Advice in regards to training my 1 Year Old Dog

[Dominic Bulpitt]

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A few months ago I wrote asking for advice on this website in regards to my puppy. Near enough a year later since writing that post. Here I am again. Its been a long year as we all know, and Tobi is now near enough a year old.
Now I will admit that I've made the mistake of not training him as much as I should have or as thoroughly as I should have, but here I am. Ready. Ready to take the next step and make him the obedient, classy dog that I would love him to be.

Anyways onto my key problem that I am able to identify myself, which is... He gets distracted by the littlest things even in our garden he will just run off and won't come back to me even if he knows I have a treat or a toy that he would like. The smallest distraction and he's gone, just will not let me have his attention after that distraction.

So far I've been able to teach him to,
- Sit
- Laydown
- Stay(To a certain extent because he will just get up and run towards me after I am a certain distance away).
- Watch me(Although the problem with the watch me command at the moment is he will get distracted by literally anything and he won't be able to focus on me after).
- He lets us know when he needs to go out to do the necessary;
- Paw(He's done it but not consistently yet).
- He misbehaves on the lead, as in he pulls and tugs on the lead(and he is a very, very strong dog now).

My hope is to get the essential, important commands down with him so I can then hopefully move onto scent training as in tracking and trailing. This is my aim because he came from a working dog family and I'd love to get him doing something around that to keep that in him. But let's focus on the key, essentials at the moment.

As you can tell I'm not the best owner, but I'm trying to improve. Any advice would be apprecated, thank you so much for even reading this far and I look forward to you replies.

 

[JudyN]

A lot of this will be down to age... Have you tried using a really stinky reward, e.g. salmon cake, and training when he's soon due a meal so is hungry? I think I'd settle for a really short training session with his focus on you - e.g. full focus for 30 seconds - rather than trying to get one more cue in and finding he's off chasing butterflies. Then reward slightly longer spells of focus, and so on. It's better to have a really brief training session that is successful, than one that ends on a low note. Of course, what he can manage in the garden will be different to what he can manage in the house, and on walks.

A lot of people have success walking their dogs on harness rather than lead - you might want to try a harness with the lead attachment on the chest, so if he pulls it will turn him back towards you. Also, have a look at Kikopup videos on YouTube - there's several related to walking on lead here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kikopup+loose+leash+walking

 

[Dominic Bulpitt]

A lot of this will be down to age... Have you tried using a really stinky reward, e.g. salmon cake, and training when he's soon due a meal so is hungry? I think I'd settle for a really short training session with his focus on you - e.g. full focus for 30 seconds - rather than trying to get one more cue in and finding he's off chasing butterflies. Then reward slightly longer spells of focus, and so on. It's better to have a really brief training session that is successful, than one that ends on a low note. Of course, what he can manage in the garden will be different to what he can manage in the house, and on walks.

A lot of people have success walking their dogs on harness rather than lead - you might want to try a harness with the lead attachment on the chest, so if he pulls it will turn him back towards you. Also, have a look at Kikopup videos on YouTube - there's several related to walking on lead here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kikopup+loose+leash+walking

Thank you for your reply! I can't wait to try this out. I'll let you know how it goes .