# At my wits end with attention problems



## ally1h (Nov 27, 2012)

My pup has a serious ADD problem outside on the leash that I have yet to figure out how to cure.

The biggest problem is other dogs. I am embarrassed that I cannot, for the life of me, get my golden to pay me attention when there are other dogs on a leash nearby. He is so food motivated but no food item will get his attention. When there is another dog around he zeroes in on that dog and the only way I can get him to pay attention is by running the opposite direction. I can't do that anymore. This is Alaska and there is always ice on the ground. He has dragged me across the street twice already this winter to greet another dog. I'm at my wits end. We took a class on leash and attention. We have taken 4 other obedience classes and have passed. 

I am so frustrated at this point and don't know what to do. He is my first golden. He is 13.5 months old. I feel like he should be better on a leash by now. I don't want to be that embarrassed person walking their dog and having to physically control their dog because he won't pay attention.

What on earth am I doing wrong? I can't be the only owner of a hugely ADD 70# pup with attention problems. What have other people done?


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## coaraujo (Nov 2, 2012)

ally1h said:


> My pup has a serious ADD problem outside on the leash that I have yet to figure out how to cure.
> 
> The biggest problem is other dogs. I am embarrassed that I cannot, for the life of me, get my golden to pay me attention when there are other dogs on a leash nearby. He is so food motivated but no food item will get his attention. When there is another dog around he zeroes in on that dog and the only way I can get him to pay attention is by running the opposite direction. I can't do that anymore. This is Alaska and there is always ice on the ground. He has dragged me across the street twice already this winter to greet another dog. I'm at my wits end. We took a class on leash and attention. We have taken 4 other obedience classes and have passed.
> 
> ...


Don't worry you're not alone :wave:! I think the key here is finding the right distance from other dogs where your dog is still under threshold. Once you find a distance where your dog can see another dog, but not start pulling towards the other dog you can work on training - attention, sits, downs, etc. As your dog improves you start moving closer and closer to the stimulus (i.e. other dogs). Doing a lot of foundation attention games at home and in distracting environments will help too. 

Also, remember, when you physically restrain your dog from getting to something it wants you are only building more drive for whatever it is after. Try to do your best to remove you and your dog from the situation if you can, i.e. jogging off in the opposite direction (I know you said there is a lot of ice so just leaving in the opposite direction). I recommend a front clip harness for more control. What is nice about these is they pull the dog from the front toward you (turning their body around). Its much harder for a dog to pull forward this way and eliminates the dog from feeling any reinforcement (the pulling is reinforcing and builds drive for whatever the dog is after). Here is the one I have for my boys (Amazon.com: PetSafe Easy Walk Dog Harness, Large, Black/Silver: Pet Supplies)

I struggle with loose leash walking as well. The only way for the dog to learn walk nicely is to eliminate any reinforcement for pulling and create a lot of reinforcement for standing with you. So treat treat treat (or tug tug tug) with the dog next to you and vow to never let your dog pull again . Easier said than done I know!

ETA: I just wanted to add that a lot of the time when I'm having issues with pulling my dogs are above threshold and won't take treats or toys. What I have found that works is, in situations where this is happening, do not, for the life of me, let my dog pull/get to whatever its pulling towards. This is where the front-clip harness comes in because on a flat collar I can't hold them back. I literally only give my boys a foot of leash and we walk. If they forge, we step backwards until they're back in heel position, then we start again. If they're really struggling I'll ask for a sit for some refocus before moving forward again. They pick up pretty quickly that they don't get to move towards whatever they're after unless they're walking nicely next to me. I try to use whatever they're after as the reward - i.e. sniffing. So we'll walk nice for 3-5 steps and then I release with "go sniff" they sniff the pole and then "lets go" back to walking nicely. Once they've gotten over the excitement of being outside and will take treats, my left hand is a little automatic treat dispenser, dropping treats in their mouth every time they choose to walk nicely at my side.


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## quilter (Sep 12, 2011)

That's the age that I put Casper on the Gentle Leader and had him neutered. He's 2.5 years now, and ignores other dogs while on leash. I had him at the store the other day. We were 10 feet from another dog, he could not have cared less. I think it's due to being older, but also lots of basic obedience training. At the dog park, it's another story. Those dogs he will go visit and play with. Now people, we are still working on ignoring them.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

I use a gentle leader on my youngster and love it. I would have very interesting treats to carry with you as well. You need to practice exercises where there are no distractions that you can put into place with distractions...


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## ally1h (Nov 27, 2012)

Thank you all for the replies. We have tried a front clip harness, gentle leader, and prong collar. He steps over the front clip harness, doesn't walk (at all) with the gentle leader, and we actually made some progress with the prong collar as much as I detest using it. But it gives me control on a day like today where we received almost a 1/2 inch of sleeting rain and ice.

I hadn't thought of restraining him as a bad thing but I suppose it is and I should start thinking of it this way. But how can I not if he is dragging me on ice across the street? I really don't want to break something in my body or his by falling.... Turning in the opposite direction doesn't usually work unless I get really ramped up and jog away. Otherwise he is 100% zoned in on the other dogs and nothing short of pulling him to a run in the opposite direction breaks it. No treat nor toy breaks his laser focus. If only he'd pay that much attention to ME! D'oh!

Thank you for giving me some peace of mind and some hope that with my ever relentless persistence (despite feeling completely futile) in this matter, it could get better with age. I said he was 13 months earlier, but I was wrong... He is 15 months old (whoops!). Leash training is the ONLY thing that has given me endless grief and trouble with since the day I brought him home. From not walking, to walking 10 feet, to pulling like a bucking bronco, to going through another fear period and not walking, to barking at everything, to back to the bucking bronco, and now a HECK of a lot better but still pulling with other dogs nearby... I feel like an utter failure. Trainers have wondered why I haven't taken him for his CGC yet and why we aren't doing therapy work yet (my ultimate goal) and I have to explain that inside a training facility he is an angel, but outside the facility he is just a golden puppy and has leash and attention issues. They always act surprised, yet I kind of wonder why.

He has a good foundation of with attention indoors (and getting better outdoors). But so entires it doesn't matter if there is a dog 10 feet away or 200 feet away....

Would taking him someplace (like a pet store) be a good place to really build on foundational attention skills???


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## quilter (Sep 12, 2011)

We mostly walk Casper on the front clip harness and he does step over the leash sometimes. We taught him to step back over the leash. I didn't think this was possible until I read in a dog training book that dogs can figure this out, that they like the attention of having their feet untangled. (May or May not be true, but works for us.) Now we can tell Casper to back up or just sort of walk towards to him and he'll lift his foot up and back up until the leash is untangled. Weird, but true. 

Your pup sounds like Casper and bunnies. We have a deal about those. Casper is allowed to sit and watch the bunnies as long as he doesn't pull on me. If he turns and looks at me, treat! It's been a year (yes a year!), but he does not lunge and drag me to them anymore. But he does stalk them. Every now and then he'll lunge after watching them for a bit. Mostly though he watches until he's had 3-4 treats then I tell him Let's Go and he walk off with me. I give him another year or so and I think he'll walk right by them. Almost. He's still a dog after all. 

I think the pet store is a good idea, or anywhere that you can find dogs to practice with, but that you can also control how far away the other dog is and how long you are near the dog. I've been taking Casper to the pet store a lot this fall to work on his people greetings. He loves, loves people. I was slow to figure out that he wasn't going to learn how to greet people unless he met a few thousand of them. Well, not a thousand, but more than the average dog.


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## BajaOklahoma (Sep 27, 2009)

Rogue does a variation of this that drives me crazy - and I've never had a dog do it before. She barks at others outside of the car. People, people walking dogs, people on bikes, people on motorcycles.
And she gets so excited when she sees her classmates at obedience. She incites bad behavior.
So our trainer has had me work on "leave it." Leave it is for the dead squirrel or a snake you don't ever want her to have, not a treat you will give her in a few minutes (that's wait). We have practiced in the house for the most part over the last 6-7 weeks. I never thought it would sink in, but now when I say "leave it" as she barks at the people walking the dogs as we drive by, she stops barking.


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## CharlieBear80 (Oct 13, 2013)

I've been that highly embarrassed person dragging her dog away from people and other dogs before, I feel you! You've gotten some good advice on figuring out what his threshold is and keeping him under that while out on walks and working on attention, then building up how close you are able to get to other dogs. It requires a lot of patience most of the time and it can feel like you are really crawling towards your goal, but it's very doable. 

The other thing you might want to think about is making an "emergency exit" while out walking, just for the sake of safety until you get this issue worked out. Basically this just involves being vigilant about other dogs coming your way and having something to grab your dog's attention and do an about-face quickly so that you don't have to worry about getting pulled down on ice or anything.


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