Help with training issues

[restlessacres]

Hi again... (just made my way from the intro thread)

My husband and I are in agreement that we and our dog, Ziggie, a 10 month old Staffordshire Terrier mix (we think Lab), needs some training help. We adopted her at 12 weeks of age from the humane society. She has acclimated into our household very well. She is housebroken and has learned basic commands such as sit, stay, down, go, no, roll over, paw. She spends her alone time (when we're at work/school) in a crate and has no problems with that.

Our problems are:

1) We cannot let her off the leash outside. If she gets loose, she takes off and doesn't come back. She runs to the road and chases cars or she goes off in the woods. We live on 10 acres in the country and the road is only 25MPH so luckily she hasn't gotten hit (yet). We would love to be able to let her run on our property off leash and ultimately be able to take her with us when we go trail riding on our horses. We also have lots of wildlife (deer/squirrels, etc.) that are a concern should she be off leash and take off after them. I have ordered and received the 50 ft. leash but haven't really had a chance to do anything with it yet because of the weather/lack of time. The only way we usually catch her is if some nice stranger stops their car and she runs to greet them.....which leads to problem #2...

2) She is overly excited when strangers/guests come to our house. We keep her on a short leash in the house but if someone new comes in (or even if one of us comes home after being at work all day), she jumps up and it's a struggle to get her to calm down.

I have been doing online research and also watching different dog shows on TV (i.e. Dog Whisperer, It's Me or the Dog, and even an infomercial for Don Sullivan's Secrets for training the Perfect Dog). Any comments on these methods?

We'd really like get some guidance on what steps we need to take to help solve these problems. Thank you ....

[Lee Charles Kelley]

Do you play tug-of-war with outdoors? If you can find a secure area and play tug with her, where you always let her win, and praise her enthusiastically for winning, you'll probably see a dramatic increase in her responsiveness, as well as in her desire to run off. What you'll essentially be doing is letting her know (or feel) that being with you is where all the fun is, and that there's no need to look for satisfaction elsewhere. (This will take some time, though.)

I would also recommend playing, "Chase Me," where you tease her with a tug toy, then run away, zig-zag, change directions suddenly, stop and start, fake left and go right, etc. This should take about 10 - 15 secs. Then you let her win the game by biting the toy and playing tug with it. This is among a number of games (7, to be exact) that stimulate and satisfy a dog's predatory instincts.

Another helpful tool is "The Pushing Exercise."

When people come over, have her bring them a toy, or give them a toy to give to her. All of her overly-excited greeting behaviors come from an urge to bite whatever's moving around the "den" door, which being a deeply social animal, she's reluctant to do. So all that excitedness is due to her repressing her urge to bite your guests. If she has something in her mouth to act as a pacifier she should calm down much more quickly.

Always remember that a dog's social instincts are inherited from the wolf's prey drive. Wolves that settle near garbage dumps don't form packs. Coyotes form packs, but only when they need to hunt large prey. So pack formation is solely a function of prey size, which requires group cooperation. That's why the pack instinct exists, so that wolves can successfully hunt and take down large prey animals. The closest your dog will get to that feeling of satisfaction is by playing games with you. (She may like chasing cars but she'll never be able to bite one and take it down!)

I hope this helps!

LCK
"Changing the World, One Dog at a Time"
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