I had up untill recently the best behaved dog on a walk I've ever had. Buster (Mastiff) is now 14 motns old, last week he was a nightmare on his walk, getting over-excited at everything (people & dogs) nearly pulling me over as he just wanted to play with everything and completely ingnoring me & the treats I was trying to use to distract him :(

The next day I took little cubes of cheese with me (his favorite), he saw a person, before he had chance to get excited I showed him I had cheese and told him to 'walk' (that means to him, walk on slack lead and ignore everything!!) - it worked, he walked perfectly but kept looking at me waiting for his cheese (so he had it). The next day he saw a person went to pull and I could see him restrain himself & look at me, I said 'good boy, walk', gave him his cheese and we carried on with him ignoring the person.

I don't let him off-lead due to his size (the look of him can frighten people half to death :( ), I keep him on a long-line and have been practicing his re-call with cheese, I have been fucusing on trying to call him back from interesting smells, reward him for coming back then letting him go & sniff again, he has been doing great to the point that 50% of the time now, when his finds a nice smell, he will automatically come back to me for cheese!!

He is back to being perfect when walking past kids, yesterday we walked along a path, there was several children riding thier bikes, jumping on & off of the pavement in front of us & riding all around us, (so close that we had to stop still at one point or we would have been hit!!), as soon as I saw the kids I told Buster to 'walk' and gave him several verbal rewards as we walked, once we had passed the kids I gave him cheese. Buster walked on a slack lead, head next to my leg, looking ahead only to turn & look at me when I said 'good boy' - bless he looked so proud of himself.

I am aiming for distraction & reward - Am I doing it right?  I know I can get him to do anything if I have cheese with me - is it really this easy?  I am I am taking the recent excitable behaviour as adolescence.

You're doing great!! Yes, it is as easy as that -but you may find that eventually he will have enough of cheese and you may have to vary the treat so it never becomes too common. :)

Thank you :)

This is the fist dog I have used a completey positive reward method on (an occasional 'no' being the only 'punishment'). I feel so stupid in that in the past, with different dogs, I've used more of a bullying approach, resorting to shouting and draging the dog around on the lead to make it listen - I can't believe I used to be like that and now I cringe when I see other people shouting at thier dogs.

I can't believe how simple it can be  :)
This is the second time I've had a 'set back' on walks and had to adjust my approach, both times I'm sure it's down to me taking the good behaviour for granted :(

I take plain dog biscuits (broken up into little pieces), I've started to alternate between biscuit & cheese in an attempt to keep the cheese as a 'special' reward, but I'll bear in mind something else incase the cheese looses it's effect!! (I think liver may work just as well).

When is it best to start phasing treats out to intermittent at the moment I give a food reward (treat) for about 90% of good behavior and verbal reward for 100% ?

sounds like hes doing great. my pup is 9months and is great on lead most of time, ignores people, does get excited with dogs but generally very good. off lead however...thats another story!! i only let him off in places i can see other people coming a while away, because if they have dogs he will be off, he loves them, and even although he only wants to play, the size of him can scare people, and he can be too rough with other dogs without realising it. i try to do reward based training with him, (thank god hes food orientated, only way i can train him lol!)
his recall is 99% when its just me and him, but if hes playing he comes back after hes said hello, i dont know how to get him to come back ON ROUTE to someone/something, he says hello then comes back, so i at this point will reward his eventual recall!

I find my dogs respond best if I regularly use different treats, and preferably a different mixture each time I go out.  I wouldn't be in a hurry to phase out treats just yet and when you do, make sure you reward the best behaviours ie recall when there is a distraction, etc.  Random rewards will eventually help your dog remain keen to do what he is told, however you need to make sure the response you are looking for is pretty well established first.  I hope this makes sense!

One of the things I do with my teenagers is to wait for the dog to look in my direction before I let him or her off to go see another dog.  It does mean your dog has to stay on a lead for a good few weeks at least.  They learn that the only way to get to go see the other dog is to wait for your permission which comes when they look back to you.  Be warned this could take some time in the early stages!  You end up with a dog who, out of habit, looks to you when he spots another dog, and waits for your permission to go say hello.  You will need to progress to a long line at some point as dogs quickly work out when they are on a lead and when they are not.  This does take quite a lot of repetition, depending on the dog, and of course if the dog is sometimes allowed to run straight off to a dog (ie when they are not on a lead of some sort) then they may not make the connection of attention offered to you equals freedom to see the other dog.  The reason, I feel, this works so well is that the dog is rewarded with what he really wants, the other dog.  It is important that you allow the dog to work it out for himself without any "cueing" from you. 

I think recalls, and especially recalls in distracting environments, are the most difficult exercise to teach as so much of it depends on the surrounding environment, most of which we cannot control.  The training you adopt at a particular time with your dog, depends on so many different fluctuating things, ie hormonal level of the dog, confidence of the dog, etc.  You need to change your approach to your recall depending on what your dog is capable of at that time.  No one way works for every dog.  I love teaching recalls, my favourite exercise, I hate teaching walking on the lead!!

Good asvide with the recalls & Phasinbg out treats, tanks :)

I do keep Buster on a long-line, I am probably OTT with making sure I can control him if he gets really excited so I walk him with a halti, a lead on a part-check collar and a lead on a harness, so that's 3 leads!!! This gives me control in 3 points - head, neck and chest, I have been glad of all that controll on a couple of occassions when he has wanted to go and play with another dog, he got so excited he was bucking & flailing around like a rodeo horse, inbetween that he was doing massive playbows and spinning me in circles, if I didn't have all 3 leads I wouldn't have got him under controll or a lead could have broken. (He's approx 30" and about 150lb in weight at the moment with growing to do - very strong boy - hence my quest for 100% control!!).

I've no plans to ever let him off of the long-line, he is very, very friendly and if he was to run towards a person to greet them he could really frighten them, or even knock them over (he's rather clumsy!), I would hate that to happen and I am very aware that a dog of that size running at a person could be classed as a danger, especially when you see him run, it's more of a 'lollop', feet pounding, ears flap back and pull the skin around his eyes back making him look 'wired' and his lips flap up & down exposing big teeth - not a nice sight for somebody who isn't used to it. Buster has no problem with this restriction, he is at the lazy end of the spectrum of a breed that is prone to being lazy (think sloth) lol.

All that said, I still work on his re-call on the long-line. I use the long-line looped up (clipped to the harness) for pavement walking, when we get where I let him 'out' (free to use the length of the long-line) he'll do a lovely obedient sit, this is when I tuck his halti lead and collar-lead under his harness out of the way (easy to grab back hold of if needed), he'll hold his sit untill I tell him to 'go on' , he then knows he's on his long-line and that he is allowed a small amount of tension on the lead - too much tension and he'll stop automatically 95% of the time.

He's learning great whilst on a path that if he sees people/dogs he musn't pull or get excited, I've just got to get it through to him while hes on the long-line. Something must be working because he is getting more responsive with his re-calls in the house :)

Update.

I have been worrying that I rely on treats to heavily still to lure behaviour and worry that Buster is only behaving while out becaue he gets lots of treats, so I bit the bullet and tried him on a walk with no treats (I took cheese incase I needed it!). He was FANTASTIC, I am so proud of him :) :) :)

He is happy with a verbal reward now (that did nothing for him to start with!), I still give the occasional treat, but it's now approx 20% of the time rather than 90%, I'll phase that out more when I know he is consitently good with this treat level.

I am so impressed with him when he meets other dogs, I used to have to 'reel him in' if he was out on his long-line or he would get really exited, but now he'll stand still as soon as I say 'no pull' and wag his tail calmly, he even manadged that while a loose Jack Russle decided to keep charging at him barking and growling. The worst behaviour he had was yesterday when a loose dog appeared from nowhere, it was walking towards us and Buster couldn't contain himself so he did a play bow and a little 'yap' but he didn't pull.

I am so proud, I've never had a dog that walked this good on a lead before, it's brilliant - HOORAY for reward-based training :) :) :) :)

We all like to be praised rather than punished. Correct timing is essential when using positive reinforcement. Consistency is also essential. Consistency means always rewarding the desired behavior and never rewarding undesired behavior. For your pet, positive reinforcement may include food treats, praise, petting, or a favorite toy or game. Some pets may not be interested in food treats. When your pet is learning a new behavior, she should be rewarded every time she does the behavior, which means continuous reinforcement. Intermittent reinforcement can be used once your pet has reliably learned the behavior. By understanding reinforcement, you'll see that you're not forever bound to carry a pocketful of goodies. Punishment can be verbal, postural, or physical, and it means giving your pet something unpleasant immediately after she does something you don't want her to do. Punishment delivered by you may erode your dog's trust. In addition, if you're too late in administering it, punishment will seem totally unpredictable to your dog. If you've tried punishment and it hasn't worked, you should definitely stop using punishment and use only positive reinforcement instead.

> I am so proud, I've never had a dog that walked this good on a lead before, it's brilliant - HOORAY for reward-based training :-) :-) :-) :-)

Way to go :)

Sounds like your do a grand job with your strapping boy :)

it was walking towards us and Buster couldn't contain himself so he did a play bow and a little 'yap' but he didn't pull.

Bless him that's so sweet :-) So you should be proud of all your hard work.

Thanks :)

He is my first giant breed and despite getting into this with my eyes wide open and expecting training to be quite a challenge, there has been a few times when I have seriously doubted my decision to get him!!! Somehow I've always manadged to kick myself up the bum and keep trying, reading through these boards has helped keep me positive.
For anybody struggling at the moment - if I can do this, you can too :) I know I still have work to do with Buster, but now the exitable behavior is just a part of him than needs more work rather than a big black cloud that loomed over me whenever I stepped foot out of the house with him!

We've just met the new neighbours and Buster did get very exited :(  but he didn't pull me about or try to jump up, we ended that meeting with him sat down nicely getting a huge fuss of the woman :)