|
How To Stop A Dog Chasing CarsHere's something I was asked recently, together with my reply. "I have a Shetland Sheepdog...another recently deceased... but this one likes to play with cars! OR trucks! I (thankfully) live on a back country road and there is traffic only once or twice a day. I have been not been able to break her of chasing anything. Now, I know Shelties will chase rabbits, cats and,of course, sheep. But I find the car chasing quite annoying. She IS getting better and will often run down into the field in front of my place and race along the fence-row and I treat her for that. Sometimes though, if I don't yell "field" fast enough, she will run out into the road. She is over 9 years old and STILL can't seem to stay off the road. She will do NOTHING on a lead, not even go to the bathroom. She has pushed me to two days without going to the bathroom if I insist she be on a leash. That's pushing it for ANY animal. So, you can see it is impossible to keep her off the road with a leash as the reason I take her out is to do her business. I am 65 and find it hard to chase after her fast enough to stop her. She has a head of her own and also often ignores me if she is down in the field, "Treat" will not entice her to return.Any suggestions?" Robb
Hi Robb, A few suggestions - Don't try and combine toilet trips with anti-truck training. Treat them as separate issues. The way I would do this is to put her on the leash while you walk her well away from the road. Then let her off the leash to go to the toilet. Once she's finished head on back towards the road where you can work on the truck problem. If you only get one or two cars a day you'll have to enlist the help of some friends and get them to drive past at a pre-determined time/signal. Ironically after me telling people in the last newsletter to ditch the extending lead, this is one situation where I actually think it would help! Start off on a shortish, fixed lead. Walk along the road and get your friend to drive by. If she makes the slightest attempt to lunge forward make a very loud, high pitched staccatto "uh-uh" call, as you simultaneously do a smart about turn and walk in the other direction. Keep repeating this process until she does *not* try and lunge forward. Immediately praise and give her a treat. Keep practising this on the fixed leash until she seems to have overcome the problem. Then put her on the extending leash and repeat the exact same process as you gradually let the length of slack in the leash get greater and greater. As to the problem of her not always coming back to you in the field if she's running loose, she needs to understand that just because she comes to you it doesn't automatically mean she's going to be put on the leash or the walk is about to end. So call her to you, praise/treat then let her run off again. Repeat a few times over the course of, say a 10 minute duration. Then call her over, praise as before and this time clip on the leash. Walk for a couple of paces then unclip the leash and let her run free again. Keep doing this sort of thing whenever you walk her, so she never knows what's going to happen when she comes to you. The problem's likely to occur if she associates coming to you with some outcome she doesn't really enjoy. (Try also coming up with different treats so you can find something she really goes wild for. Then she'll absolutely *adore* coming to you.) (And if, when you start this process the first time you call and she ignores you, try walking away from her, waving your arms wildly around your head and making a loud unusual noise - something to attract her attention. As soon as she looks up, call her name, keep walking away and keep waving your arms.) Let me know how you get on.... Regards, Recommended reading - "Dog Training Blueprint To Success".
If you'd like to receive articles like this on a regular basis sign up for my free Dog Training Blueprint email newsletter which goes out once every month. Sign up now and I'll send you a free copy of "Top Ten Tips For Having An Obedient Dog". To join the list just fill in your name and email address and click the 'Send me the tips' button - (If you prefer not to subscribe until you know a bit more about what sort of dog training advice you're likely to receive, you're welcome to read a typical selection of comments from other subscribers first.) This is what other readers of the Dog Training Blueprint email newsletter have to say about it. Also read through some of my other dog training articles.
Return to the main article index Webmasters - If you have your own dog training site, you are welcome to reproduce this article provided you reproduce it in full, without editing it in any way. Furthermore, at the end of it you must also agree to put the following resource box (without the speech marks) with an active, working link back to this site. If you are not prepared to do this you may not reproduce any of my work. Here is the wording you must use - "This article is the copyright of Andrew Chastney, author of Dog Training Blueprint to Success. To read more of his articles and get a free copy of 'Top Ten Tips For Having An Obedient Dog' go to www.dogtrainingblueprint.com" The section to hyperlink back is www.dogtrainingblueprint.com as I've done in the example here. In case you are not sure how to do this, simply copy the following - (a href="http://www.dogtrainingblueprint.com")www.dogtrainingblueprint.com(/a) and replace the brackets with the 'triangular brackets' that are used to open and close html tags. |
