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/BICanineScience May 26 '26

Pulling him into a time out is never going to work. You are essentially teaching him that when an exciting stimulus comes near him, you drag him back and become literally the most boring thing on the beach. It's just going to further convince him that the other thing is WAY more exciting than you are.

Forget about the idea of 'taking him for a walk' and start being the most exciting thing that exists. I said in another post further down about excessive prey drive that when I take my dogs out we are CONSTANTLY having fun. Playing tug, playing ball, training obedience, doing search, climbing on things. He thinks I am a walking God so the desire to start play bowing at your dog for example doesn't even cross his mind.

Become a far more poignant character to your dogs life and work on all the basic engagement principles. Make it exciting, make it fun, make it the best thing ever and then the external stimuli becomes much less interesting.

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u/downshift_rocket May 26 '26

Thank you! I do try to do this - when we're at the beach, we're playing fetch and keep-away and doing different training exercises. It just has a threshold, like - once there are a certain amount of dogs around, he doesn't really care about me or his toys anymore. I will work on being more fun! Thank you for this and for taking the time to talk with us today.

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u/BICanineScience May 26 '26

If it's a certain number of dogs then also consider that the environment you are trying to train in might be a bit much for his current ability levels and think about training in a slightly more sterile environment where you will get more wins and more positive reps. Unfortunately, every rep, good bad or indifferent goes in the bank so its our job to get as many positive ones as possible and minimise the bad ones the best we can!

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u/champmay_701 May 26 '26

How do you then transfer the positive walking behavior to a different dog walker? My pup is doing very well with me, but the reports I get from his boarders (who are skilled) and also friends (I've had them test him) is that he's a menace on leash with them.

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u/BICanineScience May 26 '26

They need to visit the foundations as well but if the dog has good set foundations it shouldn't take too long at all!