# Training through Distractions



## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

I finally seem to have found something that is helping Flip at least a little when he is distracted. When I go to train in an area where he's going into "oh I want to look at THAT!" mode, I start with a retrieve. I keep my retrieve criteria high - any pause or hesitation to retrieve is corrected. In this way, I am not directly nagging him about attention, but it's the lack of attention that causes the failure to retrieve properly and he's figuring out that the only way to do it correctly is to pay attention to what he's doing.

So if, for example, he runs out but when he gets to the dumbbell he stands there for a second looking at what's going on somewhere else, I will immediately verbally mark that. Even if he then snatches the dumbbell up, I still follow through with the correction...remove dumbbell from mouth, hand in collar and on ear, correct to dumbbell. 

It seems to be really helping a lot. Of course we still have a long way to go but it seems to be getting the point into his head about ignoring other cool stuff.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

I forgot to mention that I'm not actually squeezing or pinching the ear at this point. The ear is in my hand in case he refuses to retrieve, but once I have my hand in his collar he realizes what the problem is and he's trying to lunge for the dumbbell. Me interrupting him and putting my hand in his collar is enough correction in itself for him (he hates to be restrained).


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Loisiana said:


> I forgot to mention that I'm not actually squeezing or pinching the ear at this point. The ear is in my hand in case he refuses to retrieve, but once I have my hand in his collar he realizes what the problem is and he's trying to lunge for the dumbbell. Me interrupting him and putting my hand in his collar is enough correction in itself for him (he hates to be restrained).



Ahhhhhhhhh ---- but don't be so sure about that......
This is a very common and BAD habit to get into when force fetching a dog. 
The dog puts on a charade of "OOOOOOOH don't pinch my ear, I swear I MEANT to pick it up right!!!!!!!!"
You get all the behavior on the spot but very little of the unwanted behavior diminishing in the first place. *It's basically a second command, NOT a correction.*
In other words the dog becomes a great actor but the fumbling and pausing over the bumper/dumbbell never gets better.
Really pinch his ear instead of faking it. Do not let him lunge at the dumbbell before you can pinch him to it.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

Oh I agree Anney, and if I weren't seeing an enormous improvement I wouldn't hesitate to give the ear pinch. But honestly for this dog the lunging for the dumbbell isn't about "don't pinch my ear," - just holding him in the position itself is one of the worst corections I can give in his mind. So I'm trying to reserve the ear pinch itself for blatant belligerent behavior (you cannot make me pick up that dumbbell) or totally ignoring his job (running somwhere other than the dumbbell). But just for a temporary loss of attention in the process, interrupting him with a hand in the collar is enough to make him really dig in and focus.


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Loisiana said:


> Oh I agree Anney, and if I weren't seeing an enormous improvement I wouldn't hesitate to give the ear pinch. But honestly for this dog the lunging for the dumbbell isn't about "don't pinch my ear," - just holding him in the position itself is one of the worst corections I can give in his mind. So I'm trying to reserve the ear pinch itself for blatant belligerent behavior (you cannot make me pick up that dumbbell) or totally ignoring his job (running somwhere other than the dumbbell). But just for a temporary loss of attention in the process, interrupting him with a hand in the collar is enough to make him really dig in and focus.


Gotcha. Although if you are still regularly (or, more frequently than "once in a blue moon") having to ear pinch for not directly picking up the dumbbell he is not reliably force fetched in the first place. An ear pinch as a reminder on a slip-up say every three months is good upkeep for a completely force fetched dog, more frequently than that I would not call the dog force fetched but rather nag-fetched. Just my opinion


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

Totally agree Anney, that's why I did decide to seperate the type of correction, I'm at the point after a week of taking the collar that he's avoiding the distractions on his own without me having to step in. Once he's pretty consistent at that, then if he succumbs to the distraction later once he has a solid history of being successful in avoiding it, I can give the actual force fetch correction, and it will have more meaning behind it than if I had been nagging with it for a week in teaching him to avoid distractions. Failure to retrieve completely is a "once in a blue moon" event, and I want to get the pausing for distractions to that level too.

Of course that's just my warped "Jodie Logic." Who knows how good my thinking is.


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## K9-Design (Jan 18, 2009)

Just ruminating here. When you say avoid distractions are we talking about things you purposefully set up to distract him or just he is just hypersensitive to his environment? If it's the former then I think you're causing yourself a load of trouble by putting in the distractions clearly before the dog is ready. If it's the latter then, well, I'm not sure what I'd do in your case, being that the dog is clearly capable and ready to be pushed in his learning curve but is handicapped by this distractability. Hmmmm. Anyways I'm just rambling here.


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

He gets keyed into specific things in the environment. Like if we're training in the backyard, he could care less about the pitt mix that lives on one side of us, but is totally obsessed with always checking out if the poodle is in sight on the other side of us.


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## GoldenSail (Dec 30, 2008)

Hmmm, if it is working maybe I should try it too. Very hard when you have an otherwise nice dog who just can't help themselves with 'ooh, look at that! And that! What's that?! Can I have that?!'


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## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

I took Flip back to the park to train last night and WOW I had a different dog. He was actually focused! I started with a few retrieves, and he went straight there, snatched up the dumbbell, and returned promptly. I threw the dumbbell towards some of his doggy friends, so he had to run straight at them to do the retrieve, and he very determinedly ran out and stretched out to get his nose to the dumbbell as quickly as possible. I was impressed that he showed such self-control. We then proceeded to train other excercises and he showed no signs of distraction at all. OMG! There might be hope for this boy after all!

Now if I could just get his mouthing under control.


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