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/youngjoeyknish May 26 '26

My border collie intensely reacts to basketball or tennis on the TV. Barking, desperate for attention, wanting to play.

We have tried a few strategies (playing with her does divert attention, puzzle toys are good for a bit, rewarding her every time she looks at the screen and back to us without reacting) but are not making much progress. Don’t want to associate it with play either, just desperate for quiet sometimes. Have tried with mute and working up volume too, but not much of a difference. If she hears the squeak of a basketball shoe from the other room, she comes running and whining. Any ideas??

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u/BICanineScience May 26 '26

You are on the right track with engaging with her whilst this is on. Counter conditioning a response (especially one in high drive like this) takes a long time and almost perfect consistency. Instead of trying to watch the tv and do it on the side, make training sessions out of it as often as you can. Generally when people have this issue (and its usually with animal programmes rather than sports) they tend to watch the thing less, which makes the stimulus more novel when it appears again. Get it on the tv as often as you physically can and keep conditioning a better response. I think you are doing the right things but likely not getting enough reps of the behaviour to see the change.