Do you have a dog that's wild and crazy when you get to the park that can't even
function?
Or maybe they're pretty good till that distraction comes along a squirrel or the
person that wants to pet your dog. Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
I'm instructor Carol. This is Tina, and this is Willie. Today.
I'm gonna give you a couple of hacks for your wild and crazy dog.
I'm really excited about one of them. I call it the shoe game.
Let's have a look. We're out in a park and, uh,
we're gonna have a look at what often happens,
where dogs are so excited to see people that they meet when they're out on a
walk or coming into their house.
So Tina's just gonna start towards us with a little Willy buddy,
and you can stop there and you can see, um, Willie's just saying,
I wanna come forward. I wanna meet he's pulling. He's excited. Oh,
you're excited.
I know you're excited and you see people and a lot of times people are coming in
and they're like, oh, what a cute puppy! What a cute puppy!
When I have that crazy dog that can't focus at all,
me trying to say their name or talk to them, which a lot of people do again,
that's our instinct to do that. But now my dog's hearing, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, and learning to tune me out.
So I need to do something to get their energy level below threshold and get
some focus back on me. There's a few things that are important. Number one,
when our dogs are distracted, I may, if I just drop the treat,
they may not see it, especially when they're really, really distracted.
So I might need something a little stinky and I might need to get it right on
their nose. Yes. So I, yes, that,
even though he didn't look at me, just the head coming up,
cuz if I wave for the head to come up and look at me, it might not happen.
But if I, yes, as soon as the head comes up, pretty soon,
your dog will be looking up. Yes.
It's also important that I'm rewarding with that food. Nice and high.
And you can see now nothing exists for Willie except me and this food.
Let's try this again with some tougher distractions.
Tina's gonna grab some treats. She's gonna put him out her hand,
even though he's interested in me, she's gonna show,
we just put a treat by his nose and put it down by her shoe. Perfect.
Now he may look back to me. She's yes. Reward that.
So yes means you are perfect and then he's looking at her,
but then he's getting distracted again. So she's just gonna do the same thing.
Woo. Yes. Reward that. Yeah. Willie boo.
Boo boo, boo, boo, boo boo.
So she's just, again, gonna get outta a treat, just put it by his nose.
Let him see it, drop it down. If he looks back at her, she's gonna yes.
And reward again. And remember to bring that treat up to your face.
So it really draws attention to you.
Now Tina's done some great work already with Willie in a very short time.
So he has good value for her and he's already got pretty good impulse control
for a four month old dog. It's still tough around people,
but he's got that foundation. So he's moving pretty quickly on this.
He also likes his food.
If you've got a dog that this isn't cutting it for you maybe need that
distraction further away or you might need to up your food.
So maybe some chicken Wiener, cheese,
tuna treats something that your dog's gonna be more quickly able to focus away
from that distraction. Now that Willie's more focused on the food and that
energy levels come down. We're now gonna work that sit of the side.
But I wanna talk about how to do it successfully. And again,
a little bit of hack on getting this to work well.
You know you don't want your dog jumping and pulling and going nuts to see
people. So what often happens? It's just human nature.
We go to place our dogs and that's it because that's the way we envision.
We'd like our dog to behave. Just sit calmly until we let them to go.
Let them go. Say hi to that person. So we're gonna talk some hacks,
but I do wanna point out Tina's working to place Willie,
but as Willie moves forward and he's getting to be a big boy,
even though he's young, Tina's ending up coming a step forward.
Each time she places,
which means our dog. That's crazy to get to that person is now getting
closer and closer, which means it's getting harder and harder for the dog.
I realize for me, that's totally. Yep. I need to hold the dog. Keep my ground.
But lots of times when people are working with a young, crazy dog,
we don't even know what's going on. We're so busy. So visuals can often help.
So I'm gonna take a piece of chalk and we're just gonna give Tina a little bit
of a visual that this is her line to help her sort of think about,
I wanna stay behind this. Keep my distance from that distraction.
There's probably a couple of things you didn't notice in there.
Number one is that leash management. Um, I'm gonna have that leash gathered up.
I don't want the leash tight. Cuz remember then the dogs learn.
You can be crazy. I need, I need Willie to choose to sit.
So number one,
I've got that leash gathered up so I can give him good information. Yes.
When he's holding, I'm gonna yes. And reward that I'm rewarding
with that head high.
So that he's thinking about me and he's not thinking about the distraction.
Good boy. I can use my voice. Now notice when I place that sit,
a lot of people wanna push that butt down. I'm actually taking my right hand,
close to the clip and guiding up this left hand is just being able to tuck him
into my side so that he can get a kiss in. Good boy.
And I'm loosening up on that leash so that he's making the
choice to sit. What a oh good. You're silly.
Yes. Good boy. Then I'm gonna praise. If he holds that sit,
I'm gonna yes. If I can get a treat bad trainer here, Tina did a better job.
Yes. What a good boy. Good man. I'm making sure that leash is tight.
Good boy. And when he moves,
I need to be very efficient because if I can catch him in the act of getting up
and show me, wasn't supposed to,
it's gonna be a lot more informative to him than if he was to get up.
Okay. Okay. Yes.
And get way over here and spend three seconds here. Now,
if I take him back and place him back,
he doesn't actually know that he wasn't supposed to get up.
So we want good leash management. Good timing.
I eventually envision my dog holding that sit,
as somebody comes right up and pets them. Willie's not ready for that.
So he's held not for a long time, maybe with the distraction quite a ways away,
but he's still being right. So instead of learning, oh, if I keep struggling,
eventually I get to meet people. He's gonna learn.
If I hold that sit and I'm calm. I get to say hi.
So Tina is just gonna place that sit again and on a loose leash.
He's nice and calm. She's gonna make a big deal of saying, go say hi.
She's gonna run with him to make sure the leash doesn't go tight.
So that he's learning don't pull to see people.
I'm gonna have food already so that he doesn't rehearse jumping up.
So you can tell him, okay, go say hi, come on up. I've got some food.
What a good boy. You are brilliant.
So he has just done a perfect greeting. There's no teeth,
there's no jumping. There's no craziness. And then I can,
and actually Tia's gonna grab a piece of food. She's gonna say his name,
put it right on the nose. Willy. Yes. And encourage him away.
I've given you a couple of hacks on how to move faster with your wild and crazy
dog. But one of the best things you can do is equipment. Number one,
uh, we were using a leather leash with Willie. Uh,
you want something that's sized appropriately and something that's not gonna
stretch or slip in our hands. Remember I talked about giving our dogs good,
timely information. So number one is my leash.
Next piece of equipment is the gentle leader. I know,
I know some of you're saying it's a prop. I don't wanna prop.
But you know what good mechanic uses any tool available to 'em.
And if this little device helps bring my dog down so they can be successful more
quickly, then why not do it? Uh, now, um,
I do recommend a gentle leader versus some other head halter products. Uh,
some of them may work the same way,
but the nice thing about the gentle leader is I can have so much adjustment.
When my dog's doing well,
I could clip to the collar and just have this on for the pressure point.
So I still, the dog still feels that, but I'm not controlling the nose.
I can loosen up the back strap so that there's less pressure there
so that the dog's making more of a choice or I can even slip that nose loop off,
but have the collar on. So it gives me a lot of flexibility,
which really helps me to wean off this. Cuz again,
I don't want it as a prop that I have to use for the rest of my dog's life.
If you have a dog that's wild, crazy,
and pulling the second you leave the house,
then you might wanna check out this video.
If you're looking for personalized training for you and your dog with myself or
the McCann team,
check out the link in the description below to find out more about our Life
Skills, online dog training program. On that note, I'm Carol.
This is Tina and this is Willie happy training.