Speak to me of the difference

Between training a terrier and a herding breed. Specifically, how to stop a terrier from continually repeating the same behavior even after redirection (such as chewing on stuff that does not belong in their mouth). I swear I have not had this problem with Mu or Tipper or any herding mix foster - at most they'll do the behavior twice and then stop. Help me understand the twists and turns of the terrier mindset.

Have you read When Pigs Fly?

I haven't! I only expect to be dealing with this behavior for the next 2-3 weeks but I'll look into that book for future dogs! Are there any quick tips you can share from it? I know I need to change up what I'm doing (since it isn't working and just frustrates me) but I'm not sure how?

I am having a really brain fuzzy morning lol....but from what I remember, she free shapes almost everything. Really gets the dog wanting to work since they are not biddable by nature (she breeds and raises bull terriers, competes in agility and obedience with them).

She does have a couple articles on her website
http://www.whenpigsflydogtraining.com/#/Articles/

Bwahahaha are you watching Max?

Ok well I'm on the right track then - we started work with the clicker yesterday and I was planning on some shaping today. Thanks for the link!

LOL. No, thank goodness! He's actually MORE obnoxious than the terror at my house. The girl we have is a short term foster - trying to get our feet wet and see how the girls do with a foster around. I'll get pictures up later today!

Generally you want to make what you want, what they want. So make what you want the most awesome thing in the world. They pick up their own toy and you make it come to life! Or he's chewing on his own toy and you come by and smear some yogurt or peanut butter on it to make it a little better. Buy antlers/bully sticks/hooves...chews that keep on giving. They are persistent, so if they think they can get any enjoyment out of what they are doing they will keep trying. More supervision, interrupt the instant you notice him showing interest in an inappropriate object (before he gets the reward of chewing it) and don't give up. Every time the dog gets to successfully chew the wrong thing, even for a minute, that behavior gets stronger. Make sure you have a lot of toys for him to chew, and I'd have a few in every single room he has tried to chew in so that whenever he gets the urge he can easily find an appropriate item. When he's not looking (out in the yard or something) put a treat dispensing ball (or a few) in the toy box so he gets rewarded for investigating appropriate toys. I wouldn't fill it to the brim with treats, a few each time is fine, that way you can fill them up and put them in more often.


Those would be my suggestions, though I do not own a terrier.

Terriers are trainable?

I wondered the same thing. LOL

LoLa is well "trained" on her terms and timeframe!

Terriers are brats!!

Terriers aren't trainable. They do however train their humans quite well.

Bwahahahaha

I am going to look into this book for my Kelpie

This is is very accurate :lol-sign:

Herders want to please you generally, terriers want to please themselves. Desoto chewed like one thing when he was a pup, Radar I lost count.

With the terrier I kept everything up off of the floor and he was sectioned off of his favorite chewing places as a younger pup. Really it was 90% prevention. I didn't give him a chance to chew people things when at all possible (I know that is easier said than done) and gave him loads of more interesting dog toys to chew on (rotating toys, lots of variety, food dispensing toys etc). With the herders it was redirection in its simplest give them a toy of their own and they realized I would prefer if they chewed that and that was good enough for them. With the terrier it took convincing, just chewing it because I wanted him to was not good enough. It took convincing him that his toys where the most awesome fun things in the world and that he would much rather chew and carry them around then bother with our stuff. So basically my herders wouldn't touch my things because I didn't want them to. The terrier now (thank God) doesn't chew things because why would he bother when what he has is just WAY cooler

:lol-sign:

Heeheehee oh, ab so lutely with terriers...bull headed stubborn. But yes they train us quite well. Before Sophie I was letting the arthritis flareups get the better of me sometimes. In much better shape, I learned to walk her speed...we're doing loose leash now. Compromise is a good thing.

I was afraid these were going to be the answers....lol. We puppy proofed a lot of the house against chewing - I dunno what I'm going to do about Matt though. *I* notice when she's getting into things but he's completely oblivious. She got his phone last night and he didn't even notice. She also put the entire side of the coffee table in her mouth so there's clearly going to be some collateral damage. Hopefully we can minimize it by letting Tipper and her tear around the yard until she's exhausted. >.<

This might be of interest to you.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Biddable-...-Some-Dogs-Obey-Better-Than-Others&id=6481020

Find something really awesome and delicious. A way into a terriers heart is through it's stomach. Don't even bother redirecting, because they'll only want the thing they can't have. I agree that 90% of it is prevention, the other 10% involves trickery. The only thing that worked with Stryder was timeouts in the other room.

The schnauzers compared to Charlie (BCx) is like night and day. They like doing their own thing, or making me do what they want me to do (like smacking me in the face for tummy rubs), and then Charlie is right there, always next me, waiting for me to ask something from her.

My only experience in training is my own Chi x (who is not naturally biddable, she seems to be one of those 'clever' dogs that has a mind of her own) and my parents' gorgeous Stafford girl. She is sweet, happy and loves training while she is having fun - her rewards are usually food rewards or toys with lots of praise thrown in. But once she decides she's had enough, I can forget about it. My challenge is to keep sessions short enough and varied enough to not bump into this. Which sometimes I do quite well and other times I fail miserably at. It's so much harder to stop something when it's going well.

This sweet girl, who I have so much fun training, is the same dog that will stubbornly sit on the top of the stairs and not respond to my 'excuse me' about 80% of the time (I love how I've got a 'success' rate on failure for this exercise lol). She likes to just stop in the middle of paths and make people go around her... she's done this forever and we were too lazy to figure out a way around the behaviour (pun intended) and in the end we decided it was just easier to walk around her. Plus, now she's a senior dog, she deserves lots more privileges (read - now we can justify all the little things that we didn't train particularly well from day 1 ). But hey, we live with it - let's face it, it's a rather mild 'problem' to have, and I wouldn't change her for the world. Grace is awesome.

Abby also needs very short sessions, and her arousal levels need to be up, up, up and maintained for that short period of time. And then she is awesome. If I get sloppy, unclear or come across as as much fun as a limp dishcloth, then forget it. Training does not come naturally to me and I have to be fairly disciplined with myself to remember what my plan is or remember what to do if such and such happens, but I find if nothing else that if I'm genuinely having fun... my sessions turn out ok.

Can't help you there--our terrier has always been easier to train and more eager to please than our lab.....

Good chewing suggestions-moose antlers and Ultimate Busy Bone, a puppy the large might be fine. But definitely moose antler. And shoes in the closet. And furniture, I guess hanging from the ceiling???