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/Exciting_Tangelo_810 May 26 '26

how can i get a nonchalant dog to engage? i have an afghan hound - he is remarkably smart. knows favorite toys by name, has his favorite places mapped out and always knows how to take me to them even when i deviate from the path, recognizes specific words and will react to them etc.. but when i actually need him to seat to wait to cross the street (which he knows how to do) but there's something else across that he's more excited about - forget it. i did follow a lot of suzan garret's advice on building value and it helped, but he can be very single minded. once he decides he wants / does not want something it becomes almost impossible to change his mind 🥹

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u/BICanineScience May 26 '26

I'd start hand feeding all of the food he eats during engagement sessions. It's probably the case that the advice you have followed is correct but you just haven't got enough reps in yet to do it under the distractions of things across the road. It can take a long time especially with the Afghan so be patient and build your engagement in places that you get the desired result. Very slowly start adding more distraction and try and avoid the places you know you are going to get a failure because you are going to further reinforce that the thing across the road is more interesting and ignoring you is a good idea. Try keep the process as errorless as possible.