Sorry to moan again.
I am in such a low mood about the dogs. I can't seem to do anything right with them. They each have so many problems that lead the other to thier problems and it is just a vicious circle. I am so tired of all thier funny bits and there just get more and more. The thing is I know where it all started but just feel such a faliure that I didn't pick it up earlier.
Pesto is noise phobic so I have to drive them to an open space to walk or else she just panicks. The problem with this is that Ziggi then can't get to know the dogs there as they are different every day so It is a constant training exersise to keep her calm (I don't mind but can get a bit tedious when you just don't seem to be getting any where)

Ziggi is dog aggressive through fear but as we don't stay around dogs so much anymore Pesto is getting funny about some dogs expecially if Ziggi reacts.

Sometimes I am on a walk and there is a loud noise or Pesto doesn't want to walks so I have +o concentrate on getting her walking but at the same time I have to check there are no dogs that will disturb Ziggi and by which time Pesto may have bolted back tot the car.

If pesto is scared about walking she growls outo of fear and has gone to bite (v good bite inhibition so no harm caused) so now I have to train this out of her by using long line and treats and never letting her get the chance to get into that state. However she does guard the sofa so again training using house line and off command to get a treat - all will be well for a week and then suddenly she goes backwards. I know why she hates her collar being taken because she was my first dog and I trusted every thing my dog trainer said (big mistake - scruffing involved) so now 3 yrs on when I haven't scruffed her for that long she suddenly has an adversion to me taking her by the collar - again training with only good things occuring when her collar is held.

They both react best to the clicker but how do I clicker train them when they are together as they both come rushing for a treat so when zig is being good around dogs pesto could be doing something I don't want to reinforce but do because I am using the clicker.

They can't be let off lead togehter any more in Richmond park as there are baby deer and lead each other astray when there so they are on the lead then off the lead each 10 mins swapping.

They can't go in the garden together as new dogs have moved in that do nothing but b ark and this winds my two up.

and the list goes on  ...

I am just exhausted and upset that I have brought my dogs up so badly.
They are lovely dogs and I love them to pieces just they are two close in age (8months) and wind each other up.

I have tried walking them seperately but then I end up walking all day as it would be 1.5hrs in the morning each so that would be 3 hrs then another 1/2 hour for zig in the afternoon plus driving time to get pesto is another hr. I also do trampolining for 3 hrs 4 times a week so would be on the go for so long. Plus every thing else I have to do it just isn't practicle.

Sorry just feeling so down about it all.

Sorry you feel so down. It's rotten when it all  gets on top of you. :(

I'd certainly go down the walking them separately route, but not necessarily for so long. If they each had about 45 minutes' concentrated one-to-one with you you'd not be taking any extra time but the walks would be more relaxed and productive training-wise. How old are they?

They are 4 yrs old (pesto - mongrel) and 3 yrs old (Ziggi - hungarian vizsla)

The vizsla would go crazy if she had any less walk I think!

The trouble with giving more and more exercise is that the dog just gets fitter and fitter so needs still more and more, but isn't necessarily getting tired. A shorter, more intensive walk involving training (brainwork) is actually much more tiring for them.

Their walks always include training - for example Ziggi went through a whole bag of treats (see post below) just being click and treated for attention on me.

I do understand that about the fitness aspect though and will try and reduce the time they walk for gradually. how long do you think an active dog would need each day?

Sorry your feeling so down at the moment.  I have to walk my dogs seperatly because I have one with a lot of problems (see my post proud mummy).  My other dog is fine but a typical JRT so he is exercised on an extending lead otherwise he goes deaf and dissapears into the horizon at a rate of knots.
I would not be able to cope with either if I walked them together.  It is a pain doing all these walks and I have to get up at silly o'clock in the morning to fit everything in, but they are worth it.
Mine each go out twice a day for 30 mins each a time.  Shadys is off lead chasing a frisbee and Milos on lead having a good sniff and me doing a little training included on his walk.
It works well and yes I do have days where I just feel I need some me time and a day off because its all such a trial, but then I look into thier eys and can't resist and anyway they would only play me up at home like naughty children if they didn't get thier walkies.
Sit down and try to simplify things for yourself, can you drive somewhere or go a time like I have to with the dog aggresive one when there is fewer dogs about.
It can be done, I've been battling with my big girl for 2 years now and |I am at long last seeing very small improvements.

Aww sweetie dont feel like that.
It can get on top of you, we had the same with our girl but you have to be persistant and a strong leader for your 'pack'. The dogs will pick up on your low vibe and make life even harder playing up to your downey mood.
Stand with your chin up and dont let them get to you, maybe getting 2 dogs so close in age was a bad idea as you hadnt trained one before you got the other, but there is always time to make amends.
Patience, training in a quiet place and loads of treats will see you on your way to being the dog owner you want to be.
Try training your dogs in your garden and leave the big walks for a while until your sure you can cope, as these long walks when you dont feel you can are going to make things worse, not better, amd if your worried about exercise get a doggy treadmill, does wonders! orn loads of mental stimulation is just as good as a walk sometimes!

If you need any extra help PM me as I have much expierance of training dogs and might be able to help.
Feel better xx

Please don't think that I don't train my dogs. Ziggi for example when through a whole treat bag (the company of animals size one) in one walk with me just click and treating her for attention on me when around dogs. The problem I have with moving forwards with Ziggi is that there is such a fine line between dogs she is fine with and those she isn't. She will be fine with dogs a meter away if they don't bother her but dogs any closer (as obviously they are paying attention to her aswell when they are this close is just too much) But then some dogs she is brilliant with. And then she can be doing brilliantly on a walk and then it seems like she needs to get her aggression out so does a bigger attack then she usually does - this is when I get upset as I get horrible looks even though Zig is on the lead and attention on me and it is their dog that comes and is rude.

How do people train two clicker trained dogs? Has any one used the Clicker +? I do love them to bits and in the house they are brilliant and most of the time they are good out on walks but Just not today. I don't shout or punish them when they do wrong just ignore it or at most a sharp ah ah or "no" command.

I train with patience and kindness and seem to be constantly praising them for when they are being good. Perhaps I just have to accept that this is what they are like and continue with the training but just relax and realise that they are not perfect and I do love them anyway.

It is hard when my friends are alway s saying how perfect their dogs are.
By the way congratulations bevb I one day would love to post a post like yours about Ziggi. Well done on all your hard work.

Just read this post about Ziggi and how most of the time he is fine but if he is on lead and a dog approaches he can be unpredictable.

This is how my dog is - if he is on a short lead/being restrained and a strange dog comes nose to nose - the strange dog may get a nip on the nose - he just wont tolerate that closeness.  Off the lead a completely different story - if he doesnt like it he will run out of reach or back to me - never nips!  Most of the time he does a quick hello a quick run in a circle and then away with no issues....

Is Ziggi different on and off lead?  I can only talk from my own experiences  but I think the success with Louis was using the same place at the same sort of time each day which is fairly well used by dogs - we probably meet about six or seven each time - more at weekends though!  The more familiar it all became the more relaxed Louis became....

Maxine 

>It is hard when my friends are alway s saying how perfect their dogs are.

They're fooling themselves - no dog is perfect! They all have offdays when they behave out of character, just as we do. To expect perfection is to be doomed to dissatisfaction because it'll never happen all the time!

I'm not saying for a moment that you don't train your dogs. :) You're obviously working very hard with them, but taking two with problems out at once is making success more difficult for both you and the dogs, making progress slower than it could be. I don't do clicker training but I can imagine that it could cause problems when you click to reward good behaviour from one just as the other misbehaves but still hears the 'reward' click. Someone suggested training them to different individual sounds which seems to make very good sense - would that be a possibility?

I will try charging different noises instead of the clicker. Funny when u r stressed simple solutions don't come to mind :D

I am training ziggi using the techniques in the book "click to calm"

She is better in that she will ignore most dogs.

Ziggi is the same on and off the lead. maybe slightly worse on lead but I like to have control of her. thanks though for telling me about louis maxine.

I am going to take them separately. Ziggi to the park so she gets to know the dogs and pesto to the common.

Thanks for all you r support I am feeling much more positive and ready for tomorrow :D

Thanks to all who have replyied.

Someone suggested training them to different individual sounds which seems to make very good sense - would that be a possibility?

I actually don't think different sounds makes the slightest bit of difference -the dogs DO need to be trained separately I'm afraid. Even if one sound is used for one dog and a different for the other, they will very soon pick up on what it means and will all react to it.(Especially as clicker training encourages the dogs to work things out for themselves.)  I clicker train WITHOUT a clicker as I can't do with the hassle of using one (I need my hands for so much else!) but ALL my dogs react to my clicker word (and clicker whenever I have used one), even those that have never had a single clicker session in their life. They just learn from the other's reaction.(Same as if I call ONE dog's name they ALL come running -but they still know their names.) At the clicker class I go to we only ever do one dog at a time and if somebody has two dogs the second has to wait in the car.

Hi

What a shame you feel like this - you sound exhausted and feeling exhausted always seems to make the other issues ten time worse and impossible to deal with.

Is there anyone else in the family that could come for a walk with you - and you concentrate on one dog each??

I think for now the most important thing is for you to get some sleep and then feel better able to cope with the rest.  If that means cutting the morning walks down a bit then do it - I'm sure that short term to enable you to get some rest wont be too detrimental to the dogs. 

Do you do any agility / training at a club that would give mental stimulation as well as the physical...

Hope you feel better soon and wish I knew more and could do something to help

Maxine  :)

ps edited to say:  Imean knew more about dogs not about you/your situation  :)

I do agility with my mongrel on a monday night. I have talked to my new trainer (only positive methods) and she says I am doing every thing right in the training aspect it is just the competition between the dogs that is making the progress slower.

I am feeling better jsut getting it all out and the dogs are asleep and it is n't as bad as i wrote it just all suddenly got on top of me and and all my family are away so I have no support at the moment.

They are not bad dogs just it was a mistake to get two so close in age. Come september I am taking Pesto back to uni with me and Ziggi is staying here so will be just what they need I think.

I do training every day with them so I don't think they are under stimulated. I think Ineed to tak e a deep breath and relax.

I am sure others have problems with thier dogs but they just don't talk about it to me i suposse.

Firstly, you should not be disheartened but very proud of all that you have so far acheived.

So big pat on the back, you are working extremely hard.

I am sure others have problems with thier dogs but they just don't talk about it to me i suposse.


This is a very true statement, none of our dogs have started off perfect, from puppyhood, adolescents, to adulthood is a hard slog and even though many of us have well behaved dogs now as adults even with a dog with no issues and just basically groing up it is hard work. :-)

You on the other hand have two problematic dogs, with different issues, a fete most of us would not put on ourselves, infact many would not be doing all the good and hard work you put yourself through daily. There will be days when you will feel completely fed up, but you have a goal to reach for both of your dogs and it is worth fighting for.

However, you are running yourself into the ground, the walking issues along with the constant training, agility etc and a life of your own to lead no wonder you are drained.

I don't know whether others would agree with me, but I personally would very rarely walk these two dogs together. Their seperate issues are not helping each other and as you have witnessed it can actually cause a backward step.

Ziggi out of the two needs the most exercise, I would concentrate of giving Ziggi the longer walks for now, so that you can also socialise more and give frequent dog to dog access to help with his training.

Pesto particularly on a Monday only needs a couple of 15-20 min walks as you will be doing agility with him, this will give him his exercise and mental stimulation and give your feet a rest.

The rest of the week, I would alternate depending on the training schedules/agility etc, so that you can give smaller walks when needed and much more one to one training.

Also if you walk and train seperately most of the time you can train one dog to clicker and one to whistle, that way when together there is no mistaking who and what the commands are. ;-)

Just an answer to the clicker question - why not get two different clickers or some other objects that make a rapid sharp noise (you can make even make noises with your mouth - tongue click for one, and blow through your lips for the other), then they can have one reinforcer each.
I know how it feels to feel like you are getting to the end of your tether, as I felt like that a few months back, but with very careful management and loads of training things have improved very much, and you are doing all the right things, so I know it will work out for you too in time. It seems with dogs that it sometimes gets worse before it gets better.

no one thinks you dont train your dogs!
Or you would have white hair by now!!

Some dogs are different and need some extra special one on one attention. Maybe try walking one dog at a time until both are perfcect maybe? or as near to perfect as we could ever hope for!

I find clicker training aint all that good as if you havent got hands free at a time when you need to 'click' then you ahve no control, nothing like old fashioned voice commands!! and its nicer for the dog to obey from your voice, in my opinion anyway! xx

It is bad enough having one dog with problems, but TWO! no wonder you sound exhausted and deflated.
I am lucky and never had any major problems so I don't have experience to offer you but I am sure with the positive answers you are getting you will in time sort the problems out and hopefully the walks will become more enjoyable, you certainly deserve it with the hard work you have put in so far!

If clickers work well for you then there is a digital one here that makes different sounds.

Walking your dogs separately may sound really tiring but I think JG is right, you could cut down the time a little and give each dog your undivided attention. Anyone would be frazzled trying to solve two dog's problems simultaneously. It might just the emotional rest you need to only have to work one at a time. No dog is ever perfect, they're like spouses, you love them for their faults. ;-)

You are putting in lots of work, I'm sure you will reap the rewards in time :)

It is possible to train 2 dogs with the clicker but they understand better if you are having a "session" with each individual dog - if you are clicking for, for example, calm behaviour then yes, tis likely the other dog will also be hopeful. I agree you will need to try to somehow walk them separately if only to make life easier for yourself, although I understand it is very frustrating to have to go out twice etc.

If you read through the training/behaviour section you will see that lots of owners have problems, so please don't feel you are the only one :)

Lots of luck,

Lindsay
x

Hey every one thanks for yesterday's support. I am feeling much better today and actually Ziggi was brilliant on the walk. We had a few mishaps but that was only at the start when it is hard to move away from other dogs when I was getting out of the car and to an area with fewer dogs.

Pesto is being very good too. I decided to have one more go with them together and just stayed calm. I praised pesto for any calm behaviour (usually can get ott as a typical terrier) and it started to occur more often.

Funny how you get in a panic and then suddenly you see improvements - I think they like to prove me wrong and show they are good dogs really.

I even got comments from people saying just how well behaved my dogs were - ziggi was at heel being told to leave the dogs and pesto was following just incase I dropped some treats. We also got praised by horse riders (well not to me but I heard them talking saying that I had really good control of my dogs!!!) when they were sitting waiting for a treat as the horses trotted by.

Overall I am v pleased today and it has made me realise I can do it and I will do it.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped

Great stuff! We all have bad days and need a little support to get us through them. :) Onwards and upwards! :D

Great! And yes you CAN do it! We ALL have bad days! I certainly do with mine!

Me too - I've got home from walks in tears before now :( :( But we've either resolved the issues or have developed strategies for dealing with them or just avoid things happening in the first place :) :) It DOES take time tho' :) :)

Good luck and don't put yourself down :) :)

Daisy

Good for you - well done!

maxine

Another good day today. Ziggi was off lead and a dog came running up to her however it wasn't a rude one and stopped at about a meter away. I told Ziggi to leave - she twitched as though she wanted to obey but was stuck due to not being able to turn her back to the dog. So I gave the leave command calmly again and then "come" she turned very slowly and walked back to me. I was so proud of her. She got such praise and lovely treats. Just hope this success continues.

All other dogs on the walk she walked to heal and we had only one tiny grumble which to be honest I continued to praise her afterwards (rightly or wrongly) as she usually gives no warning whats so ever.

Every positive step, however small it seems, is huge. :)

Ahh well done you.  As others have said we've all been there are certain times in our lives.  Keep up the good work all of you!