# Biting less nicking stuff more!!



## BaxtersMum (Oct 6, 2012)

Hi

Baxters shark attacks seem to be easing in the evenings but he has replaced that by trying to nick stuff and run around the table with it. Also taken a huge liking to the Xmas tree!!

He certainly knows what 'No biting' means now, still doing it more with my youngest daughter than us though. Getting her feeding him more and doing training with him. Mainly in hyper times as the rest of the time he is really gentle.

Any other advice on how to teach him to be as good with my daughter as he is with the other members of the family. She is 7. My son is 10 and he certainly seems to behave better with him.


----------



## threefsh (Apr 25, 2011)

#1 most important thing you should NEVER do is chase your Vizlsa. I would start training "drop it" and "leave it" right away as these can be lifesavers. 

Do your kids take him for walks? Even if it is cold outside, they can go on walks indoors. Having your kids walk him will build a good bond and help him to learn to respect them more.

Aren't puppies fun?


----------



## BaxtersMum (Oct 6, 2012)

Hi

I am teaching him to leave and drop. Started puppy training classes at 10 weeks and he learnt to leave his food bowl until we say 'eat up' straight away. When training leave we can put a treat on the floor in front and he will sit and wait again until we say 'eat up' but when he goes to take something he shouldn't have he will leave if he is in the right mood but not always. With drop again if he is calm and once we have hold of the item he has he will drop bilut if he manages to do it behind our back or runs off then he thinks its a game and will not drop unless we can get hold of him. I spoke to my trainer and told her I was calling him with a treat but she said that way I'm rewarding him for taking it in the first place. I don't necessarily agree. If the timing is right then we are rewarding him for dropping. I'm still doing that because it seems to work most of the time. I think if I call with a treat before even asking him to drop then he won't try and make a game of it. I try and pretend I don't know he got something until he gets to me then I ask him to drop then treat. Not sure if I'm doing it right because in the evening when he has his usual playful hyper time he seems to try and nick everything so not sure if he is doing it knowing he will then get a treat. The shark attacks during this time are definitely getting less. I try and make this time for training after he then gets hyper for a little while then crashes. 

With my daughter I do get her to walk him with me. She walked him all the way to school this morning and he was an angel. Stayed by her side the whole time and didn't pull once. Even ignored a cat we walked past with the command 'leave'. 

He is such a good pup in so many ways, I'm amazed at what he has learnt in the 8 weeks we have had him. He sleeps well at night in his crate, toilet training was a breeze, after walks he knows to wipe his feet (with help from us of course) and sits on the mat while we take our shoes and costs off and put them away. He can do sit, stand, down, roll over, paw, high five, stay and wait. I just wish he would do leave all the time and learn drop and off properly!


----------



## born36 (Jun 28, 2011)

Instead of chasing or standing still and asking him to come when he has something he shouldn't have leave the room and call him. He will follow you as the game is not fun if you aren't even around. Once close do the drop command and praise once he does. If he tries to run off in the other room then you are trying to take it from instead of him dropping it. 

I am guessing your 7 year old has a more excited energy and therefore he is a bit cheeky with her. Fair play to him and I bet they will have the closest bond between your kids. However now is the time to retrain your daughter too. So no touching or playing with mister Baxter unless he is being calm. So if he is having his crazy hour in the evenings you need to teach your daughter that if he is misbehaving at all then she needs to completely ignore him. Once he behaves and they are playing again if he gets too excited then she needs to stop playing with him straight away and only then give attention once he calms down. 

I love watching my 8 year old niece play with my boy these are the rules and she is really good at it now.


----------



## BaxtersMum (Oct 6, 2012)

Thank you. I'm glad to hear that calling then asking to drop is the right thing. Like I said my trainer says I'm rewarding him for taking it by I don't see that. I think it's also a good way to teach the drop command. He stole my daughters shoe tonight so I called him into the kitchen and he came bounding with it and as soon as I said drop he did and I had a treat ready in my hand.

I am getting my daughter to stand like a tree when he jumps and gets nippy and if he carries on I get her to walk away or leave the room. Hopefully he will get the message soon. This morning he sat right on her lap and went to sleep which is such a lovely sight, especially as he is nearly as big as her now!!


----------



## veifera (Apr 25, 2012)

> Instead of chasing or standing still and asking him to come when he has something he shouldn't have leave the room and call him.


The people at our day care follow this approach too and it works very well for their own dogs. 

My own method was different - a firm "No" to picking wrong objects, followed by a replacement (i.e. offering something acceptable to grab and run around with). Separately, I was training "give" - where anything in her mouth must be dropped into my hand in exchange for a treat. The treat was a great way to prevent the running/chasing. In the beginning, I was giving a lot of things right back to her so that she feels good about sharing. 

Also - maybe I'm wrong but it seems like your trainer might be talking about _how_ the "drop" is taught. He's right in the sense that you don't want your dog to start deliberately picking the wrong things and bringing them to you to get a treat. What worked for me was to keep the two things really separate in the first week or two.


----------



## BaxtersMum (Oct 6, 2012)

My trainer told me to take the item in my hand and hold onto his collar to prevent tug of war and keep hold until he lets go. She said to give him eye contact but without staring him out and when he lets go say drop then good boy and praise him.

Isn't drop and give the same command? 

He had been an absolute nightmare tonight. Kept going under the Xmas tree and I had to keep pulling him out he then started running round the room barking and trying to get back under. We had to crate him to calm him down. Now he is out and finally crashed out under the coffee table.

Peace at last!


----------



## jld640 (Sep 29, 2010)

If he is bound and determined to be underneath something, can you calmly take him to his spot in the room with the tree and cover him (and his head) with a blanket?

Just a thought...


----------



## veifera (Apr 25, 2012)

The way I trained this was different - extending my hand to just below the muzzle and offering a treat with the other hand at the same time. The puppy will have to release the object in order to get the treat. Always the puppy's choice - no force involved.

How I did it - waited until the puppy was running around with something (permitted) in her mouth. Then call her attention, extend one hand and simultaneously offer the treat with the other. Very basic and instant exchange. Then I would give the item back and let the puppy continue whatever it was doing. I did this for a few days by moving further away from her - by that time she already knew that an extended hand meant a treat, so she would start coming to me on her own and dropping the object into my hand. Then I started taking things away from her that way - maybe take away 1 out of 5 occasions like this. Then I added the word "give" (or drop - whatever works for you). And also - very early on, I stopped treating if she dropped the object on the floor instead of in my hand. The whole thing sounds much more complicated than it was. It took very little for her to figure it out and just a tad longer to remember, it wasn't very hard. 

The point I was making earlier that this is training something different than distinguishing between what is and isn't allowed for play. That part was done by constantly watching her and having a toy ready to do the "No" followed by a switch (like dropping a ball, etc)...

Regarding the trainer - it sounds more like a force-based approach to me. You're free to use whatever you like, of course, but I wanted a more "seduction" type of training that is fun for the dog as opposed to something that's more dominance based. I'm not sure if this trainer has a lot of vizsla experience as they tend to be much more soft and wanting to please.


----------



## veifera (Apr 25, 2012)

Just something to clarify. 

I knew from the beginning that I would be doing field work with my dog. So I wanted to make sure that I have things in my training that would be useful for that or at least not in contradiction. So in that sense, the "give" I use is different from "drop". Give means - put it in my hand and will become useful later for formal training to retrieve birds to hand. 

Training the puppy to know the difference between toys and "not toys" was a separate training project for me and it was important that I (or the dog) doesn't get confused between the two. I wanted to make sure I can control that with No, so my dog would instantly stop any attempts to grab something like shoes, remote control, etc. The strategy behind that training is the No followed by switching, as I mentioned. Switching meant throwing a ball, etc. It basically tells the dog - don't touch that, take this instead. And because it was always a toy (a ball or a soft toy) it was easy for her to understand what I prefer her to play with. 

Like everyone else here, I'm totally in love with my dog and very biased, but I was surprised how it easy it was to train these two things. It took longer because I couldn't do them at the same time, but as I wrote in another post I even had my puppy drop a dead mouse into my hand. Delectable!


----------

