We have a 3 year old springer dog, Paddy, who was abused as a puppy. I used to think no dog was untrainable, but I'm changing my mind!

He's a lovely dog with no tendency to aggression and LOTS of love to give, but he's also a bit of a nightmare ...

1) He pulls on the lead like nothing I could ever imagine. I can't walk him now as he'd pull me over - my husband has to do it instead. We've tried the stop/start routine, changing direction when he pulls, body harnesses, haltis, gentle leaders etc, but he just doesn't care! When we stop, he stops too and has a sit dowm. It really doesn't bother him, but as soon as we move he's off again. The strangest thing about this, and the bit that tells me there MUST be a way of training him, is that when he's pulling, if you drop the lead (did this at first by accident) he stops and comes cowering back to you????

2) He loves playing fetch. BUT ... sometimes, when he's running back to you at full springer speed with the ball in his mouth he leaps at you, which is VERY painful as he's a big springer. He also jumps up if you have the ball in your hand and don't throw it for a while. I'm sure this is just eagerness to play, but how can we stop it? My tummy and thighs are black and blue with bruises (worse still is when he jumps/leaps at my husband - trying for a baby and we need those bits working!!!!!)

3) He's very food proud. Not aggressive with it, but certainly very vocal if you go near his bowl at dinnertime.

Any ideas on these would be much appreciated. He's a hard one really as a sharp "NO" is enought o reduce him to a pool of wee and a quivering cowering mess! Poor boy's had a tough time, but is very loved now. If only we could get these things ironed out ...

Thanks in anticipation!

Prong collar baby! Great for em' stubborn "untrainable" dogs! How long have you had him? Maybe he;s scared of his leash , if you just let him drag around how does he react?

Thats just a ridiculous suggestion and nobody in their right mind would use that approach any more than they would use a choke chain!

I am sure there will be plenty of sensible posts and advice to help you out.  I will give this problem some thought (as a fellow springer owner) and post again later.

Please don't take any notice of your first response.

Hi Maddogs

About your points in order:

1.  When you say you've tried haltis and gentle leaders etc, you make it sound like he still pulls in them.  Am I getting this right?  It IS possible to pull in a halti or gentle leader but it's quite tricky for the dog.  He must learn to put his head down and keep it down against his chest and then pull without his head up.  Most dogs can't do this.  Do you have one of the few who can?  I'm just trying to understand.  The lead dropping thing - perhaps his previous owner which whip him with the end of the lead, or would drop it to kick him or abuse him in some other way.  Have you tried clicker training the heel?

2.  As for the jumping up - every time he jumps up, you put the ball back in your pocket and turn your back on him.  Don't look at him.  Wait until all his feet are on the ground, then turn round again.  If he jumps up, turn away.  Keep doing this - it might take a long time at first before he realises what is making you stop the game.  You must be relentless though.  You can't say things like "Oh you silly doggie, look Paddy what you've done now" etc because any attention can be reward, so ignore him completely.

3.  Yes, he is food aggressive, hate to break it to you.  A growl is a warning that a bite may follow if you get any closer, and a growl is aggressive.  He needs to learn that you coming closer to the food bowl is a good thing, not a bad thing.  The way to train this is by always adding nice things to the food bowl, so that he associates your presence with getting something nice, and not with losing his food.  Get some really tasty chicken or something TASTIER than what's in his bowl, stand at the distance you know you can stand at, where he DOESN'T growl, and throw the food at him from there.  Do that every day, every time you feed him.  Very gradually you will find you can stand a bit closer each day without him growling.  When you are standing right by his bowl and can drop food in, try to place it in instead.  Then place it in and let him eat it out of your hand.  Then wait 1 second with your closed hand in the food bowl, open it to reveal food.  Slowly increase the amount of time you can do this.  Then push the food bowl with your hand accross the floor a bit, put food in.  Go as if to pick it up, but don't, put food in.  Pick it up 2 cms, put it back down, put food in.  Pick it up 5 cms, put it back down, put food in.  And so on until you can take the food bowl right up to your head height to add food and put it back down.  The idea is to avoid him growling, so don't push things too fast too soon - if he growls, you have had a little failure.  You don't want him to feel threatened enough to have to growl, because the idea with this is to train him to feel safe and to associate your presence with more food coming.  If he growls, go back to the previous step and move forward much more slowly.

Then you need to go back to the beginning of this, standing at a distance and throwing food, with another person - your husband maybe.

If you're going to have a baby and then a toddler in the house, you really need to solve this one fast.  Toddlers don't read growls very well.

If a sharp "No" reduces him to a pool of wee, then I would definitely avoid all aversive methods with him, because it sounds like he does not respond well to them, due to previous treatment.  This includes the prong collar - definitely I would not advise it.

Springers!!  Got to love their enthusiasm huh?  Having said that, as you have discovered, they are bred to work, and this work often involves being out 'in front' of their owners/handler to flush out the game...  You say you've tried lots of different methods - but how long have you given each one?  When a dog has learnt that doing A works (ie, gets you what you want) you have got to firstly teach him that behaviour A DOESN'T get him what he wants (by standing still, or keeping him on the ball by changing direction) and then give him some idea of what you DO want him to do, by encouraging him back into position, and then rewarding him by moving forward again.  You must be consistent with this approach, as any time the dog gets a reward for doing the stuff you don't want (ie he gets to go forward while pulling) he's getting a 'random reward' which is one of the strongest ways of reinforcing a behaviour.  I would guess somebody has tried to teach him to 'heel' by getting him to come back to them and then sit before moving off - which he appears to have learnt fairly well, so there is hope ;)

For the retrieval issue, there are several ways of over coming this - one would be to ask for a 'sit' (hopefully this is already on a voice command, and perhaps a hand signal too) as he approaches you.  The other might be to throw another ball behind you as he approaches so he by passes you.  For the jumping up - put the ball in a pocket, and he only gets the ball when he's behaving properly. This might mean he doesn't get to play for a few days, but he's now made the connection between jumping and getting the ball thrown, so we have to break that connection and make new ones.

Dogs with bad food manners have often been taught that the owner will often come and take food away.  This has problems as you have learnt........  I'd get into the habit of putting half his meal in the bowl at food time, and then sitting quietly nearby until he's nearly finished, then add a spoonful (might be an idea to wear gloves ;))

Springers, as you have learnt, while being enthusiastic, can also be VERY sensitive, so I'd strongly suggest you look into the concept called 'clicker training' which works on purely positive training and encourages the dog to think for himself.

Good luck with your boy, I also have a rescue Springer who came with lots of 'issues' including dog and human agression, and she's now a much loved member of our dog and human family - they are Soooooooo rewarding when you can turn them around :)

A lot of dogs that people label "untrainable" are quite the opposite, they just have too much attitude for most people to handle.

Added to the sensible posts already here I would just like to reassure you with an anecdote about my first dog who rarely had four feet on the floor at once, the trainer at my dog club said "you will never do anything with one of those", in fact I did and he went on to be a very successful working dog that achieved more than any of my "trainer's" dogs ever did ;)

The main thing to remember is that the more "up for it" the dog is, the calmer you have to be and it is VITAL to be absolutely consistent as this way the dog is a) in a position to learn when things are calm and clear and b) the dog will progress quicker when you are consistent and clear.

There is a reason they are called a "springer" you know! :D

Good Luck!

Hi, you have already had some excellent advice. So there is not much more to add, apart from your dog certainly IS trainable, start from scratch as though he is a pup, if you keep at it a few months from now you will have ironed out most of his problems, a year from now all of them, you will need plenty of patience to reap the rewards, training classes would be invaluable to yourselves here the small things like lead training can be done in a group with a proffessional, it is easier and more fun to learn this way for you and your dog. Springers are highly intelligent dogs, they learn very fast, but are always going to be a lot more hyperactive than other dogs, you need to keep their minds and bodies occupied.  These dogs have been bred to work, there bodies and minds are fired up for a busy lifestyle, they will never be lap dogs or once round the block types. Once trained they are highly efficient, obediant dogs and will be great with children too.

Springers from pups are a delight for someone like myself to train, I have trained many working dogs, but for an older dog who has had an abusive start to life and picked up bad habits, even I would find a lot harder to train, so for you it will be so hard on your own, I really, really would recommend those training classes they are invaluable and worth every penny. :-)

To add to the sensible posts already on here, it may be worth trying the following:

Does he walk to heal off lead? If not try teaching it- he may have issues with the lead itself. Also dogs that are very sensitive to shouting are often very good when trained to hand signals. The first thing is to train them to 'watch' you, then decide on a signal using hand/body signals for heel, sit stay etc and train from scratch with that. A springer should be good with food or retrieve rewards. For distance work you can train to whistle as that has less 'expression' to worry a sensitive dog than a voice command.  

I knew you would get some good and helpful advice.  There doesn't seem much to add really other than remember the basics come first, it's always good to get the groundwork solid.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the advice. I'll certainly be persevering with him as other than the problems I'd mentioned, he is already a nice family dog.
In response to onetwothree - Paddy is one of those "few" dogs who can genuinely pull on a halti!!! He braces his head, puts his nose down and puts his whole body weight behind it! Quite clever really!

I'm sure we'll get there in the end but it seems impossible sometimes as he's so unresponsive to everything we try. Still, perseverance is the name of the game so I'll keep at it! If in the meantime, anyone discovers a magic cure then I'm all ears! (in the non-springer sense - Paddy actually is all ears ... they're HUGE!).

Our other dog, Jasper, is a springer/collie cross and he's quite a nice walker, so I'm looking forward to having 2 dogs that both behave. The stop/start method worked well on Jasper, but I just don't really think Paddy associates the stopping with the not pulling. Either that or he just doesn't care! I know springers are very intelligent as breed, but everyone who meets Paddy acknowledges that there's a very definate dopey side there! Good job we love him!

I'll keep you posted on our progress!

Please do keep us informed - you obviously also have a well developed sense of humour, which is ESSENTIAL when you're owned by a Springer :)

You might also be interested in http://springthing.3.forumer.com/index.php which is a forum dedicated to Springers and their humans.

Thanks for the link to that site - looks very approriate ... I notice there's already a few threads on there about jumping springers, so perhaps  I'll add my post there too!

You watch, with the help of the whole of the Uk, I'll have this dog trained by Christmas!

(Please note, I didn't specify which Christmas!)

i was just reading through and noticed about you using a halti - i too tried one on my GWP and yes he can pull on that too ! either that or he goes round the back of you, sticks his head through your legs, trips you up and gets the halti off his nose.  So there is a brain in there somewhere ! (Also, my mums lab/ret use to pull on his too !).

Well ... Getting Paddy to sit before we do ANYTHING is certainly helping with the jumping problem. It happens far less frequently now.

The food growling thing also seems to be under control.

Not so much luck on the pulling front yet ... he could still pull a jumbo jet single handed, but we haven't given up and will continue to train him (or at least try to!!!).

Well doen so far.  |Often with training it is two steps forward and one back just keep being consistent and calm :D

Hey Small steps! You are doing really well and sound as if you have a dog that is much easier to live with already. Just keep at it. Once you have a reasonable level of control you could try hiding the retrieves, which will make him think - a great way to wear them out a bit more without having to be out all daywalking.

My Springer bitch is four years old and is also a rescue. I've had her for nearly four months.  She will NOT walk nicely on the lead. I've tried everything. She isn't treat orientated, she's scent orientated.  I have a Canny Collar for her, which is good, but she would rather have the discomfort than walk nicely.  Personally, I think it's the way it is with Springers and there's not a lot you can do if they want to "work".  I've taken advice from these pages and turned around/walked back in the direction we've come etc but as soon as we turn back again, she's pulling like a good 'un.  Please don't upset your dog with electric collars or prong collars. Headcollars are bad enough.  I stand still when my dog pulls too badly.  I tell her to stand and then I take baby steps to get level with her. If she moves when I'm doing baby steps, I tell her to stay again and then start over. When I'm level with her head, I strike off with my left leg, say her name then "come".  She's very good about that but still pulls. Fact is, my shoulder stops hurting for a few seconds whilst she's standing still!

As for the bringing you things at high speed... I take out two frisbees (Fling a Rings) with my dog. When she runs back with one, I chuck the other and she either drops the first or picks two up in her mouth and flips one over her head and runs round.  She makes me so proud!  We also use two tennis balls.  Of course, she loses loads of things...

I also have a springer who has pulled from the word go.
I have read all the very helpful tips on how to stop pulling and have consistently followed the stop start method. Now, bearing in mind her first walk was at around 11 weeks old, and she is now 8 months old, only now do i feel that i am actually getting somewhere with her.
Moral of the story:- It really can take months before you crack it!!

Tingalay, keep at it - you will get there.  Don't forget your girl has had 4 years of learning that what she does works (if it didn't, she wouldn't keep doing it ;))  So she's got to forget all that before she can start to learn new stuff, and 4 months isn't very long (I know it seems like a lifetime :))

I'm a bit worried though, that your current method may be teaching her the wrong things, ie, that it's OK to pull, because all that happens is we stop, Mum fiddles about taking baby steps, then we get to go forwards again. She doesn't have to do much thinking about what she's doing, because you're doing it all for her.......

I'd appreciate any advice you can give on this.  I've posted up before regarding the pulling but the advice I've had doesn't work for a very driven Springer in a country lane. The minute we get out my front door, she acts as though she's in a field because there are so many deer/fox/badger/rabbit smells a few yards away. I want her to respect that if the lead is on, she has to walk like a lady but as soon as there is any slack in the lead, she takes it up. She never actually walks, not even in the house!  I don't like using a headcollar because she still pulls in that so then she is in constant discomfort but she prefers that to walking nicely and no discomfort.  I have had two one on one training sessions which achieved nothing and cost me £70. I rang another training place for advice and they said the only thing that would work is an electric collar.  They can stick that!  I don't know whether or not you have experience of working breeds (she's a working, not a show type Springer) but they are different to so many other breeds.  What do you recommend?  If I turn around, the lead is slack for a few seconds before she tries to charge in the direction we've just come from. If I try to distract her with treats, she ignores them, or takes it and then still charges - she doesn't ask for more.  HELP!!!!!!

Yep! My Springer is exactly the same as you have described.
She is very food orientated but out on a walk she is not interested at all. She just wants to get to where we are going at top speed.
I honestly thought we would never crack it, but after 7 months of stop starting she is coming along really well.
Tried the head harness for a while and she could not pull, not at all, and this was great. But, she hated it and would at times leap and prance all over the place. Then after a while she hated it so much that when out on a run she didn't want to come back to me because she was scared i'd put it back on her.
Anyway, have now gone back to using a body harness, and although she can still pull, she is happy to wear one and i still have more controll over her than if it were just a collar and lead. Keep at it, you will get there in the end, just takes time and patients

Have been following this post, really impressed with OP's patience with, and understanding of her dog. Also, big extra "well done" for turning down the suggestion of an electric collar! :rolleyes:

The longer any kind of behaviour  has been practised, the longer it will take to train away from it. Sometimes the only way is to alter something so much, that it's like a new experience to the dog, not something it already knows how to react to.
Since Halti is not an option, maybe a body harness would work? A new harness, and from the first time it's used, no acceptance of pulling at all. If the "stop, stand still, eye-contact, praise and walk-on-method" is used from the start, with no exeptions, maybe it would be possible to convince this dog of the harness being something totally new, a whole new experience? Maybe the daily walks will be long in time but short in distance ;-) at first, but it might be worth a try?

This has worked on a bitch I sold to a couple years ago. At first they never really seemed bothered about the pulling,they never listened to any advice given. The husband walked the dog most of the time. After a couple of years he had to go away to work during the weeks. Suddenly the pulling was not so popular with the wife, who had to walk the dog, obviusly.
This problem was solved with the above method, combined with less food over a period, but extra tasty sausages in pocket when out walking.
I'm well aware of the differences between a working springer and my breed, could be worth a try, though?
Best of luck,
Karen

I have spednt up to half an hour or more walking basck and forth over the dame bit of pavement with a pulling dog.  As soon as they pull forward I do a sharp left turn about turn, treading on the feet or barging into the dog if they are in the way, (though not advised for a sensitive or timid one, when I would do a normal about turn away from the dog). 

As soon as they start pulling in the new direction then about turn again.  After a while the dog realises it is going absolutely nowhere, though ti is still getting excersise, (yu might get giddy though).  the penny will start to drop, and the first thing you will find is the dog looking up at you and paying attention to what you are going to do next.

Once you get the attention, quiet praise (so as not to excite), continue this way, until she pulls again when you must about turn again.  You have to have time to be consistent.  When you don't have time to do this then use the head collar and do not allow her to pull ahead.