Maybe you just got a puppy,
or maybe you've been living with your dog for a very long time.
I'll tell you for a fact that regardless of how long you've had your dog,
whether it's day one or day 1000, if your dog is not listening,
it'll probably boil down to one of these five reasons we're gonna talk about
today. Now,
everybody knows that distractions are a big deal when it comes to dog training,
and distractions are relative depending on what kind of dog you have.
Distractions are going to present in different ways.
Some dogs are gonna have a really, really strong tendency towards sniffing,
and that's gonna be a grand distraction.
So if you have a breed that has a big tendency towards sniffing,
you're gonna know right away that anything and everything in the environment is
going to be interesting to them.
So that's gonna be a natural distraction. All sorts of other natural
distractions will appear for different dogs.
Sight hounds will notice things in the background. If you have a herding breed,
they are going to very easily get distracted when there's any sort of motion
involved, regular distractions out there on the street,
maybe another dog when you're taking your dog for a walk,
or maybe you run into some humans out there and your dog is really friendly,
those distractions are gonna be something that cause your dog not to listen if
they don't have the proper training. Now,
what we wanna do is combat those distractions.
We wanna make sure that our dogs learn to listen despite those distractions.
And I promise you that even if you have, uh,
bloodhound who really loves to sniff, you can work through those distractions.
If you start at a level that makes sense to the dog.
And that means not putting them into a big scent field right off the bat when
they don't have the proper training,
but starting with really mild distractions. You know,
maybe you're working in your kitchen or your basement where there's not too much
going on in terms of scent, and you can start to build your dog's.
Understanding that listening despite those distractions is really worthwhile for
them.
And now what you can do is start to add more distractions to that environment.
You might start adding more exciting sniffs to the environment,
maybe put out some food that your dog will be intrigued in or something else
that they're really going to love.
And then you can teach them how to listen despite those distractions.
We're not gonna get too in depth about dealing with specific distractions in
this video,
but if you'd like more help on dealing with distractions in your training,
check out this video here.
Something that's maybe not as obvious for people figuring out why their dogs
aren't listening is lack of consistency. And this is a very broad
topic to talk about. Consistency is such an important thing in dog training,
and that means that you should be consistent with your own dog and make sure
that even though you've just gotten home from work and you're really tired and
you just wanna put your feet up on the couch, if your dog is doing something,
that means they're not listening.
You really need to make sure that you get up off the couch and go and fix that
thing so that your dog gets good, clear, consistent information.
But consistency goes so much further than just yourself.
It also includes other people in the family.
It includes what's happening outside of the home.
When you bring your dog out and about, for example,
you might be training really amazing greeting.
Manners with your family members inside the home,
and your dog might be learning wonderful things about not jumping up on them.
But then if you go out there in the real world and in the interest of things
like socialization, you allow your dog to jump up on strangers on the street.
That lack of consistency is going to make it very difficult for your dog to
understand what their job is. In addition,
when you're working with other family members in the home,
it's really important that everybody takes some time to do some training with
your dog or with your puppy if they expect that dog to listen.
Overstimulation is another reason that your dog might not be listening.
What we need to do to help our dogs learn and help our dogs learn how to listen
is help them learn self-control versus that overstimulation. And that comes with
good training. It comes with calm,
clear information that we're gonna give to our dogs. So very,
very important that you don't put them in over their heads and expect them to
understand how to listen and rehearse that behavior.
Rehearsal is a really important factor in dog training.
What our dogs rehearse and what they practice is what they're gonna end up
doing.
So if your dog is consistently in that state of arousal and in that state of
over-stimulation because they're being allowed to wander on the street,
for example,
if you're walking them on the street and they see other dogs and they
immediately get over stimulated, if that's what they get to rehearse,
that's what they're going to end up doing as a habit later on. In life.
Dogs out there on the street for overstimulation is a pretty obvious thing,
but you might not recognize quite as easily that overstimulation can happen in
quiet environments too. And that can happen just by us not necessarily managing
our young dogs very well. Young dogs need a lot of nap time,
they need a lot of downtime,
and often that means we have to be the adults and force our dogs to take those
little naps and downtime and crates are a great way of doing that.
A lot of times with young puppies,
if we keep them outta their crate too long and we let them get to that point of
overstimulation,
it also becomes a very dangerous game when it comes to wanting them to listen.
In that state,
your dog might not be listening because they lack motivation and the right
rewards to do so. And this comes hand in hand with training.
It's so important that we build value for listening to us if we're gonna expect
our dogs to want to listen to us. And that comes along with knowing your dog.
This is another place where breed tendency can be a really big deal.
Some dogs really, really like to tug some dogs, labs really,
really like to eat. Some dogs really, really like to sniff.
If we can gateway those rewards and we can help our have our dogs use those
rewards or access those rewards on our terms,
it is gonna be so much easier to get them to listen.
And I know what a lot of you are thinking. If I've got a hound,
my hound really wants to sniff, and absolutely 100%,
that is a magnificent reward for a hound.
So what better way than to use that sniffing opportunity as the reward to
motivate your hound,
rather than just letting them sniff ad nauseam whenever they want out there on
the street? Maybe.
We gateway that sniffing.
So your dog has to give you a moment of attention before you tell them, yes,
good dog, and then give them permission to go sniff.
It's what I do with my own tollers when it comes to water. Uh,
some of you may have heard me talk about stories of Ned with water.
He loves to swim so much that when he was a young dog,
I had a really hard time getting his attention around water.
And I decided right there and then that I was gonna gateway water so that in
order to get to the water and to be able to play or swim in the water,
he first had to do something that I asked him to do.
So he went from completely ignoring me around water and running to splash in
every single puddle to first asking permission by looking in my direction before
he got to go and play in that water. Now, I have the best of both worlds.
I have a toller who loves to swim and I love to watch him swim,
but he doesn't do so until he's been given permission to do so.
Now we can use that to our advantage by helping our dogs understand that we
bring all those wonderful things,
and it doesn't have to be all those non-traditional rewards.
You can use simple things like food and chase games and play maybe some tug
with your dog to you to gateway those rewards and help your dog understand that
you bring the value. If you're looking for a great toy to use with your dog,
check out the McCann Dog Store.
All the great tug toys that we have are purpose-built to make sure that your dog
has blast.
The number one reason that dogs don't listen is lack of training.
And that might seem like an obvious statement,
but we see a lot of people and a lot of dogs,
and there's a misconception that comes along with getting a dog where people
will often think that they don't need to go to training until things start to go
wrong and the wheels start to fall off the cart and nothing could be further
from the truth. We wanna get ahead of things,
and we wanna start training our dogs to listen and understand that listening is
very valuable.
One great way to get ahead of your training is to join us in our online training
programs. Check the link in the description below.
Introduce exercises and skills that we want our dogs to understand in a fashion
that will help them. So without the excitement, without the overstimulation,
we're gonna start in a quiet environment, teach our dogs some basic skills,
and then start to add in some mild distractions to help them learn how to
contend with distractions and how to hang in there,
and how to listen to us even as the distractions start to increase.
And what's really important to continue making progress with your dog.
You'll find in this video here, I'm instructor Shannon. Happy training.