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Auttiebear. asked in PetsDogs · 7 years ago

My dog won't learn any other tricks? HELP!?

I have taught my dog how to sit, shake, lie down, and beg. She learned those really fast. It only took her a day to learn each trick. Now I'm trying to teach her other things: Spin, act shy, roll over, speak, etc.

I know a couple may seem a little more challenging for her, but when I first started teaching her some of those things, she did it, but now she won't do it again. For example, I tried teaching her "act shy".

She would hide her face, and I'd reward her with a treat each time she did it. She will only do that once or twice, then get confused when I'd try to make her do it again.

I recently bought a Click-R and some bags of small treats that she loves, thinking she would improve. She now is starting to know the purpose of the Click-R, so I know that's not confusing her.

I don't know what to do! I really want her to learn new tricks and be obedient, but she won't cooperate. She's too hyper and rarely makes eye contact. Any tiny distraction makes her bolt. Can anyone tell me what to do to make her obey? I feel like she's practically unteachable now.

(She's about 4 or 5 years old, and she's an Australian Shepherd mix with Lab, if that helps in any way.)

4 Answers

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  • ?
    Lv 7
    7 years ago

    Make sure that you are teaching her only one new trick at a time. Just do one more trick until she gets it. It could take a day or a week for her to get it. You have to be consistent in her training.

    Her age doesn't mean anything. My dog is now 16 and cant do some of the tricks he use to do and so I have recently taught him some new arthritis friendly tricks that he can do for treats.

    Get her alone with you in a room with no TV or music and shut the door. Make sure that nothing will distract her. When she starts to do it, make sure that you clap and tell her how good she is and give her a treat. They do love to please us so, if you get all excited, so will she.

    When my dog was about 5 years younger, I taught him to jump through a Hula Hoop, so no dog is too old to learn new tricks. He doesn't jump through it now because of some arthritis, but he learned that at 11 years old.

    Make sure that you use a calm voice. Don't get frustrated and sound disappointed or she will stop liking to learn.

    Don't get discouraged. It will happen, it just takes a lot of patients. Make sure there is nothing to distract her and no where to escape.

    Source(s): Long time dog owner
  • Anonymous
    7 years ago

    I would think that you both would benefit from attending a training class. Somebody would actually need to observe you to figure out whether you need how to learn to train or whether your dog needs maybe a different training method. Some dogs have more problem with language than hand signals.

    If she is hyper and doesn't make mcuh eye contact, then you need to exercise her more and train as the next lesson how to make eye contact).

    This might not be true, but you seem to be really too interested in the speed in which she is learning, so to me you convey the impression that you are too impatient. You might expect too much too fast.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    7 years ago

    Australian Shepherds are extremely smart, usually. Keep up with the training. Make sure while training you create a good training space and that you are calm and confident. Turn off T.V and other distractions.

  • 7 years ago

    Watch the Dog Whisperer (Cesar Milan). You can learn a lot about this sort of thing in those episodes. You could probably find snippets on Youtube, or just type in the show's name and 'watch online' in Google and websites where you can watch it would show up.

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