Hi I'm new to the forum and I have a nice staffie dog I've had him for about a year and he's great and his name is Spike. Right my dog is trained but I have to tell him more than once to sit or to lie down. Now I say it in a clear authoritive voice but to yet no prevail. I have tried training him with treats and he's fine he'll sit first time. The problem comes when theres nothing in it for him. So I'm just wondering is there anyway that I could get him to listen to me.

Also theres one more thing I would like an opinion on. I am in college about 4 hours per day but I spend all evening with Spike. Just wanted an opinion is it fair on the dog to leave him in while I'm in college.

Anyway cheers for your time.

Hill4uk

When using treats for training there is a 'nack' to weaning the dog off them - the idea is to reduce the frequency of the treats, but increase the value so instead of getting 10 small rewards he gets one BIG reward of maybe 10 treats!. Dogs work like a gambler working a one armed bandit - if they think that the next time is the when they are going to get 'the big one' they will repeat the behaviour. Don't ask your dog to do something more than one - this way he won't learn to ignore you unless he really feels like doing it, or that you've got sufficiently cross that he's not going to push you further. It may even be worth going right back to basics with your training - when it's working well in a variety of different situations (and only then can you say he's really got a grip of what you are asking, as dogs take alot more things into account than we may give them credit for - our body language, the surroundings all 'matter' to a dog, and we have to train them to see through the variety) then start to 'fine tune' by only rewarding the fastest or best responses according to your needs. As the dog realises that some behaviours don't get rewarded he will start to modify his responses to the ones that do get the response. This will in itself reduce the number of rewards he gets - most dogs work best to a ratio of 10 to one - ie one reward in every 10 actions.

4 hours is not a long time for most dogs, and if provided with things to do (such as a stuffed Kong) or if confined following an intensive training session most will settle down and either occupy themselves or sleep.........

Ok cheers for that digger I'm gonna give it a try tonight. Also whenI'm in college I'll be in for about 4 - 5 hours per day but i pop home at dinner time and feed and walk him. So can I please have a few opinions on this for some of the people I know say it's harsh for him to be locked up all day. I personally think it's alright because I spend alot of time with him in the evenings and every now and then I get my neighbour Erel to look after him. Well just wanted a few opinions on this.

Ok cheers

Hill4uk

Just to add to Digger's advice...

Make sure your dog does understand what you're asking of it. The first few times you "train" your dog to sit, for example, the dog will be doing it almost accidentally and only then learns what you want - sometimes people think that after their dog has sat on command a few times that it has fully understood what is required. While they are learning they need help and reminders - if you were learning a different language and discovered the meaning of a word you may remember for the rest of the day, but a week later you might need a reminder. That's rather a long paragraph just to say make sure your dog understands before expecting too much.

Also dogs naturally use mostly body language rather than verbal, so although you want to progress to not using a treat, try to give the same visual cue, ie raising your hand above your dog's head. After some practice you can gradually make the signal subtler. Dogs do learn words and phrases but they don't find words quite as easy to pick up as visual signals.

i agree with all the above.

Just to add my own way of getting a dog to sit if it will only do it for treats. Show the treat, say Sit, dog sits, treat and praise. Do this several times in succession.

Then don't show a treat (so have it in a pocket) and say Sit, if he sits, excellent, praise and treat. If he doesn't, wait him out for about 30 seconds without saying a word......keep still.....many dogs do then decide to sit to see if it produces a treat.....if he does, treat and praise.

If not, say "ah! too bad!" and quickly show him the treat he has MISSED, and walk away.

If you repeat this, he will almost certianly "get it" in the end. YOu can then gradually train him all over the place to "generalise" his training. Try if he will Sit if you turn your back and say Sit, and so on. I saw my trainer once get her Dobe to do all sorts of exercises in succession with her back turned, it was fun and showed the dog really knew the commands :)

I hope i have explained this properly, it's easier to actually be there to show you :D

Lindsay

all above seems excellent advice - just wanted to add a weeny thing that have seen w my pup

as she's still a baby (13 weeks) come & sit are about the only things she's reliably learnt so i try and use them before anything she wants just to get a spirit of 'you get what you want cos i choose to give it you' - hope that doesn't sound too harsh? - into her. IE she gets good things cos she's behaved in a way that we approve of, before she even starts trying to be naughty!

one of the things i do is always make her sit before the front door before we go out on a lead and again on the front step before we start off. also i ask her to sit before i'll pick her up to sit on my lap (her fave thing in the world!) or give her treats or give her dinner or greet visitors etc etc

so what i was thinking - maybe if you can vary the 'treats' a lot, you could wean her off responsiveness to food treats only by 'substituting' other things she wants, like walks or attention or toys - i guess its just another way to randomise the rewards.

just a thought - hope its helpful and that you make some headway :)

Your time away from him while at college is completely reasonable in my opinion:)
As for training - everyone else has covered it very well

Wendy