We got this dog for about 6 months now. No history on it.
Vet says. She is about 2-3 year old, Pomeranian mix with a chichua.
Is it too late to get her trained? She is potty trained for the most part. But doesn't listen, isn't friendly with others. Alone she is good. She walks where she wants.
I would like her to stop at the corners or curb while walking. Walk next to me vs in front. Learn to sit and shut up on command.
I wouldn't mind paying like $200 if someone can train her. PETCO offers $120 for entry level training
This is key right here. Whatever you do, you *must* be diligent and consistent, otherwise you're wasting your time.
I too like Cesar Milan; the dog psychology makes sense and seems to work. I have a very well behaved Pit Bull that was an abandoned/rescue case. She's still got some issues, but she's very well trained.
Please keep in mind, I'm of the belief that it's the owner that needs to be trained, not the dog. So if you send your dog off to be trained, but don't stick with it *yourself*, then you're wasting your time and money.
Cesar Milan for the psychology.(calm submissive state is crucial, IMHO)
Pinch collar- I recommend it highly. My totally untrained rescue dog was heeling in 10 minutes with this collar. It is a fantastic training tool for all other behaviors as well.
DAILY consistent discipline- the dog has to obey/work to get any kind of reward:food, play, affection.
You leave the house/building 1st, then the dog. You enter first, then the dog.
No leash on or off till dog is sitting. EVERY TIME.
Short, 10 minute training sessions 2-3 x a day.
I have a lot of other suggestions, most of which came from the book " How to Teach a New Dog Old Tricks " by Ian Dunbar (Amazon)
Especially the short training sessions. My Pitbull and I are both ADD, short sessions seem to stick better than long ones. Frequency and consistency helps a ton.
You will soon come to find out that the smaller dog the harder to train and chihuahuas are little fuckers. I had 2 and they don't listen for shit and take a long time to get trained half decent
Some pretty good advice in here. I've been training twice per week for the last 2 years with a German Shepherd (at the german shepherd club) and I have learned a lot of important things. Some of them were already stated in this thread but I will state them again.
Consistancy- If you train your dog to do a command then you make them do it. So if you want to train the dog to come on command you can do this. Keep the dog on a leash in the house. (of course when you are watching her) But tell them to come, if they dont come right away, reel her in and give her a treat when she gets to you. Keep repeating this and practice practice practice. If the dog is being stubborn and wont do it and you give up because you are frustrated, the dog wins and will continue to do what it wants.
If you give the dog a command don't keep repeating it. They need to do it the first time not choose when to do so.
The prong collar is great and I highly recommend it for medium to large size dogs. For smaller dogs I suppose it would be fine, just be more gentle They are designed for you to give dogs corrections. When they pull on the leash you give a "pop" and they will know they are doing wrong. Once they do the right thing, you reward them with praise and maybe a treat. The great thing about the prong collar is if used correctly it won't hurt like a choke chain will. I put it around my neck and gave the other end of the leash to my 80lb dog and let her aggressively pull it back and forth and pull me around the room. It was uncomfortable, but did not hurt. They release when you release, unlike the choke chain sometimes.
Also, if you want the dog to focus on you when you are walking, keep treats in your teeth. Tell them to watch you when you are walking or when its sitting in front of you. Spit the treats into its mouth when it makes eye contact. Sounds weird but it works.
I could go on and on, but I will hold back so I dont write a book. If you have any specifics just let me know
Training classes can be great. Do your research. Most of those classes by petsmart or petco will only treat train. They teach sit, down stay, come etc... and only "Bribe" the dogs with a treat. You will not always have a treat on you 24/7 so the dog needs to listen to you without treats as well. I have also found that most of those places will not help you with behavioral/obedience issues. Some of it is because they dont know, some of it they will say you need to take advanced classes to address the issue.
We took our dog xena to some obedience classes when she was a puppy. She already knew all the commands, but would choose not to listen. She also would pee in the house and bite us all the time. The instructor promised this would be covered, but it wasn't. They wanted more money from us to answer the question.
The place we go to now has worked one on one with us to fix these issues. And it's funny cause its the cheapest training facility around and they know and care way more than any of these other places.
Good luck with your training.
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