Hi, my name is Max Calloway and, recently (~ two weeks ago), a wonderful, rambunctious 10 mo old Siberian Husky named Echo came into my life. She is a total sweet heart and submissive to all the dogs and people she's met. This doesn't seem like a fear response. With other dogs she exercises extremely good judgement and approaches every dog how they want to be met. With humans she rolls over and wants belly scratches.

She has some basic training, does well with sit, surprisingly good recall, okay at down, no sense of patience (wait, stay). From working with her loosely over the past two weeks, she responds well to training but has a strong prey drive and will get laser focus when ever there is a cat, rabbit, squirrel or deer within sight. She also has a habit of slight mouthing during play, but not anything serious. Still would like to completely break her of it.

My goal with Echo is to establish a relationship of trust and to find a way to snap her out of her crazy eye moments. She pulls me on a skateboard readily and I'd like to train her so I can drive her with commands (I am also toying with the idea of training her to pull me on x-country skis). I would love to be able to trust her to an extent off leash during hikes away from busy roads. I know this is a big ask for a husky but I know it can be done especially with some extra vigilance on my part. Lastly, I want to teach her some patience. She has decent recall but if there is no reward and she is fixated on someone outside she will "check-in" without hesitation but immediately leave once she does the check-in. She isn't a total door bolter but you have to make sure to pay attention to where she is when coming and going from the house.

That's a lot.. but thanks! I'm excited to start down this path.

Hi Max,

How is it going with Echo?

Wait and stay require patience and practice and for me, eye contact.  My dogs are not released without holding eye contact.  To be honest, I want eye contact with everything they do, so in future situations they revert to looking at me before making their own choices.  

The first thing I do with my dogs is teach them to make eye contact.  I usually start by celling their name and giving them treats for looking at me and acknowledging their name.  Then I teach them to look at me eyes, using treats, and eventualy adding the command later (I use eyes, some trainers use look or focus) To get longevity, I ask for eyes, give a bridge word (in my case "Good" which lets them know they are doing the right thing and to hold it) and then mark the release (Yes) and treat or not treat... I don't always give treats except when the first start.  I count in my head before I release them.  If they hold it for a second, thats great.  When they are reliable at a second of eye contact, I wait for 2 seconds, then 3, then 5, then 10, etc.

When I teach sit and down, I want eye contact before the release.  By this point, it is kind of automatic as they are looking to find out what to do next.  I ask for eye contact before letting them through a door, out or in their keenels, before eating, etc.  It becomes so automatic that I realy don't need to ask them for it and they will wait looking at me until I give them the next command or release them.

This will help on the focus, and also on patience.

At some point she will look to you before she goes for a rabbit or deer or whatever, simply because shes learned to wait for you to tell her what to do.

Let us know how its going!

Amy

Hey Amy!

Thanks so much for the feedback. You answered another question that has come up since I originally posted, and that is that her obedience is coming along nicely but I've noticed that she is really bad at eye contact and will often use her eye contact (lack of it) to let me know she's not really interested in listening or training.

If I persevere and can capture her interest I can get her engaged again but, of course, as the level of distraction ramps up that becomes hard to impossible (although that only happens now when a rabbit or squirrel starts to move, she is at the point now where she will ignore prey items as long as they don't give her an excuse to chase, which is a total improvement).

I've played around with her off leash (both in fenced areas and fenced hiking areas that allow off leash dogs) and I've been able to improve her recall and she is starting to learn "leave it" which is starting to work both as a emergency recall and a command to get her unfixated on an object of interest and back engaged with me. Luckily she's a very social dog and has a strong urge to "stay with the pack" that has certainly been working to my advantage.

I've been working with her regularly for 4 weeks and she is improving. I am sticking with the basic 5 obedience commands until I have consistency before moving onto part 2. 

One last question I have is, when is the appropriate time to introduce a corrective collar? With past huskies friends have used e-collars with great effect (Echo loves cheese but still isn't super food motivated) especially in off leash training. Would this be an acceptable way to reinforce basic  obedience commands or should it only be used when moving to the point of "proofing" behaviors?

Thanks!

M.

Hi Max,

Echo sounds like she is coming along!  

There are many thoughts on e collars - mine is that they should only be used for proofing after the dog has a super solid foundation and understands all commands and is reliable with them, or not at all.  I train my off leash dogs without e collars- but I have utilized the tone and vibration when my dogs are out of line of sight- not to teach them anything or reprimand them- only to let them know I want them to come in.  My thought is if your dog won’t do it for you without an e collar then you need to go back to basics.  Michael Ellis teaches an e collar seminar- maybe look Into something like that.  Hope that helps!

Amy