Dog training has reached an impasse. Note that I say impasse and not plateau. Buckley refuses to play anymore. Oh sure, he'll still humor me when I have a treat hidden in my hand, but he refuses to even acknowledge that he has learned anything if there isn't any food there. And if there is a distraction, I no longer even exist. What's a dog trainer to do?
When we were in class yesterday, Buckley would not even do the most basic command of "watch". He did, however try and steal everyone else's food. I said, "hey, buddy, you're with ME and I have a pocket full of your favorite treats, so pay attention." His response... To try and steal Chewy's treats from his little girl. Hmmmm.
Today, we seem to be back to square one. I hold the treat and Buckley does the training. But not consistently. He won't do any of the training moves when we're not in practice mode. "Sit", for example, will not be done outside of the laboratory of our training environment. From my perspective: grrrrrrrr. On the plus side, loose leash walking is getting better. We were able to go down the exciting path with limited stops for un-uhs. For the last mile of our walk, he had lots of slack on the leash. And... when we got back to the house, he walked with a slack leash all the way to the door. That was a giant win, since he used to go crazy and pull like a Clydesdale, so I guess we'll take it.
We also got some "sit" and "down" training while we were in the park. The first couple of times I couldn't even get him to pay attention to me. I cleverly anticipated that and used pizza bones instead of the standard training treats, which eventually captured his attention. Although, it didn't keep his attention when another dog came by. One thing at a time, I guess.
I know he wants to please me, but he still seems unwilling to follow through on the training. We'll keep on training, over and over, every day. We'll get it. He really is a good dog.
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