I need help.

With training casey. The craziest, goofiest, dog ever. who has NO concentration what-so-ever.

I have never had to work with a dog who was lacking focus this much. She gets too excited and that makes her even worse. Shes so hyper and ugh.

I try walking her and playing with her before training to keep her calm but it just does not work.

Training her things like "sit, down, spin" simple tricks are okay. but its things like, "stay" ... "come" .. the IMPORTANT ones.

I just need some advice from people that have had to work with over excitable, unfocused dogs. because right now, she frustrates me far too much.
btw- im using a clicker with training.

My Maisy is like this, exactly. One of our trainers actually told her once, "you have the attention span of a gnat!"

"Control Unleashed" saved our bacon. There are some awesome focus/ self-control games and exercises in there. I highly, highly recommend it.

Thanks,

I feel so helpless, im not used to this type of dog.
I am use to working with more serious dogs like, terriers and gsds and gsd mixes.
I love her to death but the retreiver personality is not for me.

Oh man, I can empathize. Maisy has had me in tears of frustration more than once because I just couldn't figure out how to engage her. But over time we've really figured each other out -- there is hope!

I have a spaz dog in Lucy.

To get her to have a good stay for agility start lines, I had to baby step it SO MUCH. Literally, I shaped a stay. I clicked first for her slowing down her breathing (BECAUSE OMG IT'S SO EXCITING TO BE AT AGILITY), then for a relaxed tail, relaxed ears, not looking like she was going to pounce, etc.

I didn't move the entire time. Once she was calm with me standing there, I would do a rock step, reward. If she flinched or moved, I went back to not moving and re-settled her.

It took many, many hours of working nothing but stays to get her to not bounce up when I move away at the start line, but it worked.

What was much easier for me was to teach a "go to your place, and don't move until I say so" when she was getting fed. She's so food motivated, it was easy to do this with her dinner. I put her rug by her food bowl and had her sit on it. I'd start to lower her food to the ground. If she moved, I'd yank the food back up. As long as she was still, the food got closer and closer to the ground. "Okay!" meant you can come get it.

Once she was good at that, I started moving her mat further and further away. Now, I can say "Lucy, go to your bed!" and she knows that means it's dinner time and she'll run from anywhere in the house to find her bed and lay down until I say "okay"

Not all retrievers are like this. But I'm working with one right now who is.

I've only been working with her for a week, but I've already seen improvement. Of course I'm starting with the basics (sit, down, eye contact, etc.), but everything I'm teaching, I'm teaching with capturing and shaping. The less prompting I do, the more thinking she has to do. It takes an incredibly long time in the beginning to get what I want, BUT it's teaching her the important skills of focus, concentration, body awareness, creativity, etc., and in the long run it's going to work really well.

For example.... this week I've been teaching her eye contact. It's pretty simple, I just stand still in a small, boring place with no distractions, and wait for her to make eye contact with me; NO prompting, making sounds, etc. I do two-minute sessions, and count how many clicks I can get in two minutes. The first session, I got 6. Then I hovered between 8 and 12 for about five sessions. My first session today was 9; my second session was 21. It took her a while to get the concept, but once she did, she GOT it. Which just illustrated to me that patience in the beginning definately pays off in the end.

My favorite book was "When Pigs Fly," it's really helped me a lot with this dog and others like her I've trained.

"Chill Out Fido" by Nan Kene Arthur is another great resource!

Premack Principle. Corgipower on here posted a youtube video in one of my threads and it was the greatest thing ever.

(Control unleashed and stuff helped, too...but I noticed no one mentioned the premack principle).

This is the video I like the most: YouTube - The Power Of Premack: Fence Fighting
It's on fencing-fighting, but you can replace fence fighting with pretty much any distraction.

With Ben, we used to work until he lost concentration like that and as soon as he did he would get a minute in his crate. He seemed to understand that if he didn't at least try and focus he would loose out on fun.

Also, obviously, work in a low-distraction area to start. For some dogs, simply smelling the floor or staring at dead space is a distraction, but that's where you get a solid focus command. Also, stay really calm. If you're frustrated or nervous or anxious or even excited, she's going to pick up on that and spazz around trying to figure out why.

Premack is talked about a LOT in "When Pigs Fly."

Thanks alot everybody !

looks like i will be investing in some books.