Ok, well here goes.
First of all, thanks for taking the time. From what I've seen there are a lot of knowledgeable people on here so any suggestions are welcome.
Five of my dogs have been to training classes. There's been a bit of everything tried with them. I found the best thing to be rewarding positive behavior, so I've read Pamela Dennison's Positive Dog Training, Don't Shoot the Dog, and now I'm onto The Power of Positive Dog Training.
Lucky - Blue Heeler. Heels inconsistently but is getting rewarded with bite size treats when he does well. When he's pulling I stop, turn away, wait about 15 or 20 seconds (he sits usually and waits for me) and then we try again. He's great once he's tired out, after a couple of blocks. It's the beginning that's more difficult. He sits if I have a treat, but is slow on the take if there isn't one visible. He sits to go out, waits until I walk out the door and call him out. Coming in he's more reluctant to sit and wait, probably due to the other dogs milling around the door. I'm having a hard time with the emergency call back, since he won't go more than a couple of feet away from me. His stay is improving since I started NILIF a week or so ago. Although when I'm out of sight he tries to sneak over to see where I am. My biggest problem is dealing with his growling and fighting with my 10 year old mix breed (the only other male who has become incredibly summisive but still gets the aggression). I'm racking my brain over how to deal with this problem and have yet to come up with a solution. Is putting him in his crate an option when he's growling or provoking?
Milla - Italian Greyhound. She hates the lead. She jumps and pulls all over the place. For now I'm putting it on her in the house and rewarding calm behavior. She's not ready to go for a walk outside of the yard just yet. She jumps on me when I come home so I'm coming into the yard and holding treats at her level. If she has all 4 paws on the ground, she gets one. She sits on command. She knows "bed" and "smile" (she pulls her lips back and shows me her teeth in a kind of embarrassed way...). She's the least trained. I hope to get her out for a leashed walk sometime in the next week once she feels comfortable with the lead on. My goal is a week to get used to the lead, and I'm leaving it on her bed so she's not afraid of it. If she lets me put it on without trying to escape she gets several bite size treats. This has only happened a couple of times. I'm thinking I may be putting the cart before the horse and should put the lead on and then give treats if she's calm with it on. What do you think?
Snickers - Boxer. She heels but pushes into me. She's a stong one and almost trips me up at times. She won't take treats while walking so when she heels without pushing my legs she gets verbal reinforcement (Good girl!).
Her come is terrible. She's all over the place with squirrels, falling pecans, leaves, the wind, whatever.... I'm not using come until she's definately on her way back to me (only in the yard), and she's getting rewarded heavily. When she's on the other side of the yard I just call her name and only use come when she's closer. This is a tough one since I have a couple of acres of fenced yard, but my neighbor down the road has 9 dogs that are loose and usually barking somewhere along the fence. Snickers is the last one to come when there are other dogs on the other side of the fence. (By the way, my neighbor is a drunk that feeds his dogs from the garbage and poisons them off when they become too many - I live in the 3rd world so the police and municipal govt won't do anything about this problem.)
Imogen - Mixed breed. She's either excited or worried when we go for a walk. She whines most of the time and is constantly looking at me. She's secure enough in the yard, but is very unsure of herself anywhere else. She heels fine, sits on command, and is the first one to come when called. I'm trying to get her to feel more secure while walking, so she gets treats when she's not constantly looking at me....(opposite to what I've read - which says we need to reinforce eye contact). I stop where there are no distractions and give her a good scratch when she's calm, or brush her a bit since she loves both.
Negra - Mixed breed. She's huge, Imogen's daughter, (looks nothing like her) is very similar to a black lab, but much stockier. She's pulling on the lead. A lot. We don't get more than a couple of feet and I stop, wait (she couldn't care less) and start again. She takes 2 steps and pulls again. She heeled just fine with a choke collar (for lack of a better name) but I'm considering picking up a harness for her the next time I go to the States for dog food. I'm at a loss with her. We don't get far with the walk or training due to the pulling. She sits and stays well. She learned to sit when someone approaches in two days. She knows there's a treat in it for her....
Twist - Mixed breed rescue dog. He's my oldest (10 years) and does everything wonderfully. His treat is the alone time with me. You can tell that he just loves to get away from the rest of the pack. He gets treats but only a couple since he's not very interested in them generally.
By the way, the treats I'm using are from a recipe that my aunt passed on to me. It's made with baby food and a bit of bacon grease and dried milk. They love them, but with 6 dogs it takes me most of a Saturday morning to make enough bite sized cookies to last a week. In Mexico, they don't sell dog treats. The problem is that now they're aware of the treats that are always in my pocket and dance around for them or sit in front of me while walking around the ranch so they'll get one. Has anyone had this problem? It's like a circus sometimes and yesterday I stopped walking since I was laughing so hard. They were all doing something to get a treat. One or two sitting, Milla "smiling", Lucky trying to shake a paw...it was crazy. All I wanted to do was wander around the trees with them all!
Well, if you made it this far you're patient! This is where I'm at right now. Each one of my dogs is at a different place.
My experience with training has been everything from shock collars (that only lasted a day or so and it's now somewhere in the storageroom collecting dust), "training" collars (choke collars) - which (gulp) actually worked on a couple of the dogs, and lots and lots of positive reinforcement. I'm a teacher so I can see the benefits of using positive reinforcement not only with dogs, but with children. Learning is learning as far as I'm concerned, we have to motivate in order to educate. Hopefully I'm on the right track.
Your suggestions, comments, whatever, are welcome. I'll update in a week or so with any progress that I'm able to make. I promise it will be a shorter post!
