# Down, walking behind me and refusing to walk, and training with kids?



## weareborgswife (Oct 14, 2011)

Scout is 15 weeks today, and we have been working on training indoors after kids are in bed and there are 0 distractions.... 

First is his ability to stay in a sit or down- he will easily do both when I have treats BUT the minute I give him a treat he is up wiggling around- he is pretty good on "Wait" to eat the treats, but then he is bouncing around again the minute he gets one... do I just wait longer to treat and start adding "stay"? It is like a pogo stick, "Sit" quick sit, he freezes, until I treat him, then his rear is off the floor (or body if in a down).

2nd... If he knows I have treats he responds to my "Let's Go" readily and will follow me around, but half the time he is behind me at my heels. If I put the treats in my left leash hand he will jump a them and he'll try and get them off and on, so I have been treating with my right hand. .... He doesn't pull at all, and follows easily, but I can't see him! Any ideas on how to get him to stay up next to me?

Outside he still gets pretty distracted, especially since I either have the kids during the day (try getting down the sidewalk with a 3 year old on a small bike with training wheels, a 6 year old who is almost off training wheels, and an almost 9 year old who zooms back and forth because the rest of us are so slow!)or at night it looks so different and dark, and there are a lot more people driving our neighborhood. If we are with the kids he pulls more (working on that), but if it's just us, we spend a lot of time not going anywhere because he will sit and just watch things, or even lay down and refuse to go- he goes limp like a rag doll. (he does this inside and in the yard as well at times). 

Finally-
I have three kids as mentioned above- we are having issues with him treating the 3 year old like a litter mate- the older two are doing fairly well most of the time and he seems to respect them more... he LOVES it when he sees her coming, but he jumps on her, bites at her, pulls her clothing, and nipped her yesterday and scratched her cheek the day before... I know we can get them both through this ...- we are supervising them closely, because of this but is there anything I can teach her to do that will help her gain some respect with him? We use a spray bottle for training, and I have let her correct him a time or two, but because her response time isn't as fast, I am not sure that is a good approach. 

Things we have told her- 
* keep her hands out of his face/mouth area- pet his back and chest (his calming spots)
* If she wants to play fetch with him, she needs us with her, and she needs to wait til he sits and then throw the toy quickly
* Use a calm voice quiet voice (she gets SO excited to see him and her voice gets fast and high pitched which I think is egging him on)
* use a calm body (don't run away from him when he is racing towards her waving her arms) 

Anything I've missed? 

Also on leash training- the older kids want to be able to walk him, but he is getting to strong for them- and he knows it- once he is "trained" with me, will he be with them with the same command words? Our last dog was a year and a half old when the oldest was born, and was with us until last year, so puppy plus kids is a different ball game!


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## wmag (Mar 17, 2011)

My puppy is 6 months old now I also have a 3 year old child. She is very good with my daughtner now but in the beginning it was really bad. My pup would attack my daughter the worst. The only thing I found that worked was telling her no bite putting a toy in her mouth and taking my daughter and putting her in another room for a minute. When my daugher woke up in the morning my pup was so excited and she would jump and bite. I keep a gate in the hallway to block off all of our bedrooms and when my pup started I put my daugher over the gate and had her stand in her room. We had to do it a couple times in a row but eventually it worked. Now my daugher plays with the pup all day long. I never leave them alone but they are so cute together I love to watch them! They wrestle and play chase as my daughter calls it. They run from the living room to the kitchen and back again a million times. My pup always has to have a stuffed toy in her mouth to avoid biting and my daugher knows if the dog doesn't have a toy she has to stop and tell her to get a toy. I tried to take them on walks together but is so hard I gave up and only take walks when my husband has my daughter. Sorry not much advice there. My pup was the same way with training if I had treats she would do anything but go right back to being crazy after she got them. I started using her meals in addition to the treats to teach her stay. If she went for her food I would pick it up and tell her to sit and then stay. First I would make her wait a couple seconds then extend the time and she is really good at staying now. I can put treats on her paws and tell her stay and she won't touch them until I say ok. Never thought that would happen! I am still working on alot of things with my pup but the biting is mostly over. She still bites sometimes when she gets really excited but it really doesn't hurt anymore at least! Good luck and I am sure someone will give you great advice. If you do a search there is probably alot of advice for the problems you need help with!


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## weareborgswife (Oct 14, 2011)

Wmag- Thanks so much! I will try the soft toy rule for sure, and the "time out" more- he is SO social- he hates to be alone and I have used it a few times when he won't stop his craziness even when I step in- and seems to work.


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