# HA! Success!



## SerenityFL (Sep 28, 2010)

If you would indulge me for a moment, this is a half vent/half gloat post. It's something I want to share because it's a small victory and the only people I know who a) care to hear it and b) would understand it, come to this forum.

I've briefly mentioned this at some point that I have neighbors who are completely and totally disrespectful of my wishes when I'm out training my dogs. 

In the beginning, it was during house training and it took my girl hoodlum FOREVER to learn because every single time I took her out, one of the neighbors was out with their dog(s) and would start walking towards me while she was learning to go where I wanted her to go. I asked repeatedly that they not disturb her at this time and I got a wave of the hand, "Pscht! It's not a big deal!" or "My dogs aren't going to hurt her." 

I know that, I don't want her distracted right now. I'm teaching her that when we go outside, the very first thing she does is go to the bathroom THEN she can play.

Also, when I was training them in other things, instead of granting me the space to do that, someone was always coming up and letting their dogs around my dogs while theirs were off leash. 

We have a small lake in front of our homes. On one side of this lake are the homes with a road. On the other side of the lake it's all grass. This is where people go and exercise their dogs or, for the most part, take their dogs to the bathroom. (And never pick up.) I understand we all share this space but keep in mind, this is about two football fields in length so there is plenty of space for everyone. 

Anyway, dynamics are different when one dog is on a leash and the others aren't. I again asked that my request be respected but no, I don't know what I'm talking about, according to them.

I even have one kid, (20s), who will yell out the window of his car as he drives by, like Dino from the Flinstones, at my dogs when we are out walking, just to rile the dogs up. 

So, through these months, I've struggled to train them, get them focused, keep their attention, etc. And it's never quiet around here. Ever. Someone is always blaring their music or someone is always having a get together with a bunch of drunks or someone is always out, walking around, usually with a dog. I've even gotten up at 2am trying to find quiet time and still, someone is out there, making some sort of racket. So training has taken a bit longer than it should.

Oh and when we were learning recall, if the dog ever did decide not to listen to me and run off to some person who walked by, (I know everyone here, it's not a stranger), those same people would REWARD the dog for doing that. They'd bend down, pet them, rub their bellies, talk to them no matter how many times I asked them to just ignore my dogs if they did that. 

FANtastic! Thank you so much! You just taught them that running off means reward!

So I had to try harder. I had to find better ways. I had to learn how to teach. I had to find what I could do to make this go right, where I was messing up.

Tonight, we worked on, "Focus on your human no matter what is going on around you, I don't care if a nuclear warhead lands nearby, you stay focused!" 

I figured if my neighbors are not going to respect me while I'm training my dogs, I'll use that to my advantage and work on keeping the dogs focus on me despite the fact that there are other humans and other dogs around, people yelling, music blaring, cars driving by with idiots yelling out the window, "Barararararararararararar!", people walking towards us, the humans coming up to us, bringing their dogs over to us, etc.

I went out and got a snack bag that clips on my pocket and filled that thing to the brim with treats. I took each dog out, one at a time and I treated the garbage out of them tonight. 

Well guess what. Despite the fact that some humans and dogs came by that both of my dogs know and have played with, at times, it worked.

Shasta stayed focused on me 99% of the time. I had to use the clicker only once to get his attention back from two doxies walking by.

The guy with the doxies was pretty cool. I was walking Shasta, saw the guy come down the street with the doxies and immediately put Shasta in a sit. I then gave him a treat. As long as his eyes were on me, I told him, "yes! Good" and gave him a treat. He looked away only once, (but did not get up from the "sit" position...God I love this dog), and like I said, I did have to use the clicker to get his attention back but he did not look at them again the entire time until they were out of sight. And I heard the doxie owner go, "Hmm!" as he passed by. It was a mixture of, "Why are you ignoring us" and "Well, that's impressive."

I then went and got Sakari after putting Shasta back in the house. She's finally going to the bathroom in their spot regardless of distractions, (miracle), and then we walked over to the "exercise" area.

Sakari was on a 30' lead. We were doing more recall work when a neighbor and his two dogs came by. At first, Sakari would run about 10 feet away, stop, focus on the other dogs but I could see her thinking. I decided to let her think. The second she turned her head back to me, I marked it. Then she ran to me and sat, she got her reward. She did this three times before she decided that it was so much better to sit at my feet and to heck with those other dogs...they just weren't that interesting after all.

With Sakari, it was very evident what I was doing with her but the owner, the most disrespectful one of them all, decided he was going to carry on a conversation with me while I was focused on Sakari and Sakari was focused on me. He asked me what I was doing, he insisted it wouldn't work because his dogs were off leash and mine wasn't, he talked about the sunset, (we had some serious rain today and the skies were brilliant red in the evening), he blabbed on and on and on and on. I said "we're working on focus" to him once and ignored him from that point on because Sakari had now decided that I was much more interesting than anything else on the planet. I had treats worth all the gold in the world!

I then put her on her short leash, took her a lap around the place which would bring us close to this guy and his dogs. Now he says, "Can you turn back so that my dogs can go poop?" Why? Because his dogs get distracted by other dogs while they are going to the bathroom and then won't go.

NO KIDDING? Really?! That happens?! But I thought it was, "Ok" and "not a big deal" when I asked for the same respect.

So I decided to take advantage of this situation again. Since he was so convinced I could not keep my dog's focus on me while his dogs walked around freely, off leash, I planted ourselves in an area he would have to walk and pass us. 

I put her in a sit and talked to her, saying, 'yes! Good!!" when she looked at me, giving her treats. Mr. "It Won't Work" did everything in his power to distract us and she did not look away once nor did I look away from her once until they had gone on.

When he was gone, another neighbor came by to take his dog to the bathroom. Sakari LOVES this dog. I put her back on the 30' lead, tied the lead to my belt loop and just walked a lap. We walked right by the dog she loves and not only did she not run ahead, (she could have gone at least 29'), she did not take her eyeballs of off me the entire lap.

At long last. We are going to keep working on this until they have it down pat and ignore the other humans and dogs unless I invite them to go up to them and maybe, just maybe, my idiot neighbors will see that it can be done and I didn't have to "beat" my dogs in to "submission" or scream at them until they were too terrorized to move, (like some of them do), NOR did I have to ask them repeatedly, to get it done.

Victory is close...I can almost taste it.


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## Tracmec (Dec 13, 2010)

Congratulations! The training you are doing right now is the most frustrating and best training you could possibly do with your dogs! If you can keep your cool and project that coolness to your dogs while you are working among all these distractions then when you are done you will have won the battle AND the war! You have realized what many never do, that you cannot control your environment. So you train the dogs to focus on you, not the chaos going on around you. You and your dogs are doing everything right. Keep up the great work!


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## RachelsaurusRexU (Sep 4, 2010)

That's so great! Good job!!!


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## 3Musketeers (Nov 4, 2010)

Oh wow, that's really impressive, good job . I'm not sure if it's like this in other places too, but a lot of the people in Miami don't have a clue of anything when it comes to dogs and it is sooo frustrating. And blaring their music, oh gawd, happens ALL the time.

My dogs have a bad habit of jumping on people to play, and I try to tell people to ignore them or say no, but since they're small dogs instead they say "it doesn't bother me, he/she's just playing" *siiiiiiigh*. They totally miss the point ya know?


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## MollyWoppy (Mar 19, 2010)

Thats really super! It's baby steps, then one day you suddenly realise that the penny has dropped and they are doing what you want them to do. Actually, when you look back I'm sure you'll see that have already come an awful long way. Good on ya!
Actually, how about if I put Mollie on the bus and send her down so you can teach her a couple of manners!? :wink:


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## Devils of York (Jul 28, 2010)

Congratulations on your success! I can relate to your frustration with other people interfering with training and doing all the wrong things around dogs. My younger boy has developed problems with strangers because people "charge" at him with hand outstretched to pet him on the head. I don't blame my dog for being scared, and I'm still working on finding a solution.


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## 1605 (May 27, 2009)

You've made some great progress. However, I would think with all the problems you've been experiencing trying to work with your dogs near your house that you'd be better off taking them elsewhere to train. 

Have you thought about joining a group/club where you can get some concentrated training time in a more controlled environment? Often there are non-profit dog training clubs where you can exchange your training time for "sweat equity" in the club. 

Bonne chance,


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