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How To End A Training Session...?


Guest acarso08

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Guest acarso08

Hi! I have had Ollie for three short days. I came across this blog:

http://neversaynevergreyhounds.blogspot.com

 

And decided to try the clicker training methods. Ollie caught on right away to the clicker and last night he was able to get in and stay in the down position. When I ran out of treats, I wanted to be done playing and go to bed.

 

Totally my mistake for getting inspired to train at 9:30 pm because he ran straight back to where we were practicing and did a perfect down. I didn't know if I should reward or not since it wasn't on command but I clicked and gave one more small piece of cheese.

 

He was so hyper when we were done. Bounding about the house. Then laid down on his bed and got a second wild spell, tossing toys and balls everywhere! While I'm happy he seems happy, I'm still unsure about how to indicate, "okay we're done practicing down"...

 

I don't mind taking him on a walk after or playing but i do want some suggestions on how to end the training session and what to do when I catch him repeating behaviors we just trained on without asking him to do them.

 

I know it's early on, at only three days home. I'm open to suggestions about te appropriateness of training so early on, too.

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Guest aceyouknow

I've had Cyrus for just about a month and have been taking him to obedience classes for two weeks. In my opinion it's never too early to start training. It helps to build a relationship. So while I'm obviously not an expert, my trainer talks a lot about a release word. It's an indication that you're done and your dog is no longer required to focus on the task at hand, be it sitting calmly, watching you, or performing tricks. A really common one is "break". It's short and it's not used that often in regular speech to get confused with something else. We've been using it as an indication of when Cy is allowed to leave his crate (as opposed to barreling out on his own terms), and when he's allowed to come out of the car. It's more of a safety measure in our case. Just today our trainer used it each time she demoed sits and downs. Usually it's given with a wave or something and she moves on to the next thing. Perhaps you can look more into a release word being an indication of the end of training. Also maybe not training at right before bedtime :)

 

Congrats on Ollie catching on so quickly! I still haven't attached a word to down so Cyrus probably thinks i'm just giving him a workout. I've been reading that blog as well! I wish there were more out there like it. A lot of people are still under the impression that hounds are untrainable. I love my trainer for taking five minutes out of class time to explain to the rest of the class why Cyrus was working on different things and that sighthounds shouldn't be looked at as dumb because they don't act like Collies.

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My dogs roughly learn what the word "done" means. Alternately, they also know what "go play" means - go do doggy stuff on your own. In the very beginning stages of teaching a new trick I'd be really happy to see an understanding of the behaviour and a desire to continue, so I'd reward, then pull out a toy or something for the dog to play with and occupy him so that he doesn't default back to offering behaviours.

 

With a more experienced dog with a trick that we've already worked on a bit, I ignore the offered behaviour or just verbally acknowledge it ("Good job! Aren't you clever? We're done now, go play") and direct the dog to a different behaviour (let them out into the backyard, clip on a leash to go for a walk, feed dinner, give a toy to play with, etc).

Kristie and the Apex Agility Greyhounds: Kili (ATChC AgMCh Lakilanni Where Eagles Fly RN IP MSCDC MTRDC ExS Bronze ExJ Bronze ) and Kenna (Lakilanni Kiss The Sky RN MADC MJDC AGDC AGEx AGExJ). Waiting at the Bridge: Retired racer Summit (Bbf Dropout) May 5, 2005-Jan 30, 2019

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I always played with Ry with one specific toy to conclude the training. His reward during training was always treats so when we broke out the toy oh boy! He'd take that and scamper off or we'd play tug. Might wanna try that?

Edited by XTRAWLD

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