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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2476 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for July 19, 2023

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Does the shepherd like, sit/stay?

If not, you should probably train him to anyways -- once this is done (or if he already does) then making him do that (and rewarding him) while the small dog does stuff in the general area should get him bored of the thing fairly fast.

He does so, but only inconsistently if food isn't involved. Given that he's always on a leash outdoors, I've never had a strict need for that, but I'm sure it would be useful.

I've tried having him sit with the bribe of treats while the little dog runs around, but the moment they're gone and he notices it, the cycle resets.

Oh yeah, don't be afraid to sock it to him with the treats -- this can be a significant proportion of his daily calories and it's fine!

If he's used to chasing, it will probably take a while to get him into the habit of not doing it -- so the time commitment is significant, but I don't think there's a shortcut. (other than turning them all loose and letting the chips fall where they may; higher risk there though!)

Clicker training seems gimmicky if you haven't tried it, but I've found it pretty helpful at building this kind of response faster. Low barrier to entry, the clickers are like 2 bucks and you are giving him treats anyways.

Thanks for the advice! I'll try and see if I can make some more headway.

If you try the clicker thing, Karen Pryor is kind of the mother of it -- I don't love her specific dog-training books so much, but there's one about general use of the clicker for behaviour modification in animals that's a good read; I think it's this one: https://www.amazon.com/Karen-Pryor-Behavior/dp/0962401714/

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