Yorkie Training Advice?

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#1
New to the forum, but I've been poking around for a while. :)

So, I'll cut to the chase. My mother recently passed away, and as a single child, I pretty much received everything.. including my mother's two Yorkies, Chaz and Zuzu. Long story short, they're extremely poorly trained. My mother used to let them walk all over her, figuratively and literally, and I've been looking for advice on where to even begin. I've pursued sites like http://www.yorkietrainingtips.com and http://www.yorkietalk.com for answers, but none of them really address my problem. Though the former site's crate training eBook has been really useful, and I've had some success in getting them to stay in the crates I've bought them and getting them to potty when I want them to.

Though I'm worried that's mostly because of the fact that food and water are in the crates and I've been taking them along the same walking route. Otherwise, they tend not to listen to me until an 'event' occurs. Most of the training stuff I learned when I was raising my black lab isn't really working here. So, I need help. These Yorkies are both about four years old, full of energy and I want to keep them because that's what my mom would've wanted. I still love them, but I need to get them trained. Does anyone have any advice for me? Any sure-fire tips to get them to become a captive audience beyond dinner time?

Thanks in advance. Just about anything will help at this point.
 
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#2
New to the forum, but I've been poking around for a while. :)

So, I'll cut to the chase. My mother recently passed away, and as a single child, I pretty much received everything.. including my mother's two Yorkies, Chaz and Zuzu. Long story short, they're extremely poorly trained. My mother used to let them walk all over her, figuratively and literally, and I've been looking for advice on where to even begin. I've pursued sites like http://www.yorkietrainingtips.com and http://www.yorkietalk.com for answers, but none of them really address my problem. Though the former site's crate training eBook has been really useful, and I've had some success in getting them to stay in the crates I've bought them and getting them to potty when I want them to.

Though I'm worried that's mostly because of the fact that food and water are in the crates and I've been taking them along the same walking route. Otherwise, they tend not to listen to me until an 'event' occurs. Most of the training stuff I learned when I was raising my black lab isn't really working here. So, I need help. These Yorkies are both about four years old, full of energy and I want to keep them because that's what my mom would've wanted. I still love them, but I need to get them trained. Does anyone have any advice for me? Any sure-fire tips to get them to become a captive audience beyond dinner time?

Thanks in advance. Just about anything will help at this point.
Wow, I totally can understand what you are going through. A little over a year ago my mother passed away too, and as an only child I inherited everything including her dog Chloe. Chloe was not very well behaved because she was never socialized and always stayed home basically as a little teddy bear of a dog.

If you ever want to talk you can send me private messages too as I know that was a very difficult time for me. I also really enjoy helping people train!

First thing I would suggest is to get them socialized and get a clicker (unless you are a naturally enthusiastic person, then words like Yes! and Good Girl! and such can work the same). When they behave, reward them. I would suggest using their dinner as treats for training for awhile. You can take walks to socialize them, go to the pet store, etc. reward them for focusing on you.

You can read on the internet how to get a dog used to the clicker and what it means (basically just click, reward, click, reward) until they begin to understand that click means they get a treat. Then you can go with some commands they already know (like sit?) and click as soon as they sit and then reward. The clicker makes it easier to get the reward cue to the dog that they did something correct before you can actually give them a treat.

I also have two dogs, and training can be much more difficult with two at the same time, so I would suggest that you take one out at a time for awhile. Until you can teach them to wait in their crate or on a perch or something while the other is training.

I would also suggest taking one at a time when going out and socializing them. If you were to go to a petstore you could have one in the car or in a crate in the car while you take one in, and then after 5-10 minutes go back and switch dogs.

Otherwise do you have anything in specific you are wanting to train them?

I hope this was helpful! and feel free to chat with me anytime! I know how difficult of a time this can be and being able to talk to people definitely helped me out a lot!
 
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#3
Wow, I totally can understand what you are going through. A little over a year ago my mother passed away too, and as an only child I inherited everything including her dog Chloe. Chloe was not very well behaved because she was never socialized and always stayed home basically as a little teddy bear of a dog.

If you ever want to talk you can send me private messages too as I know that was a very difficult time for me. I also really enjoy helping people train!

First thing I would suggest is to get them socialized and get a clicker (unless you are a naturally enthusiastic person, then words like Yes! and Good Girl! and such can work the same). When they behave, reward them. I would suggest using their dinner as treats for training for awhile. You can take walks to socialize them, go to the pet store, etc. reward them for focusing on you.

You can read on the internet how to get a dog used to the clicker and what it means (basically just click, reward, click, reward) until they begin to understand that click means they get a treat. Then you can go with some commands they already know (like sit?) and click as soon as they sit and then reward. The clicker makes it easier to get the reward cue to the dog that they did something correct before you can actually give them a treat.

I also have two dogs, and training can be much more difficult with two at the same time, so I would suggest that you take one out at a time for awhile. Until you can teach them to wait in their crate or on a perch or something while the other is training.

I would also suggest taking one at a time when going out and socializing them. If you were to go to a petstore you could have one in the car or in a crate in the car while you take one in, and then after 5-10 minutes go back and switch dogs.

Otherwise do you have anything in specific you are wanting to train them?

I hope this was helpful! and feel free to chat with me anytime! I know how difficult of a time this can be and being able to talk to people definitely helped me out a lot!
You have no idea how much you've helped. Just getting a better idea of where to even start has been a godsend. Thank you so much! I've taken your advice into consideration and I've added them to my little whiteboard on my fridge so I can keep myself reminded. I've obtained a clicker on my way home today, so that's out of the way at least.

As for training, I just need to teach them to get into their crate on command, and to stop barking. I've at least got a decent start on the latter, but we'll work on the former.

I'll keep you posted on how it's going. I'm feeling really confident about this now. Thank you again!
 
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#4
I'm glad I could help!

If you get stuck in training something, just make a post and we could help give suggestions of things to try.

Good luck!
 

jfn

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#5
Although I'm not a dog trainer, I have been training my dog for sometime now and would also be glad to help with what I learned.

I created blog posts along with videos on the training process and posted at www.myfunpetlife.com in case you want to check out.

I have found that training her has been great to improve our bonding and her overall better behavior.
 
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#6
You got some good advice above. Just remember these dogs have been used to doing what they want for some time, so it may take some time and patience to get them on track. Good luck. I am sure you will be thankful you took the time to work with the dogs and will be a nice memory of your mother for some many years.
 

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