Hello,

I came across this forum by way of a Google search in order to try and train our dog 1 ½ year old female Labrador retriever Leah.

I’m from England (Kent in particular) while both my girlfriend and Leah are Norwegian, which is where we currently all live!

Leah is what I would call, a typical dog that we both love and care for dearly. She is not spoilt by either of us in anyway but we do make time to play with her and take her for regular walks. She is not really toy type of dog and although she has toys (ropes, balls and some small ‘cuddly toys’ she doesn’t really go crazy for any of them.

Indoors she is a wonderful dog who has changed her ways (she is no longer aloud to sleep on the bed) and although we have an occasional whining session overall she is very well behaved.

The real problem for us is when we are outside. She constantly seems to pull on the lead both with a harness and regular collar, regardless of how many times you have to tell her its like she can’t get enough of it. We have a canny collar, which we try to use, but she really objects to wearing it and almost refuses to walk.

Unfortunately, that is only the tip of our problem. She goes crazy for other dogs and cats and just wants to go and play with them if she is on or off her lead, she jumps and pulls and refuses to move even if they are on the other side of the road. Her recall is also pretty much non-existent.

My girlfriend is a wheelchair user, which also makes it hard to use the canny collar, but also the pulling in general is much more of a bigger problem for her and walk times are general lead-only due to her not recalling.

We have both discussed the best method of training Leah and have tried training her with treats but even this has little effect (we think she doesn’t like the dried dog food very much as she generally leaves her food all day, or until you put some wet food on top).

We also discussed a more “universal” method of training Leah, obviously because my girlfriend speaks Norwegian to her and when I speak to her in Norwegian, Leah tends not to understand (perhaps because my pronunciation is slightly off?).

I apologise if it seems we are being slightly naive, but we are both not scared of hard work and would love for her to be the type of dog she deserves to be.

Any advice and or critique is greatly appreciated!

- Chris

Sorry i can't be much help but you can always use a long line to give your dog more exercise if theres nowhere secure she can go offlead. Also theresa whole range of stop pull things like dogmatics(highly rated on here) and haltis.

Training wise, every time your dog pulls stop dead, don't look at her, don't talk to her just ignore her until she's back by your side not pulling, praise and repeat until she gets the message that she won't get where she wants to go by pulling

Regarding the overexcitement, she's a 1.5 year old lab, she will be excited about seeing other animals and people. Do you know anyone with dogs that would enjoy meeting yours, or any dog walking groups/training classes near you? Training classes would be a good place to go as she will learn how to focus around distractions.

Recall, you have to make yourself as interesting as possible, take some really smelly treats like pieces of cheese or hotdog, start in your garden, call her and treat and praise when she comes back, once she's got this 100%(as she should being a lab and getting food) i would have her on a long line in an open area and start again, if she doesn't come right away then you can give the long line a tug which should get her started coming towards you so you can recall her(set her up for success) and treat. Labs are very smart and food is the quickest way to their hearts

Food, very common problem, first of all what are you feeding her, how much and how often each day? Adding some wet food isn't a bad thing as kibble can become boring, have you considered raw feeding(see stickies in nutrition section). My dog used to get his morning meal with some wet food which he loved and theres tons of choice as far as good foods go Leave the food down for 20 minutes, pick up and give her nothing between meals, repeat this process everyday as she will eat when she's hungry.

So, to sum up

Pulling - stop dead, ignore, praise and treat once she's by your side and not pulling, repeat until pulling is gone

Recall - start in garden with smelly treats, move onto long line in open spaces, set her up to succeed.

Overexcitement - Training classes(look for one based on positive reinforcement, anything remotely sounding like dominance theory run away from), dog walking groups/friends with calm dogs and possibly more socialisation

Food - Leave down for 20 minutes then remove and give nothing during the day, do this for every meal, add wet/leftovers for variety, have a look at raw or different kibble if she's really not happy.

Additional tips - do 2/3 training sessions with her every day, just basics like sit, down, paw etc and use treats, not only will this increase her focus on you but will mentally tire her too. Make sure the treats are of high value to your dog otherwise she won't want to work for you.

Hope some of this helps, somebody with more experience should be along later but these are all easy to solve problems

__________________
Owned by Tummel the rottaridgeador and Dante the Italian Spinone

Hey,

Thank you for your quick and kind response. We feed her a band of Purina (I can't remember the exact food as I threw away the bag a few days ago (whoops!)), we at the minute tend to leave her food down all day on the chance she may go to it to quench her hunger.

We feed her twice a day, with a few scoops (I know that doesn't help much) but we don't pile the bowl to the top for example, its more about half full. Possibly it might be an idea to do as you suggest with the wet food, having set meal times for her perhaps with a little wet food on top (at least that would ensure she had one good meal a day).

Will certainly look at some of the other points you suggested with regards to re-call and introduction to other dogs..

I'm quite looking forward to making progress with her as she is a lovely dog!

Thank you once again for your reply!

No problem

I used to leave food down for my dog all day and he'd barely eat, switched to the set meals and adding some variety and now it's very rare for him to leave some food as he knows if he gets hungry he'll have to wait.

Purina isn't really a good food company, seeing as you line in Norway i'm not going to give you a list as i have no idea what brands are available(if you have a look on zooplus they have good foods i know come from mainland Europe) but it could well be that the food you currently feed your dog is making her a bit hyper which won't help with her issues, if you go into the nutrition section i'm sure someone will be able to help

Add some warm water with the wet food so it turns into a very thick gravy and mix it in, that way your dog can't pick and choose which bit she wants to eat(mine also did this) and eats it all, i don't know how much food is in a scoop but for a lab bitch she probably won't need a lot of food(around 400g at the most a day i would think but again not sure)so make sure you take away the weight of kibble you're replacing with wet food.

Keep us all updated on your progress, being a lab your dog should learn very quickly with treats and praise

__________________
Owned by Tummel the rottaridgeador and Dante the Italian Spinone

You can speak Chinese and there will be no difference for your dog, he can't speak human. What he does understand is a body language. All that connections between words and behaviour have to be learned.

What training did you do using treats? How did it look like? For how long time did you stick with it?
What means universal method of training?

Food. Purina isn't good brand of food, try Bosch, Orijen, Acana (you should buy them in Norway) Don't leave food down all long day. Put it down leave it up to 20 min, and pick it up, offer it next feeding time. Dogs can starve for long time. Don't mix it, later on your dog will not to eat because topping isn't enough good one. Raw is good idea, dogs love it!
When you try to break bad eating habit, do not offer any treats between, so you can forget about training or you can use kibble as a treats.

For yummy training treats

Liver Cake Recipe
It's inexpensive, not as rich as rare liver and can be frozen.

Ingredients

* 1Lb (450g) lamb or ox liver.
* 1Lb (450g) self raising flour.
* 3 eggs.
* 2 cloves of garlic.
* milk or water.

Method

* Crack the eggs into a measuring jug.
* Add an equal volume of milk or water to the measuring jug and whisk.
* Blend the liver and garlic in a food processor.
* Add the egg mixture and blend to a sponge mixture consistency.
* Empty contents into a baking tray.
* Bake at 180 degrees for 35 - 45 minutes.
* Allow to cool.
* Divide into 12 pieces and freeze.




I'd not tackle all the issues at once, pick one (I'd choose recall) and focus on that. There are some books you can read that I've read, and highly reccomend one is "click to calm" and the other is "control unleashed"

What I meant is, the commands my girlfriend gives could potentially sound different to how mine sound. Meaning that she doesn't associate the sound from me as being the same as from my girlfriend for example.

By universal I meant something such as whistle or clicker. (obviously, I understand that the basics of returning and such need to be addressed first). The reason I asked was that these things are quite commercial these days.

I have been reading a little bit on the raw feeding, we are going to give it a try at some point. I think for the mean time, we will just do as ballybee suggested with her morning meal, at least that way we know she has eaten one good meal over the day.

Hi I think you have had good advice so all I can add is that I think it would make it much easier for your dog to understand your commands when they sound the same every time and maybe teaching her hand signals to reinforce the verbal commands would help. I'm sure you will find that her not having food to pick at all day will help keep her attention focussed on you to earn her rewards.

Hi,

Thank you for your reply.. Do you think something such as a whistle would help reinforce the commands (what I was trying to say in the previous posts with the "universal" method was, as obviously my girlfriend is a native Norwegian and I'm not I feel like our pronunciation (plus, I more than likely say things wrong) and thus sounds to Leah are obviously different.

I think that a whistle is perhaps something we could both use with the possibility of seeing better results.

Hello and welcome to the forum
With regards to the whistle and clicker, yes they could help if you feel yours and your partners accents are very different. You could use the whistle for recall and the clicker for training 'commands' like sit, stay, leave it etc. With the whistle you need to decide what sound you want to use for 'come here' (some people use one quick blast on the whistle, others 3 short toots etc) then begin at home by using it whenever she is already on her way to you, give your whistle sound and once she reaches you give a nice smelly treat (the homemade liver treats are fab) and then lots of praise. You will need to repeat this a lot until she realised 'whistle, go to whistle, treat and fuss' once she has 'got it' at home you can start practising with more distraction outside. For clicker training there are lots of really good books, and threads on here if you search the word clicker, or go on to you tube and search kikopup she has lots of easy to follow video on clicker training. As for food you have been given great advice about not leaving it down etc... I would consider changing her food to something a little better quality (you would be surprised what the quality of food can do to affect your dogs behaviour) and continue to add a little wet if she doesnt like it dry. Hope some of that helps

__________________