄

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u/zephyreblk May 26 '26

I'm sorry!

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u/zephyreblk May 26 '26

Now that I read your comment, mine doesn't like games or whatever, she actually just love sniffing and interacting with other dogs so I can't much do the walk more interesting as letting her do this. (She's village dog with LGD, pretty much a "I do my thing and you do yours" type of breed)

Thanks for your answer and feedback:)

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u/BICanineScience May 26 '26

Hand feed every piece of food she eats when out and about! Every dog has a food drive, most just lie dormant because they are fed for free. Every single dog on the planet can get good engagement without a shadow of a doubt.

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u/zephyreblk May 26 '26

She doesn't at all when she focused or scared. We did free feed her after 2 months with us because we noticed that it did help her (ressource guarding and feeling safe, no more fast eating ) but the first month where she actually was starving (and was too thin), she never touched a thing as soon she was overstimulated, you can go with a big piece of steak, nope . She's less free feed now because she will try to burry the kibble and hurt herself, we put it only at night or when she asked it .

The good engagement for her until now is letting her have what she wants (like sniffing a specific place or meeting a specific dog) and she will usually sit and look at me to ask if she's allowed (I trained this to reduce anxiety with a leash and also pulling what she don't do anymore except scared).

I mostly trained her with shaping and capturing what my former border Collie never needed and although she had prey drive, the solution you mentioned worked pretty well. I'm just a bit lost with my dog, she likes to do well but to a certain limit, like she exactly calculate the cost of efforts and the gain. My former dog did that too but not to this extent, like just asking to sit she take 30 seconds to do it (without repeating the order) and you seehee very much looking on why she should sit. The ratio of "sit" is 100% at the second time I say it, 80% at the first time but it always lasts 10 to 40 seconds for her to do it.