How do those of you with multiple pets manage your training?
Let me just say when you are working with a food motivated dog like Delilah, training two dogs is not easy.
The first time I took out the clicker I was determined to teach her high-five. Of course I knew nothing about shaping a behavior, I simply put the food and clicker in one hand and held up my other hand and said, “High-five.”
Delilah looked at my hand with the treat and focused on that. Sampson meanwhile was sitting on the sidelines observing my feeble attempts.
I tried again and again and all Delilah could focus on was the food in my hand. Finally Sampson’s patience was wearing thin (like mine wasn’t?). He got up, walked over, high-fived me, took the treat and went back to the sidelines.
Schooled bitch.
Delilah still didn’t get it.
I reached out to a positive trainer and asked, “What do you do when the dog is too focused on the treat?”
“Try using a treat of lesser value,” she responded.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was using a green bean.
What I learned from that experience was this: When you first start working with food and a food motivated dog, you need to let them get used to the idea of food/clicker before you actually start shaping the behavior you’re looking for.
Delilah is so siriusly food motivated, she will push Sampson aside in order to dive under the counter for a crumb.
Don’t get me wrong, Sampson has his moments as well, as can be seen in my “I heeled my dog with a chick pea” blooper below.
When I really want to work on a challenging task, I need to separate the dogs. Things like nosework in the house is easy, I put one dog in a room with a gate and work with the other dog and then swap them out.
Working on walking behaviors is a bit harder. After all, walking two dogs separately is twice the time, which I never seem to have of late.
When Sampson had his ACL injury last year, the dogs got separate walks as Sampson just couldn’t do the same distance as Delilah.
Delilah was highly reactive to dogs barking at us from their yards. When Sampson was on the DL Delilah and I focused on getting her past these yards while walking. Before we began working on this skill Delilah was constantly trying to prove she was a bad ass dog that took no shit. Delilah’s philosophy was I’ll get you before you get me. You could see the change in her demeanor as she approached the yard. (Whoever said dogs don‘t remember, is full of shit. She remembers quite well, thankyouverymuch. Much better than some people I know.)
I worked very hard with her to stop being on such high alert and we were successful at it. We reached a point where she would look to me for treats instead of looking for trouble with another dog.
Sadly Sampson has still not learned this skill. He sees another dog or a person and he starts bouncing around like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. Just Sunday he was ready to jump up on a parked car because he thought someone might be in there.
Because of this, I have to be on high alert.
I’ve come to know which homes have dogs and do my best not to be on the same side of the street as those dogs, especially if the dogs are in an e-fence. There are a couple of dogs contained by these fences that love to charge to the edge of their yard, causing me to just about shit my pants and my dogs to jump and lunge.
It’s easier to cross the street when we approach these houses. The dogs have learned when we cross and it’s almost automatic. It doesn’t stop Sampson from acting the fool, but it helps me maintain a semblance of control.
Do you see what I see?
I don’t know about you, but when I’m walking my dogs, I talk to them. Which is how I get some crazy commands.
A couple of weeks ago Sampson started his schtick and I don’t know why but “Team Sampson” came out of my mouth. And he looked at me and I said,”Come on, Team Sampson, we got this. Look at me, watch me, we got this. I’ve got cookies.” Once we were past the distraction the dogs got rewarded.
And that’s how Team Sampson was born.
Being watchful allows me to start the “Team Sampson” routine before he starts acting up, it prevents me from looking like a complete buffoon.
Which is how I found myself with Sampson bucking like a bronco this past weekend. And as I focused on “Team Sampson” I realized that Team Delilah knew the routine and was dancing along beside me, like a dream on a leash.
Now I just have to find the time to walk them individually so we can work on walking past dogs who are walking past us.
Go Team Sampson! 😀 That’s so cute! I come up with weird stuff, too. Like my recall somehow became “this way!”
There’s an awesome kikopup video for training dogs to not mug the treat hand if you’re interested, I can share it with you! 🙂
I checked out some of kikopup’s videos – they’re really good, thank you!
Delilah actually walks beautifully on a lead! It was too cute when Sampson joined in!! I don’t have the problem of training multiple dogs, it sounds a little difficult!
Cody is the total opposite to Sampson, when we go for a walk. I’m pretty sure all that goes through his head is “Hurry up human, they’re right behind us! Go, go, go!”
Ah, time management in life with multiple pets… In a perfect world I would also have time for separate walks with each of the five pets. Maybe if I come up with a team name for us, we will all be less frazzled and ready to move as far away from each other as possible after every group walk. Teams always all love each other. 😉 (Just not other teams/dogs walking.) I am so glad that Team Sampson joined us for Multiple Pet Mania!
Multiple pets and training is challenging and it all takes a lot of time. Training Bailie as a puppy was easy as Katie and I would go play in the yard and she would work on obedience class homework with Mom, but if there were issues, we would come in and train together, learning by example and it worked well. As far as walking, walking one at a time is the only way we can find to train any behaviors there. Mom has lost over an hour a day the past year because she has to walk Katie separately, or sometimes I walk with Katie and Mom runs with Bailie. Two walks twice a day and Katie’s super slow pace eats at precious time, but there is no option. Katie deserves her walks and she can’t help being slow. It won’t be forever, so Mom just keeps getting up earlier to make it work.
Sampson is a smooth operator in the photobomb video! Hilarious!
I think you’re pretty good at training multiple pets, because in that video you actually had two dogs heeling, without even trying for that! 🙂
I’m not sure training is really possible when walking multiple pets, which is part of the reason our girls are not very good on leashes, but finally getting better now what I walk them individually.
BTW, I’m running into the same treat motivation problem when trying to teach Luke to put his toys away. He won’t even pick a toy up if he knows I have a treat (or that they’re even nearby), he just wants the treat. I’m having to re-think how I’m going to do the whole thing.
When I trained Luke to high five, initially I had him paw or nose my hand that had the treat in it, then clicked and treated with the other hand. That worked for us. I just love that story about Sampson coming over and high fiving you…that is too funny!
In that video, you looked like the Pied Piper. That could be another crazy command when you need them both to heel at the same time.
Oh boy don’t I know it. When I do regular training such as simply asking them to sit, shake or lay down when i’m going to give them a treat, I just do it all in one sitting. But teaching something new or a difficult command or something to that effect, I find one on one is definitely the way to go. I have some pretty treat motivated huskies…..although maybe not chick pea motivated hahaha!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
I love it-Team Sampson! That video was so priceless, I snorted water over my keyboard. Indeed it is more than a challenge training 2 dogs especially when one is nearby. But trust me, walking a single fur-kid ain’t no picnic either. I’d have to carry 20 lbs. of treats to keep Sam focused enough or have one arm that looks like Popeye from all the pulling I need to do keeping him on target. Either way, with that numbskull I’ll never have to do weight training so maybe I should be thanking him! Now if only we could up the cardio a bit on walks and not spend so much time sniffing and investigating. It’s just a Kleenex dummy. Oy 😉
Team Misty here.
I rely a lot on sibling rivalry when training multiple dogs. The Poodles catch on faster than the dogs so it motivates the dogs to focus more. Also the Poodles model certain behaviors and the dogs follow them.
A green bean huh…yeah, Jack would do that too. I hate that he is losing his sight, but I tell you, he doesn’t get distracted by other dogs or even coyotes on our walks anymore…he can’t see them!
When Ducky was still going to daycare five (sometimes six) days a week before hubby retired, walking Callie and Shadow at the park became second nature. I just put myself between them and any dogs coming toward us, along with some distance to the right or left. And most times I made the move before Callie even noticed the other dog. But at the time we were usually at the park, most people were already at work so we didn’t see that many dogs.
Now, with both Ducky and hubby at home, it’s hard to get moving in the morning. Especially when it’s so freakin hot and humid already at 8 AM like it has been this past week or so. So, the majority of the girls’ training has been dedicated to sit/stay (for Ducky) and just stay (for Callie & Shadow) at doors to the backyard. Ducky is food motivated, too; but her IBD has made it necessary to be stingy with her treats. Thankfully, she responds well to verbal “treats” as well.
I love the Team Sampson thing! You are so clever and much better with your dogs than I am with mine! I can’t walk Scout for the obvious reasons. Teddy is scared of his own shadow. Every time I walked him and a car would drive by, he would drop to the ground and shake. It was too traumatizing for him so I just play with him in the backyard. If we take Ash out and not Teddy, he cries for her, so we just do stuff in the backyard! Guess you could say that Teddy is a big baby!
I’m still laughing about Sampson moving in, doing the trick and taking the treat! I’m not particularly food-motivated so our challenges are different.
I don’t even try to train my two at the same time! With treats involved, Jimmy will go for the jugular on poor Wilson. Jimmy goes first, burns off some energy, and then gets dumped in the car (weather permitting of course!) where he can scream his fool head off. This way Wilson can focus on training and not worry about the devil he lives with! When out for a walk with both, I can use treats to get attention on me fortunately. If I see a dog they don’t like, a nice sit/stay while awaiting the treat usually does the trick.
I’m not even sure where to start on this post, Not only multiple laugh out loud moments, but, many, many, nod in agreement moments! I especially agree with learning to walk past other dogs. when I see another dog coming I lean in close and try to talk Gus through the situation. It works about half the time. As long as the other dog does not bark he is usually fine. A couple of nights ago the other dog started bouncing and barking which made Gus want to lunge and bark. The owner said, “Look, they want to play!” I was thinking, “No, Gus, wants to tear your dog apart like a stuffie.”
We are a work in progress!
Gus’ Mom
hahaha fun post! Did sampson really give you a high five cuz he couldn’t stand Delilah taking so long, lol loved the video!!!
You’ve hit upon something I’ve struggled with too. It sounds like you’re finding your way through it. Some days I feel like I am, and others I still feel lost.
Our dog R is the most vocal dog I’ve ever known. If I try to separate the dogs for indoor training sessions, he barks so loudly from the other part of the house that Shyla can’t focus. So, I switched to putting the dog who is resting into a down-stay (with periodic rewards). R did “get” this so now an indoor training session actually works both dogs at the same time.
Outdoors is waaay harder. Both dogs are “reactive” to other hikers when they’re on leash. Shyla’s reaction is fear and R’s reaction is barking. So, I make an arc around the other hiker that keeps both dogs outside their “threshold” zone for their reactions. I’ve been doing this consistently for about about 8 months, and it’s really worked! We can now walk right past many hikers without cowering from Shyla or barking from R! I consider that a victory in my small world 😉
I’ve blurted out some funny commands too. In the kitchen, “leave it” has been replaced by “snoots ahoy”. I have no idea where in my brain that one came from!!!
LOL Sampson showing Delilah how to do high five.
That video is so funny; I was just waiting for Delilah to get in on the action lol. I admire you for being able to walk & train 2 dogs – I have enough troubles with one. And seriously I hate e-fences and actually I hate all fences. Every single fenced dog in my neighborhood has major barrier frustration and it makes me want to shit my pants as well..
And speaking of green beans my dogs favorite snack is sugar snap peas – on occasion I’ll give her a green bean instead and she always seems so sad about it. I mean they look alike – why is it so different?
Go team Sampson, go.
And since I can’t edit my comment I meant Sampson in the first line lol.
Um, who doesn’t talk to their dogs as they walk them? Hell I am now that lady who chats away to her rabbit whilst carrying her round the garden, or showing her things out the window… I may need help!