Monthly Archive for February 2010
Lbs Any
I have a 3 lbs yorkie that thinks she is a track star ever time I open the door. Any ideas?
Sophie is 2 1/2 years old. Every time I finally catch her,normally by driving down the road,I kennel her for about an hour for punishment.Any ideas would be appreciated. I’m very scared of her getting run over or taken by someone.
Door charging (or “bolting”) is an easy fix and you need to get a grip on it before she gets smushed by a car.
Your current punishment method doesn’t work because she knows that when you do (finally) catch her, she is going back into the crate for an hour. In her mind she knows that she had better make tracks fast so she doesn’t get stuck in the crate for an hour. Your correction is coming too late. You’re not really trying to get her to stop running around; you are trying to keep her from running out the door.
First of all, you need to have in mind a command that tells the dog that it is ok to go outside. I just use “OK” and a hand gesture to let my dogs know that it is allowed for them to exit the door. Unless they have the “OK”, they don’t get to go outside.
The materials that you need: a properly fitted slip (chain) choker and a 6′ nylon leash. Anything else that anyone else tries to sell you is a gimmick (clickers, remote collars, special whistles, etc.) and is just taking the place of a $5 collar and a $15 leash that will last you for the rest of YOUR life, not just the life of the dog. These leeches are preying upon people’s ignorance of basic canine behavior modification. They are making stupid amounts of money because most people are too lazy to crack open a book from the library to learn how to work with their dogs.
Put a properly fitted slip (chain) choker on her. A properly fitted choker is big enough to go over her ears with slight resistance but not big enough for her to just lower her head and it slips off. The part that moves thru the ring of the opposite end should be coming toward you when the rings are on the back of her neck and she is sitting on your left-hand side. That will allow the collar to release immediately when you let tension out of the collar. If the collar doesn’t release immediately and completely then you have the collar on backward and are risking injury to the dog.
DO NOT remove the collar after training. She will learn VERY quickly that if she isn’t wearing a collar, you can’t correct her. In my experience, a properly fitted collar doesn’t pose a risk of injury, although there are a thousand horror stories (none of which can be proven) to the contrary. In over 20 years of training and handling and having worked more than 150 dogs thru AKC obedience competition certifications I have NEVER seen a dog injured by a properly fitted collar.
Attach a 6′ nylon leash to the moving end of the slip choker and open the door. As soon as she makes it to the end of the leash you should pull back on it sharply (not enough to hurt, but enough to get her attention) and shout “no” then bring her back inside by pulling her to you on the leash. Close the door. Make certain that the collar has released. After a couple of times you should be able to tell that it has released just by looking at the collar.
Get her to sit on your left side. Praise her for being close to you. Open the door again and if she makes a dash for it, do exactly the same thing as you did before. It should break that bad habit in a matter of a few minutes. In all of my years of training, I have never had to do this more than 5 times in a row.
ALWAYS return the dog inside by pulling on the leash, not carrying them. This reinforces that you are the one giving the commands and that they are to do as you say. You ARE the one with the larger brain, after all.
ALWAYS make her sit on your left side. This allows you to use your right hand (the one 90% of people use to do most things) and gives them a single, known, reinforced point of reference for them to return to with you.
ALWAYS praise her for doing what you want her to do. Dogs LIVE for praise. Punishment sucks. It’s supposed to. Your Praise to Punishment ratio should be about 20:1 OR MORE, meaning that you should be praising ANY good behavior at least 20 times more often than you are punishing bad behavior. They get the idea of accepted boundaries very quickly when they get “good luvins” every time they are doing the right thing.
DO go to your local library and get a book on dog training and USE the information in there. The only real difference between you and a “professional dog trainer” is that they have read the books and applied the knowledge where you haven’t yet.
Dog training and behavior is not difficult to understand or modify. Being a “trainer” is not a difficult thing to learn to do. It just takes a little knowledge and application of that knowledge.
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