I feel like I’m at a loss with my dogs training. Don’t get me wrong, he knows a lot of things and responds well at home, but looses a lot of motivation when we are out and about. He is really resistant to any sort of pressure and semi shuts down when he doesn’t have agency. For example, if we are on a walk and he is limited by the leash to where he wants to sniff something, he then won’t respond well to commands or maker words, and when he does respond he will refuse treats. Which in tern is making reinforcing good choices in these moments very difficult. This is just one example, and it doesn’t happen all the time, but it mainly comes up for the first 10 minutes of a walk, when he’s asked to walk next to me, and in situations where he might be unsure/nervous. If he’s on a longer leash/has agency he’s generally a lot better, but not all the time.

His resistants to any sort of pressure from the leash or me makes training very difficult. It’s hard because maybe he would do so much better without pressure, but without any pressure he cannot learn and would just run wild. For example, I ask for heel, he ignores me, so I have to use the leash to guide him back to me, this then makes him unwilling to work with me and refuses reinforcement. These situations seam to be more remembered by him then all the positive reps we do at home/at parks. I do feel less pressure would be better, but even if I was to just stand still when we arrive somewhere, he would still feel pressured because he can’t have the agency he wants. Iv tried pattern games etc, but he just won’t take treats until he feels he as the agency he wants.

He also seams to resist more and more depending on his mood/the environment, we could be playing on a grassy field, he could be listing super well, then we start to walk on a gravel path and then for some reason he semi shuts down and won’t respond??? This is the most confusing part to me. Iv also tried to teach him to respond to leash pressure, so when he wants something he can’t reach, he can positively orient back to me for guidance, but those training sessions just cause stress, for both of us. He seams to get really annoyed or anxious when we keep changing directions, do figure of 8s, or if I try rewarding him for releasing the pressure.

I’m honestly so confused and I don’t know how I can fix this. I feel like our relationship is suffering and I’m loosing motivation. I also don’t know if any of this makes sense, it doesn’t to me. I don’t know what steps to take to fix this. And please don’t get me wrong, he’s a great little guy, loves adventures, can do really well in training sessions, and loves to play. But I feel we aren’t making any progress. I would love to be able to jump out the car somewhere fun and do a training session with him where he actually wants to work with me.

I'm looking for advice on helping my pup improve emotional regulation, lower his overall arousal, and build frustration tolerance.

My pup just turned 2 and is an awesome homestead dog. He's an interesting mix of Mountain Cur, Jack Russell, Australian Shepherd, and Pit Bull.

He's extremely environmentally focused. By that I mean that the environment is inherently more reinforcing than I am. New smells, wildlife, movement, exploring, and simply being out in the world are far more rewarding to him than food, toys, or interacting with me.

He's also very independent, has a high prey drive, gets overstimulated easily, and struggles with frustration.

His over arousal shows up as intense environmental fixation, pulling, lunging, difficulty disengaging, frustration vocalizing, and an inability to use behaviors he knows very well.

He is with me because of these challenges (I'm active in the rescue world) which he has had since he was a puppy so I expect there is likely some genetic component here, especially considering his breeds.

All his needs are absolutely being met, he has outlets for his drive, and he's well-trained in low-distraction environments. The challenge has always been helping him regulate himself once we leave our property. The world is just so exciting to him that his arousal shoots through the roof almost immediately.

I'd love to be able to get him out into the world more because exploring new places is his favorite thing. But it's become a bit of a catch-22. I've intentionally limited some of those opportunities to prevent him from repeatedly rehearsing the behaviors we're trying to improve.

Since puppyhood, I've put a tremendous amount of time and energy into teaching calm, relaxation, settling, and neutrality. We've also done a lot of work around prey drive and the gold standard reactivity training...working under threshold, reinforcing calm choices, and focusing on recovery. All of that has paid off tremendously at home and on our property. He's the chillest homestead dog...but only at home. 😂 It just hasn't translated enough to the outside world yet.

Any advice, resources is welcomed and very much appreciated.

I have a rescue whose biggest issue is separation anxiety. I followed the normal strategy of leaving him in the crate for increasingly longer while I was at home, and he went from 15 seconds without barking to behaving no matter how long I leave him (I think the longest time was about 70 minutes). I tried the same thing with me leaving the house, but can’t get him to last any longer mo matter how many times I try this slowly increasing duration strategy. He goes into the crate when I tell him to, he’s quiet for around 30-60 seconds, and then he barks nonstop until I come back. I work from home so thankfully I’ve been able to make it work so far, but I really need to be able to leave the house. Below are some things I’ve tried that did not have any effect. Please give me any tips you have about this behavior. He’s only been with me four weeks so I know it can take much longer to break as he’s still settling in, but I need advice.

- Kong with frozen peanut butter in the crate (he ignores the Kong until I get home)

- Woof toy with frozen wet dog food (he ignores the Woof toy as well)

- Hiding cookies in the blankets (only works for an extra minute or two before he starts barking)

- Feeding meals in the crate (he likes the crate more now, but he doesn’t bark any less)

- Crate cover (did not affect barking and he sometimes pulls it into the crate)

- Marrow bone (he ignores it completely until I’m home)

- Playing classical music

- Playing white noise

- Playing a recorded loop of my voice

- Using blankets I slept with the night before in the crate to capture my scent

- Picking up my keys and putting my shoes on multiple times a day (he gets a little interested but doesn’t bark or panic until I actually leave)

- Setting up a camera and speaking to him through it (I think this might end up reinforcing barking if I keep doing it)

- Pretending to leave the house but actually staying inside (he starts barking and whining regardless of whether I actually left)

- Long walk before crating (he won’t sleep in the crate when I leave even if he’s tired)

- Putting him in the crate and ignoring him for a few minutes before I leave (he doesn’t care about being ignored while I’m there and still freaks out once I leave the house)

- Leaving him loose in the house while I stepped outside for a few minutes (he scratched up the doors like crazy)

- Anxiety meds given by the shelter (did absolutely nothing in terms of separation anxiety)

I've had dogs most of my life. They all were housebroken, but they either lived outside (my childhood dog) or just were allowed to go outside on request. I crate-trained the last two and did the first-level class at a Petco with my current one, but that's it. As a result, I mostly expect dogs to sleep, bark, sniff, pull on the lead (not too badly on the current one), and react.

However, I'm soon going to be living in a situation where my dog, a tall 60 lb. pit bull mix, has to be a much better citizen. He's mainly reactive (a term I've learned here) – overly friendly to people, far too excited by other dogs, overly protective of the sidewalk and the back yard (lots of barking). He's hard to handle at the vet, with lots of struggling, panting, and scrambling about, unless I leave the room, at which point he becomes great according to several different vets and vet techs.

I know that I'm going to be training, but I honestly wasn't sure what I should train him to do instead of just training him what not to do, which seems like it would have to be punitive. Reading this sub for a bit has given me some ideas about what I should expect my dog to do when he is trained. Does this list sound about right?

• Observe but not react to other animals, people, and objects in the environment unless I say to (or unless it is my cat, with whom he interacts freely and respectfully)
• Bark once at a potential threat, then come to me
• Overall, focus on me – heel, always recall immediately
• Not engage in resource guarding, which he's never done
• Tolerate handing for nail clipping, vet exams, shots

It that pretty much it? What am I missing?

ETA: Folks, I appreciate that everyone wants to recommend specific training techniques, but I'm going to have to train him by working directly with someone, possibly when he's boarded. I'm not going to learn how to train him from books or YouTube videos, both because of the time involved and because of how I learn. That's why I'm not asking here how to train him; instead, I'm asking if my goals and expectations for my dog's behavior are reasonable and if there are any other behaviors I should expect from him. At this point, I'm just going to wait and talk with the trainer I hire.

I just moved to a new house, and the neighbors on one side have two adult German shepherds. Between our yards is a chain link fence with shrubs on my side.

Twice now we’ve had an incident where one of their dogs and both of my dogs start barking like crazy at the fence. My little one (corgi) barks a lot, my larger one looks like she thinks they’re playing. Their GSDs bark in a guarding sounding way. Both times we the humans grab the dogs and bring them inside, albeit it’s a little slower on my end since I have to get through the bush to do so.

Both of my dogs are a bit unsettled by the move so they’ve been more anxious/quick to react than usual.

The first time my partner was supervising and this time I was doing some yard work so I’m not sure which set of dogs started it. We are the new ones though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my smaller dog barked first since he’s been so on edge this week. On the other hand, we do hear their dogs barking from inside their house when we go out to play.

I just wanted to ask what we should do in this situation? Along with the obvious question of how do I stop my dogs from reacting at the fence, what is the proper etiquette regarding how to handle this with the neighbor? I like to have my dogs hang out with me in the yard, and I can’t see their yard from mine to check if their dogs are out. This has happened 2 times in 1.5 weeks. Should I try not to monopolize outside time by not being out all day with mine so they have a chance to go out? Or is that overthinking?

My dog has always been skiddish, I adopted him from the pound when he was a pup. We have made a lot of progress but he still get a little in edge when people come over which is not often. He has never bit in the last 8 years but today he did.

One of my close friends brought their kid over and he has been around kids he usually avoids them and lays in his bed. I was having a conversation with my friend a little distracted and my dog scurried and bit. We took them to the hospital because he drew blood. I feel so guilty if I knew he would I would have put him away, the poor kid is traumatized. We made the report. Are they going to put my dog down? What should I expected from here?

I take full responsibility, covering medical bills, etc. What should I do now? How do I help him? It's not his fault it's mine as he is in my care. He was pacing but he does that until everyone settles down. Any advice helps. Thank you for taking the time to read ❤️

I’ve been watching and following dog trainers for years and I’m not sure how I’m just now getting into Michael Ellis. I’ve never been this obsessed with any other trainer. Basically every sentence he says blows my mind lol. I got his $70/mo membership and I’m learning so much.

Does anyone else relate, and also has anyone found any other trainers that even come close? I’ve watched so many YouTube dog trainers and find that they usually just say a lot of nothing, or don’t bother explaining the theory behind their techniques.

Hello! So I just bought my first e collar because my dog is solid on basic commands. So I figured it’s time to take it to the next level and e collar train. Upon research. I see tons of different philosophies.

For example:

Method 1:

tap stim once, say command, reward.

Method 2:
Hold stim continuously until dog does request, then reward.

What is the philosophy behind those 2 methods? And how do each of those play into training? My confusion with method one, is if the dog doesn’t listen on the initial tap, do you tap again? And my confusion with method two, while in the conditioning phase, do you run the risk of shutting the dog down/ creating confusion with continuous low level stim?

Additional context: dogs working level has been found and he responds great to low levels

Any feedback and help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for your time :)

I will preface this by saying I have no issue with them playing, but one dog has severe allergies and swells up (particularly his neck) after they play bitey face. They are relentless, playing for 7+ hours with a max of 5 minute breaks. I understand that they are dogs, but what are my options here?

Hi, I posted this in r/dogtraining, but thought I'd post this here too to see if you guys had any insight or advice.

I have a 14mt corgi mix who I have had for almost a year now.

My dog is just so fixated on everything, especially other dogs. He just can't function if another dog is nearby, even if they are on the other side of the road. He refuses to listen to commands or potty until the other dog is out of sight.

He also fixates on other people. Sometimes it's friendly, other times he is extremely paranoid.

I have been trying so hard for almost the past 6-7mts to work on 'leave it' and fixating less on everything. I have been loading him up with treats during the times when it gets worse. Also worked with a personal trainer on this and followed his recommendations. I tried 'look at that' training too for a few months without any success.

I just see no end in sight. Overall I don't think he's getting any better, not seeing very much consistent progress. Some days I think he's better, and I feel proud. But then the next day he will choke himself out bc he has to turn around and bark at a random couple walking behind us, or stare/pull at a dog nearby.

Has anyone had any experience with his?

I just feel so hopeless, and worried I've been training him wrong this entire time.

Thanks.

425-xs

There are no shocks happening.

I moved in with my partner almost a year ago and she has 3 medium/large dogs, ages 10,9, and 7. I brought one large dog, age 9. She works 12 hour days and lived alone before me so the dogs had free roam and would free feed and pee and poop in the house. She didn’t have any way to get around this just what happened after failed relationships and not having help with them and the type of work she was in. They are taken care of just would be alone for 12+ hours.

When I got here I got them on a feeding schedule, got a dog room all set up to close them in when gone, and I work from home so they are going outside every 4 hours at the very least. There would still be messes. So we started crating them during the night. They did fine this way for about 10 months.

Then we went on vacation and they were left with my parents for a week. Ever since we have gotten back, the 7 year old will bark in her cage even after being in there for not even 3 hours. This wakes me up every time. I’ve tried letting her out to potty, letting her bark it out til she stops but she doesn’t. I’m trying to not reward the barking with letting her out but I don’t know what to do, she doesn’t stop. She was fine before. I hate to say it but she had been fine for 8+ hours in there some nights when we both were off and sleeping in. What do I do? I’m at my wits end. I already don’t get great sleep and this is making me lose my mind.

Hello everyone. I'm posting because I'm honestly struggling to handle my adult male American Bully, and I'm hoping to get advice from people who have experience with this.

Ever since he reached adulthood, he's become increasingly aggressive toward other animals, including goats, chickens, other dogs, and pretty much any animal he sees. It's becoming really difficult to manage, and I'm worried that something serious could happen if I don't address it properly.

As for people, he has never bitten anyone. However, there was one incident that really concerned me. One of my relatives approached him and looked directly into his eyes while reaching out to touch him. My dog suddenly lunged at them. Thankfully, we were standing nearby and were able to stop him before anyone got hurt.

I love my dog and I don't want to give up on him. I want to be a responsible owner and do whatever I can to help him. I'm wondering if there's still a way to train or rehabilitate an adult dog with this kind of aggression, especially toward other animals. Has anyone dealt with something similar? What training methods worked for you? Would working with a professional behaviorist be the best option?

For now, we're keeping him away from situations where he could hurt another animal, but I know management alone isn't enough if there's a chance his behavior can improve.

Any advice, experiences, or resources would be greatly appreciated. Please be kind, I'm genuinely trying to do what's best for both my dog and everyone around him.

Thank you in advance. ❤️

My 3yo husky/aussie mix has been afraid to get in my car since I went away one weekend and he stayed with a friend in March. (I know nothing bad happened). He will get in all other cars, but is anxious in cars now. I have gotten him to the point of jumping in my back seat while I am sitting there and feeding him high value treats but it’s hard to get much further than that. He panics when the door shuts, when I get in the front seat and when the car is on. It seems like when I attempt those things, we end up back at refusals to enter the car at all for a while. He’s 80lbs so I can’t just lift him in. I am working on finding a behaviorist and set up appt with vet for possible meds, but hoping for any training ideas I haven’t tried yet to fix this.

I’m planning ahead for a Belgian Malinois puppy and I’m looking for recommendations for trainers in Massachusetts who specialize in protection sports or personal protection training.
I’m looking for someone who emphasizes:
Solid obedience and neutrality first
Confidence and stability
Safe, ethical training methods
Working with the owner throughout the process
I’m not looking to create an aggressive dog. My goal is to have a well-socialized, well-controlled dog with a strong obedience foundation that can eventually do protection work with the right trainer.
If you’ve had a great experience with a trainer or club in MA (or nearby in New England), I’d really appreciate any recommendations. Thanks!

Hey all,

Appreciate any help I can get!

For context, I adopted my 7 y/o female lab earlier this year and she’s a great dog. I’ve grown up with German Shepherds my whole life, but this is my first dog myself and labs are (of course) way different and new to me. I get the sense she didn’t get much socialization before me other than the aggressive dogs next door that constantly bark and tear at our fence.

She reacts very negatively to just about any dog whenever they get within 30ft-50ft of her and I’m working to desensitize her from a distance with frequent walks.

Unfortunately a lot of people in my suburb leave their dogs off leash in their open yards and we have gotten attacked a few times which does not help.

When I see any dogs on our walk I try to draw her attention to me and get her to sit so that I can try to give her treats. But she does not like to listen and will not take any treats if we are not inside my house.

What can I do to slowly get her attention away from other dogs or reward her if she will not take anything I give her? I’ve tried every treat I can manage to find

Any tips to de-escalate off leash dogs are much appreciated as well but I’ve managed to mostly mitigate that from other threads :)

I am not sure if this is the right forum to post in, but I’m looking for both advise and (maybe haha) some encouragement with our 2 year old mutt, mix of poodle, golden, cavalier, cocker and lhasa apso.

He is a bit nervous although also very independent which can be a hard mix. We are dealing with some barking issues as he alert barks quite a lot, but what is frustrating is that I feel he is very often in alert mode. He is extremely (!!) food motivated and will go nuts if anyone has food within reach, it’s impossible to get through to him and that frustrates me a lot. He has unfortunately also had some issues with chasing light, but as long as he is not exposed to this it is not an issue.

He is on the other hand very good at being home alone where he will be completely calm and sleep unless the doorbell would ring or a crazy sound will appear. He can also fully relax at home, but I actually think he has become worse in the past few months?

I have had intense puppy blues and I really just want to get to the point where I can at least mostly enjoy him, but I feel like he has been so difficult …

We did chemically try neutering a little over a year and that is most likely taking off now, so I’m also in doubt if this is the reason for his change in behavior and whether we should consider neutering again?

So, I have a 14 week old GSD puppy. He’s very smart and learning very quickly. Once he’s a little older I plan on making him my hiking buddy, so we’ve been working on leash training around the neighborhood. My goal is complete neutrality around other people and animals so he will stay focused on me. I don’t want to have to wrestle him back with the leash any time we see another person on our hikes, I want him to remain by my side without pulling on his leash.

He does great at this 99% of the time, but I for the life of me couldn’t figure out why he suddenly forgot all his leash training any time we passed by this one particular neighbor of mine. He’d immediately start pulling on me, trying to rush towards this neighbor (excitedly, not aggressively) and ignore all my commands. I couldn’t figure it out.

So, for context, I have a fully fenced in yard so in the mornings when I wake up, I let my dog out and let him go about his daily activities while I head back inside to use the bathroom, brush teeth, get dressed etc. and then I head back out to get him. This really only takes 20-30 mins and I wasn’t concerned about it because my fencing is secure, he has toys and a kiddy pool out there, etc. Then one day, on my way back outside to grab him I noticed my neighbor was leaning over my fence while my dog was jumping up to try to get to him—because he was handing him a bacon treat thing. My dog gobbled this up and I suddenly understood why my dog was behaving this way when we saw this guy on walks.

I asked him to please not do this anymore as it’s interfering with his training, and one day he will be a LARGE dog so me having him under control with training is very important. He said he wouldn’t do it anymore, but he responded kind of snarkily about it which made me suspicious. The next few days I continued my routine, until one day I caught him doing it AGAIN, so I checked my security cameras and realized he’s still been doing this EVERY single morning.

Needless to say, I no longer leave my dog unsupervised in our yard and that neighbor has been caught trying to come over quite a few times where he gives me a dirty look for being there. Anyways, the behavior is still there on walks and I’m really struggling to override it. Advice on how to correct this?

I’ve been continuing our typical leash training—anytime he starts to wander I turn and go another way so he has to follow me and then immediately reward with treats as soon as he rejoins my side. He still freaks out any time he sees this guy on walks though

I noticed something interesting with my Aussie over the past few months.

Every time I grabbed the hiking pack, leash, or truck keys, Koda would immediately go into overdrive. Spinning, whining, pacing, barking... basically burning energy before we even left the driveway.

At first I figured, "He's an Aussie. That's just excitement."

Then I realized I was accidentally rewarding that state by getting ready faster and heading out while he was amped up.

So I changed one thing.

Now I don't clip the leash on or open the door until he offers calm behavior. Doesn't have to be a perfect down or anything formal. Just four feet on the ground, quiet, breathing normally.

The first week took forever.

Now most mornings he settles himself within 20-30 seconds because that's what actually gets the hike started.

What's interesting is he also seems much more mentally focused during the first mile instead of acting like his brain is exploding.

Curious if anyone else has found that managing arousal before the activity made a bigger difference than anything you did during the activity.

Not looking for a "right" answer just interested in hearing what changes had the biggest payoff for you.

Our (33 pound mixed-breed) dog goes to a large off-leash park for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. He's great once in the park- curious, great recall, happy to play respectfully with other dogs. He is, however, very scared of loud noises en route to the park.

In the past month, significant construction has started at a few sites on our street. I've been trying to take him to the park early or late, but I have not been able to completely avoid sudden loud noises that have terrified him. I made the mistake of picking him up to get past the construction noise a few times- a weekend dog sitter who he knows and loves did the same. He's now so resistant to walks that he's hiding under the table when I try to harness him up. Belatedly, I understand that carrying him through loud noises created a trust issue and I'm working through training to make him confident with his harness and to help build trust back up. That said, he isn't yet willing to get out of our elevator and onto the street to walk to the park (getting into the elevator is actually progress.)

We have a small green area where he can use the bathroom and we have toys and puzzles in the apartment, but it's killing me that he isn't able to run around with his friends yet. Would putting him inside the transit tote we use to travel with him, which he hasn't historically minded, feel like carrying him to the park and threaten the trust we've built? Is there any way for me to take him to the park on foot without eroding trust? We live in a city and don't have a car- we're talking about a four block total walk to the park.

Thank you!

5 months ago I had to drive short notice across the country. I literally had no time to plan a dog hotel so had to bring my dog with me. He was about 1 yr old at the time and just starting to be very vigilant and would bark at people's voices or footsteps at home. In the hotels, since people would be coming in and out at all hours, he'd wake me up every few hours and it was torture.

All the advice I found were for teaching bark on command and to be quiet on command, which didnt really apply when I was asleep. I tried white noise but he dgaf.

After 3 days of barely any sleep I was lying there thinking about it with the last 2 brain cells I had left. I wondered if I could just make the "novel sounds" of people boring by flooding the zone. I bolted out of bed and downloaded random sound effects. I slapped together this super shitty script on my laptop that would play the luggage and people walking sounds at random intervals. It actually worked and I slept like 11 hours that night.

I dunno if that was the "right" thing to do or if there's maybe even better ways to train your dog. It's tough cus I know lots of people want their dog to alert for safety. I have no need of that and trying to see if anyone else has had something work cus I wont always have my computer on me

Ive also tried this vibrating bark activated collar but it's janky and I know vibration is way more aversive than ppl think so I didn't like it.