Your Questions About [get Your Dog To Eat]
Richard asks…
New dog.. how to get to sit…more info inside?
We recently adopted a lab who is 1.5 years old. He tested positive for heartworm and has undergone his treatments. We still need to monitor him to ensure he does not get excited. He is 2 weeks away from the end of this time where we have to keep him calm. We’ve only had him for 2 weeks so far.
We noticed at first he really didn’t want to move around and play much. However, we noticed in the last 4-5 days that he has started to get more energy (which is great!).
He was found as a stray and in a high kill shelter, and then had to be in a crate. So in total he was in a crate for at least 2 months that we know of.
When he lays on the floor he put his back legs out to the sides (so he was laying completely on his stomach). He also does have some marks on his legs from where the bars must have rubbed up against his fur as he has lost a bit of fur there.
Anyways, the short version is we figure his legs were not use to doing the regular things. Now that he has shown that he is more comfortable we want to begin training him how to sit.
The second ‘catch’ is that he still can’t get excited. He was starved so whenever I try to use treats he goes crazy over the food!!
So I don’t want to push down on his butt to get it to go down, and I can’t use food too often… How do I train this dog to sit?
When I try right now he bends down half way and then starts backing up. If I try to do it in a corner where he can’t back up, he just walks away.
I can’t bring him to our trainer because he is Heartworm positive. We have two other dogs, so I have trained dogs before.. this is just a unique situation.
Thanks for the help! 
admin answers:
Every time you have something for the dog — treat, toy, food bowl, even his freshly-filled water bowl — let him be aware that you have it. He will probably wag his tail, wiggle around. If you simply and calmly stand there, make eye contact, he WILL eventually “take a load off”. (It’s a natural reflex. He’s not going to go away if he wants what you have, but he’s not going to stand up forever.) The instant he sits, you say “sit” and then give him the food. Do it every time, and before you know it he’ll sit automatically for everything, and he’ll know the command as well….it also prevents the dog from ever knocking a food or water bowl out of your hand.
Good for you that you don’t want to push his butt down to “teach” him to sit. He already knows how to sit down. What you want to do in training a dog is to condition his natural reflexes. You figure out how to voluntarily get a behavior you like, and then you reinforce it.
P.S. The first couple of times may require a good bit of patience on your part, but he’ll catch on. If, later, he decides to get stubborn and try your patience, let him get a little hungrier before you try to work with him. But you probably won’t have that problem because Labs tend to be chow-hounds.
Chris asks…
How to train an older dog to sit? (A little long)?
So my mother and I adopted a six year old little dog from the Vet. She was abused a lot by her other owners and she really skinny and wasn’t fed right they had to cut off all her hair; basically she was just really abused and we adopted her
we JUST got her YESTERDAY at about 5pm and i wanted to start training her asap
shes pretty good about going outside to potty she had (one) accident and we took her right outside and she finished
I was hoping today, since she seems to like us a lot and she already follows me everywhere I go (literally)
she comes to me just about (about 97% of the time) when I call her
but i was trying to get her to sit and she can’t stay still long enough, shes jumping around or something and I’m not really sure what to do.
She does sit sometimes after a few tries and i praise her and give her a treat
shes barely ever still, she doesn’t seem scared or anything shes seems happy actually shes following me around all the time wagging her tail, sitting on my lap, rubbing her head all over me (and everything else she touches) but I can’t teach her to sit when she jumps around I just can’t control her
do i just keep doing it like i been doing? til she “gets it”? Or do I wait a little longer til she gets more used to me and my mother and being in a new environment?
also she already sits a lot as it is, she doesn’t jump on me TOO much (I’m going to try and break that habit also though) but i would like her to do it on command if i need her to in a certain situation
admin answers:
I would wait just a bit longer, until all the “new” wears off and she begins to calm down. Then find a treat she likes…let her sniff it and then hold it up over her head while saying “sit” to her. When she raises her head, sitting is almost always a natural response. Also, when you raise it over her head, kind of hold it back a little, like toward her shoulders, so she really has to crank her head up to see it. When she sits, praise her. If she doesnt, let her sniff it again and repeat the process until she does sit. I’m sure there’s a million ways to train a dog to sit, but this one has never failed me.
Maria asks…
How to train a dog to use its dog house?
My dogs are outside when we are not home which is during the day. When we come home my dogs are sitting right in the rain. We just built them a brand new dog house but they won’t use it. We tried putting a bed in there but the next day is was torn up and the pieces were all over our yard.
admin answers:
You can’t train them if you are not there & they obviously do not like the dog house.
Bring them in the house and crate them until they are trained to be alone in the house. It is totally wrong to leave dogs alone out in the rain like that.
Powered by Yahoo! Answers
|
