My cairn Charlie is almost 5 months old and we have been attending our local training classes. Usually he is soooo good. This week he was the demon dog!!

He started off reasonably well but then decided to bark at anything and everything constantly. He refused to listen to me at all, would not walk to heel, would not sit when asked in fact would NOT do anything he didn't want to do.
I began to feel very flustered and I was so grateful when one of the trainers came and took me to one side and worked with  me on a 1 to 1. She gave me lots of advice and showed me things to try. She was fantastic. Eventually both me and Charlie were stressed and after finally getting him to respond to a command she suggested we stop at that point on a positive note and go home for a cuppa.

We have a lot to work on this week, one of them being I am very soft with him and I do let him get away with things. (He only has to look at me with his gorgeous puppy eyes and I melt.) So I'm going to try and be firmer with him and do lots of work with him and fingers crossed he will be better next week.

My local training centre is fantastic. Ruth who rescued me last night has told me to ring her anytime and she will help all she can. First class service for only a pound a week!

Anyway here's hoping he is not sent home from school next week!!!!

jane

oh,good luck!I too have been told Im too soft with my dogs,it took me a while to realise being firm isnt being nasty-Im just not a "firm"sort of person!I suspect I will never be as firm as I probably need to be,but I am loads better,and getting results,my 2 year old is now working the class above platinum(trainer calls it"platiplus!").But,I can go one better-about 17years ago me and my 2 puppies were expelled from puppy class(in the nicest possible way,we were asked to join the next class up as"there isnt a "puppy rumble"in that class")-at the end of the class,all the pups were let off lead to just"be dogs",and my pair of 5month olds were tending to gang up on some of the others!Id think twice  next time though,some of the dogs were clearly not puppies,there were too many,probably a bit overwhelming for first timers!But you live and learn!I wish you the best!

Ahh, don't feel bad.
It sounds like the trainer is very good, ending trainng early in the session on a positive note is most definately better than carrying on with a session that will make you & pup frustrated.

As colliepam said, firm does not mean nasty :)

I was too soft with some things when Buster was little as I felt sorry for him having bad elbows. I soon realised that being a door-mat is not a good idea! He has really mastered the art of that cutest-ever-baby-face that gets things done his way (usually begging for a biccy), but I have mastered the art of not looking at it ;)

> He refused to listen to me at all, would not walk to heel, would not sit when asked in fact would NOT do anything he didn't want to do

Is it reward-based training?

He started off reasonably well but then decided to bark at anything and everything constantly. He refused to listen to me at all, would not walk to heel, would not sit when asked in fact would NOT do anything he didn't want to do.

Maybe you need to up your rewards. Lots of people turn up at training with dog treats bought in petshops or supermarkets, most are extremely boring to the dog. When you switch to something really nice like sausages, liver, chicken etc the dog knows the reward is truly worthwhile and motivation can increase a lot. It's like a human being asked to do a boring task for £5 or £50 -you're far more likely to do it for the higher amount. :)

do you give him a good run or walk before class and also do you feed him his full meal.. some dogs behave better after a good exercise and other just the opposite you need to find this out. Agree with Goldmali regarding treats I always work with smelly food ie sausages, liver, a good one is swedish meatballs my dogs love them.

Train one thing at a time for 5 to 10 mins at home everyday  if possible and always treat immediately afterwards. Dont try to train too many things in one go.  Remember you go to dog training partly for socialisation and partly for you to learn how to train your dog .. the main is done by yourself at home.

Good Luck

Vary your rewards and every now and then - maybe once in a class - give a jackpot reward (basically the usual ones but 4 or 5 pieces one after the other).  Just like gambling in people, the prospect of a random, unpredictable bigger reward makes their behaviours and efforts to get the right behaviour that you're asking for much stronger. :-)

Works as well if you save a really, really good reward to be the jackpot and use good but less brilliant ones usually - so say your dog really likes chicken but LOVES liver, use the chicken most of the time then the liver as a jackpot.

Or, mix it up with toys etc - a good trick to do is to make a list of everything your dog finds reinforcing, then you've got a reference so you can keep things really varied and interesting without getting stuck on one or two things or forgetting some.  I find that with variation, even the really boring treats have their use as rewards because they make the other stuff better!  Write everything down, not just food - for example, my youngest loves food treats but also toys, so a list for her (from best to least) would go something like:

Ball on a rope
Cuz
Chasing River
Foam ball
Buttered toast
Fetching socks from the radiator (yes, the exercise of fetch sock is rewarding in itself!)
Ham
Sausage
Bitey-hand play on the sofa
Chicken
Hi-life nuggets

And a few more besides but it is just an example :-)  And it'll be different for every dog - she has quite a few rewarding things but my boy's list is only about 4 or 5 things long.  But if you keep it varied and interesting (generally, not just the rewards you use, but varying exercises and so on), you'll keep his attention, his behaviours will get stronger and you'll have a relationship second to none :-)

He started off reasonably well but then decided to bark at anything and everything constantly. He refused to listen to me at all, would not walk to heel, would not sit when asked in fact would NOT do anything he didn't want to do.
I began to feel very flustered and I was so grateful when one of the trainers came and took me to one side and worked with  me on a 1 to 1. She gave me lots of advice and showed me things to try. She was fantastic. Eventually both me and Charlie were stressed and after finally getting him to respond to a command she suggested we stop at that point on a positive note and go home for a cuppa.

Without any extra information and therefore working on your description, it sounds to me as if Charlie might have been stressed out a bit. How many pups are in the class and is there a lot of barking normally?

Dogs can just bark because of frustration and over stimulation - mine is one of those, it took me ages to realise she went totally crazy over toys being used. She is very visual and genuinely found it hard.

Being firm nicely is ok, but to be honest I think if you use the right motivation, the dog will work for you :) It depends really on what the situatoin is and what the trainer meant. If the dog is stressed then the trainer  needs to be able to recognise that, to give you the best help :) as there would be no point i being firm if the dog's brain is in emotional gear and not learning gear.

Hth
Lindsay
x

Sounds like this could be typical memory loss for puppies.  Don't laugh, it's true and I actually studied this for my adult (human) teaching certificate.  It thappens to dogs too and we were warned about it in the first class I went to with Oban, who was by coincidence also 5 months old.

Now, it's theory, but noticed often enough to develop a theory, which means you are not alone.  The theory goes that after about 5 weeks or so of lessons what you are learning moves from short term memory to long term memory and while  "in transit" is temporarily unavailable.  What you do is the same remedy for many training infractions, you backstep a bit to easy commands, ask for little, reward and quit.  Try again later.  Usually you will find a bit of a break and it all comes back, to you and to pup. 

Studies now show that fewer trainings sessions, spaced apart, accomplish the same learning as daily training.  In other words a holiday from school helps dogs as much as us.  The study was done on Beagles.

Maybe Charlie is like my Oban.  Every class we have gone to Oban seems to take his time getting used to the new environment, new classmates etc.  In this stage he is very good and compliant.  Then he begins to get used to the new place and starts deciding he will be the judge of what we do next.  I'm not sure if this fits the theory but I now know to watch out for it so I'm not taken unawares by a wild dash around the ring as he tries to get the other dogs to play with him.  And he's four now.

As for being soft, some dogs respond well to less firmness than others.  My Jet was one, Oban is not.  But if Charlie was working well, as you say, before his "memory loss"  LOL it may well be that your methods with him were working. 

Another idea, is Charlie teething?  They can act out then, just like kids.

Is called " Learning Plateau" were items stored in short term memory are transfered to long term memory. there's a gap in the middle whilst it transfers over and dog behaves as though it's never learnt that item/command/cue before. Happens in all mammals as far as I am aware. Snowboarding for me every 4/5 weeks hits a rough trot then suddenly kicks back round again better than ever. When the memory returns it's usually better than ever, but I reckon it's stress in a cairn of 5 months hitting a fear phase. Be sweet, ignoreas much as you can teach attention commands and time them prior to him losing it. He'll switch back again.