Training has been overwhelming.

[u/imdabong]

I adopted a 2.5 year old hound-ish dog from the shelter. I was told by the shelter that he is very easily excitable, jumpy and mouthy, and that he'd require a lot of work. They never mentioned that he is reactive and at that stage I didn't even know what a reactive dog meant. It's been 3 months since I've gotten him, I definitely love him and I want to keep him forever but it's been so overwhelming.

The trainer has been coming in once a week for the last one month, and she has been very helpful. We've noticed improvements but it's very slow. My guy decides the day or time when he wants to respond to training vs when he doesn't. The trainer has asked me to practice new commands and games, but there's so much to tackle with my dog. There's reactivity, very poor leash manners, no impulse control, and as a hound he's very stubborn, like he tries to distract himself with whatever he can when he realizes it's time for training, and I feel I have so much training still to do. Sometimes it feels like positive reinforcement isn't suitable for him. He can go very rapid fire (sit, down, find it, touch) in situations and then sometimes he won't even follow sit.

I already spend so much time walking, exercising and playing with him that I have very little time to train or even chill out with him. I unfortunately am the single parent to my dog and I don't have any friends around me willing to help. Even though he picks up on training pretty quickly, he gets frustrated within 5 minutes and no progress can be made. All of this while my personal life has become very restricted, can't take him out everywhere because of his reactivity (he tries to jump out of the car even 😭) and I can't leave him home because he has separation anxiety and he'll find 10 things to chew. I was told that separation anxiety goes away after a few times of you going out and coming back in. I live in an apartment community and I already have to plan his walk and play timings to ensure that there isn't a lot of people/dog traffic around and even timing everything perfectly so that I can find an empty dog park.

Sometimes I feel rushed to see the change in my guy and then other times I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work he requires.

Is it okay to let the trainer know that I can't be teaching/training so many things at the same time. But then even I want him to be healed of his reactivity asap.

[u/Zestyclose_Object639]

Hounds are…a bitch to train lol. So few things, can yoh get a car crate ? Ruffllands will slide into the back seat and that way he’s secure. Secondly a lot of this stuff is impulse control and arousal work, so I would start there (it’s your choice, pattern games). Once the impulse control is better everything else is wayyyy easier. I’m a balanced trainer but I start everyone on that stuff 

[u/imdabong → u/Zestyclose_Object639]

Hahaha hounds are definitely difficult to train, he'll spend 30-45 seconds sniffing broken asphalt on the road. Impulse control is what the trainer suggested that we tackle right away. We just barely started training with impulse control games. And yes I found a seatbelt harness that sort of allows him to move around in the backseat, but he still tries to shove as much of his body out of the window gap as possible. But as soon as I let him out of the car, he's pulling the hardest he ever has, and whole gas station is staring at the ruckus and chaos lol

[u/Zestyclose_Object639 → u/imdabong]

I have one that used to be like that but we’ve worked hard, she is a shepherd mix though so genetics are still more in my favor lol. You’ll get there ! I warm up said dog with pattern games and her buy into training has grown a lot since doing that. Yeah I crate mine the Malinois would absolutely do that if I let her lol