Won't respond to any kind of training.

[tawilton1]

Little Molly is 5 months now and growing well and has good health.

The only problem is that she just won't respond to any kind of training, she doesn't even respond to her name, i don't think she's deaf as does hear sometimes for example when she's in a different room and we tell her to come shell come running. Other than that she doesn't listen, when she's out in the garden and i shout her back she ignores me, we have an older cocker and we've done all the same training we did with her on molly too and I'm just wondering what i can do to improve her training, she's generally well behaved she just doesn't listen to us

Any help and advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

[HeatherandBenjy]

The problem might be that being out in the garden may be a lot more exciting than doing recall work, especially if she knows that each time she comes back to you its the end of play time in the garden. 

If it were me, I'd buy a lightweight long line. Put it on Molly whenever she is going out into the garden. Practise calling her (and remember to make it sound really exciting, even if you look daft  ) and if she doesn't respond, use the long line to guide her back to you, whilst still making it sound exciting to come back to you. When you get her back, reward her with a small treat and then let her go back to exploring the garden. Repeat this lots of times so that she learns that a) coming back to you is good (because she gets a treat) and b) coming back to you doesn't mean the end of playtime in the garden.

Hope this helps.

[elaine.e]

I've just had a quick look at your previous posts. Am I right in thinking that your older Cocker is still a puppy too? The reason I ask is that if you have 2 very young Cockers together it's possible that Molly is more focussed on her Cocker playmate than she is on her human family.

Do you train Molly on her own or is your other Cocker around when you're training Molly? Training Molly on her own, and walking her on her own sometimes, should help her to focus on you. Do you have the same problem on walks as you do in the garden?

Good advice from HeatherandBenjy

[PennyB]

she's also at an age where she's gaining more confidence and testing the boundaries - like any dog would at this age

You have to keep working at it to try to focus her and increase the bond with you both. I tend to try this with short training exercises that are fun and sometimes use games for them. Also if you have another young dog then you really have to train separately for a while at this.

[Joules]

Have you taken her to any training classes?

[tawilton1]

Hi thanks for all the advice, yes elly is her older sister but still a pup but we do train molly seperately from elly because elly is very mischievous and as you said, a distraction.

I do take her walking on our own just me and molly but she's scared to death of big dogs when ellys not there so its very hard to get her to focus on me although she always comes back when i call her which is good.

It's mainly just house training where she's distracted, she is a very well behaved little pup, never chewed anything up except a sock and always tells us when she needs the toilet.

Tom

[chrisp]

Must be the name - I've got a 5 month old called Mollie and she is exactly the same!!!!!!! 

Inside she is fine mostly - she doesn't chew furniture etc - it's her recall, lead training etc.

Will be watching replies with interest as nothing is working!

[HeatherandBenjy]

Must be the name - I've got a 5 month old called Mollie and she is exactly the same!!!!!!! 

Inside she is fine mostly - she doesn't chew furniture etc - it's her recall, lead training etc.

Will be watching replies with interest as nothing is working!

You need to practise, practise and practise but in short sessions, a couple of times a day.

Make it fun, for recall use a long line and practice in the garden, but use your tone of voice to make it sound really exciting to come back to you (your neighbours do get used to this after a while, trust me!  ) and praise like mad when she gets it right.

Whenever you're feeling downhearted about it (and having spent the last year working on getting Amber to walk nicely on a lead, I can appreciate how frustrating it can get), just remember that the work you're putting in now will be worth it. No-one gets a well behaved, well trained dog without putting a lot of time and effort in. But the effort you're putting in now will pay you back a thousand times over in the future. 

[PennyB]

I do take her walking on our own just me and molly but she's scared to death of big dogs when ellys not there so its very hard to get her to focus on me although she always comes back when i call her which is good.

Wilf my cocker boy can be embarrassingly gobby with certain dogs (sometimes I know which ones he will react to - he went through a phase of being attacked by small white terriers but other times it might just be large male unneutered dogs) - with him I began using the food bar technique (you can also use clicker trainign for this) where you begin getting them to keep looking at you and you then treat them in return. You have to be proactive here and start when you see a large dog in the distance, in the meantime your dog is continually focusing on you until the 'threat' has passed. Nowadays Wilf is also focused on tennis balls so me just holding one of those then I throw it for him once we pass the dog in question as he's fine. It takes practice.

Plus there may be a case where you begin to tense up when you see a large dog so she picks up on your tension as well

Sometimes its also worth parallel walking with someone who has a large dog as it might be a large dog charging up to yours that makes them react in the way they do - this is very confrontational to some dogs (Roobs hated it when GSDs did the same when she was a pup and she used to scream when one charged up to ther before they even got near)