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Author Topic: Why are my dogs so needy of me?  (Read 18953 times)

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
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Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #30 on: January 03, 2013, 11:32:42 am »
Great  :thumbsup:   Let us know you you both get on!    :)
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

doganjo

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Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #31 on: January 03, 2013, 12:02:45 pm »
Dogs do not understand English unfortunately  :innocent: You have to show him what he has to do - or better still, whenever you see him laying down say the word you want to use - flat, down, lie or anything else. But always use the same word and try to use it every time you see him lying down.  Always have treats in a box on the work tops or tables in each room - where he can't reach them.  When he lies down anywhere and you see him and you say the word throw a treat for him - even if it means he gets up again.   That can be good as he may go and lie down again and again and you have another opportunity to give the command. It's called positive reinforcement.  You could also try using a clicker, but you need to 'charge' the clicker first time so he knows that when you click after a command there will be treats following the click.  The click just indicates the end of the exercise.
Charge the clicker by throwing down a few treats and click click click - he'll get the message pretty quick.  Good luck
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

happygolucky

  • Joined Jan 2012
Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #32 on: January 03, 2013, 12:06:02 pm »
I found the clicker great, they soon click on :innocent: , I sometimes mess with it in my pocket and they come running when I do not want them too, mind you, my Labs are very very easy to train indeed, its the breed and thier love of food, and if I say "no" even quietly they do not do something like eat poo or go into water or go off.....the only one thing I am working on is Rohan being so needy...that will come in time.

happygolucky

  • Joined Jan 2012
Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #33 on: January 03, 2013, 03:25:53 pm »
Just been out with another of our pups thats 2 now and she and the other male lab that was unrelated kept comming to my whistle, the female pup was so like all the others I have met, very very fast and agile!!!  I remember one person who bought a pup asked if they would be fast enough to keep up on her horse and wow, that dog is so fast you would swear she was a race dog!!

in the hills

  • Joined Feb 2012
Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #34 on: January 03, 2013, 08:21:55 pm »
Making dogs wait their turn is a good way of taking their obedience up a level.  You can sit them all at feed time, put down all their bowls and they must stay and wait until their name is called to come to their bowl. When they go for a walk, they must all sit and be told to stay, leads off and they wait until their name is said and the command "...... go and play" is given. Lots of little exercises like that ...... once they can do them individually of course.


I have to teach BC Meg to lie down and I've never taught that command so had to read how to do it. We never taught our gundogs to lie down ..... I think because you didn't want to encourage them to do that in case they missed a mark.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2013, 09:04:12 pm by in the hills »

colliewoman

  • Joined Jul 2011
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Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #35 on: January 03, 2013, 11:16:24 pm »
I think an awful lot of dogs get confused with the 'down' command as it is so often unintentionally sabotaged by the owner ;)


If I want my dogs to lie down, I tell them 'down' if I want my dogs to get off of something I tell them 'off' or 'floor'.
Every single person that has ever come into my home has, when asking my dogs to get off the sofa said 'down'.
Then get annoyed that the dogs continue to lie there  ::)


If you are one of the many that do this, you may well find huge success by going back to the beginning but this time use a new word such as 'flat' like Doganjo  :thumbsup:
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SallyintNorth

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Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #36 on: January 04, 2013, 05:25:47 am »
'Lie down' for a collie that is to work sheep is a very particular thing and isn't so much to do with the body flat on the ground as to the focus and direction on the sheep - so if you have a collie you may decide to have two commands for this, one for pausing and focussing when working sheep and another for flattening on the ground in any situation (except when working sheep.) 

In agility there's a table they have to get onto and lie flat on.  A lot of handlers would use 'Table' to direct the dog onto the table, and then 'Lie Down' to tell them to lie down.  I just had one command, which meant 'Jump on the table and lie flat on it', which was 'Splat!'  My dogs used to love it, they'd leap towards the table, and land flattened with a great thump, making everyone laugh. :D

The place I used to do obedience didn't like coercive techniques, so you were never told to physically place your dog in a 'down', rather you would get it to follow your hand (concealing a treat if you trained with titbits) down from a Sit and forwards.  They naturally adopt a prone position if you lead them just right, then you tell them what they are doing and praise them.  Gradually they would learn to stay 'down' until you gave them another command.  You could tell the people who used physical placement - their dogs cowered into a down with ears flattened.  The training technique had left an association of coercion and unhappiness, whereas by only ever doing it as a free movement when their interest was engaged, no such bad association formed and so once they had learned the move they had a lot less resistance to doing it and staying in it.

Earlier in my dog-handling career, I had a dog I had tried to train using placement but, although he was bright and generally obedient, he just didn't seem to be able to get 'Lie down'.  Then one time he was wanting a bit of cheese, and I made him do some moves to earn it.  In quick succession I asked for Sit - Come - Stay - Come - Lie Down.  He was intent on the cheese, he was in the mode of being obedient to earn the cheese, without thinking as I said, "Lie Down", he flopped to the ground.  As he went down you could see his brain registering, "Uh-oh...  I'm not supposed to know this one!" :D
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

doganjo

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Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #37 on: January 04, 2013, 03:43:59 pm »
Doesn't matter what words you use.  You can use ying tong for sit and pipplepoo for lying down if you want to  :roflanim: - so long as you always use the same word.  There are traditions in collies like 'away to me' and 'come bye' and stuff like that but the dog doesn't understand any words until it's been taught the meaning.
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

Alistair

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Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #38 on: January 04, 2013, 04:13:57 pm »
Re training obedience dogs, I've always taught basics with hand signals, the voice command being secondary, so to teach sit, I have a treat in my hand, I raise my index finger above their nose, when they sit I rotate my hand so the muzzle has to go in a downwards motion for them to get it and reward, I use sit as the command, you can introduce down by pointing to the floor and lowering your hand with the dog following. The advantages are, as I see it, you have two ways of command signal and noise, and most importantly, it's a Doddle, to teach th wait command, you just leave the reward longer changing the hand signal to, in our case, a flat palm vertically and use wait in gradually increasing increments.
I used to be able to complete an obedience test without uttering a sound.

You can train a dog to do most anything if you just break down all the movements into small steps and teach them and then reassemble the building blocks in the order you want.
Harry, my last collie, sadly no longer with us, used to be able to complete one of those hoops on a pole kids toys with the rings in the right order, took AGES to teach him, and probably the most rewarding trick I've ever taught a dog, now (he says looking at the current pack of reprobates sleeping on the couch) where did I put that bag of toys......
« Last Edit: January 04, 2013, 04:24:42 pm by Alistair »

SallyintNorth

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Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #39 on: January 04, 2013, 06:21:10 pm »
Doesn't matter what words you use.  You can use ying tong for sit and pipplepoo for lying down if you want to  :roflanim: - so long as you always use the same word.  There are traditions in collies like 'away to me' and 'come bye' and stuff like that but the dog doesn't understand any words until it's been taught the meaning.

Annie, I totally agree with you; dogs do not understand English words and any sounds work as commands, whatever suits the handler. 

I wasn't saying that the syllables 'Lie Down' were sacrosanct, I was trying - clearly not very successfully!  :D - to indicate that the concept of a 'Lie Down' command has a very specific and different meaning in working collies on sheep to the meaning it has to a pet dog owner, and that if you are new to working a collie on sheep, it is a good idea to hang fire on teaching a Lie Down in the absence of sheep until you understand its use in work.

Alistair, I used to love to be able to command my dogs by signal too.  Like jaykay, I use two arms upraised to mean 'come here any dog that can see me'  :)   However, I have had to curb my use of handsignals with the working collies - you absolutely do not want a collie controlling sheep to have to look away from the sheep to see if you are offering any advice, s/he needs to keep his/her beadies fixed on and mesmerising those sheep.  Sadly, although I can make the sheepdog whistles make sound, I cannot reliably reproduce the same sounds, so have been unable to get the dogs onto whistled commands, which would have been much more satisfactory on many many counts.
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

doganjo

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Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #40 on: January 04, 2013, 06:37:32 pm »
Are you only allowed to use specific whistle types on sheepdogs?  I use an acme 211.5 - most HPR handlers use this as it carries a great distance.  we use different combinations of 'beep' to convey what we mean.
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

Alistair

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Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #41 on: January 04, 2013, 06:37:39 pm »
I practice the whistle in the car

SallyintNorth

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Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #42 on: January 04, 2013, 06:47:52 pm »
I practice the whistle in the car
Alistair, I've driven all over the country playing Three Blind Mice and other simple tunes on my sheepdog whistle, but I still can't reliably produce the same sound for Come Bye... ::)

Annie, I haven't tried an Acme but the traditional sheepdog whistle is triangular (Google sheepdog whistle to see some.)  Different note(s) and sound pattern per command, and you can use volume and stress to indicate the strength of the command.  It's almost a language in the hands of an experienced shepherd.

However, since I can't use one effectively, I maybe should look at an Acme for one or two simple commands... :thinking:
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

in the hills

  • Joined Feb 2012
Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #43 on: January 04, 2013, 07:22:42 pm »
SITN - That was great.  Thank you.  Such a wealth of knowledge on here and getting me thinking before I'm at the stage where I've made too many mistakes ..... poor Meg.


My neighbour and I were discussing the differences with training sheepdogs compared to gundogs. If a gundog is on an unseen retrieve (a blind), you know that you are getting there when they turn to look at you for your hand signal without you blowing the stop whistle first (asking them to stop and look at you for direction). They understand themselves that they need some help and that you are there to give it. My neighbour has a young dog with what he considers a fault at present ...... looking at him and eyes off the sheep. Will have to remember not to wave my hands around  :o ::)


Doganjo - did read that the traditional shepherds commands are almost musical and that it was believed the dog listened more to this type of command  ???  Couldn't tell you if this is true or not.

Alistair - Seen collies doing that on T.V. Exactly how did you train your collie to do it?

happygolucky

  • Joined Jan 2012
Re: Why are my dogs so needy of me?
« Reply #44 on: January 04, 2013, 07:38:54 pm »
Funny how dogs do seem to learn lots of words and often  they copy the sound you are making, if its easy.....there are loads of funny "I love my mamam" video clips, I often used voice commands with my hand commands but now use the whistle to get them back or get then to sit. They will stop if next to me but do come back instead of stop, when I blow the whistle when they not so near...working on that one as I think the stop command is very important indeed.
I am sure sheep dogs used to only have the whistle of the owner, rather than a made one, I remember my father in law saying some strange stuff to his dogs and Phil Drabble, I used to love that programme, One man and his dog!!!

 

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