Annie has selective hearing..

Ok..maybe someone can help me figure out why Annie does this. I am the one that primarily trains Annie and she minds me pretty well. Her dad, on the other hand, is her big playmate. He asks her to do her commands or tricks and she gives him a big goofy grin like, you're kidding right? I have to stand there and reinforce that she has to obey him as well. BUT whenever we go out to work off leash..she will not come for me, only for him. What's going on in that little doggy head of hers?

 

In my house our puppy listens to me and my roomate... We are here and inforce the rules all the time. My boyfriend she sees as a littermate because he gets on the floor with her and rough houses.. She rarely ever listens no matter what command he uses, and I usually have to ask her to sit and such for him..

 

My guess is that A) She's testing you, and B) When she's off lead, she thinks she has the upper hand.

I'd suggest you use a catch cord or some other sort of light weight cord for a while, so you can enforce her coming to you when you want to work off-lead.

No matter what the situation, it's important for the person giving the command to follow through and enforce compliance. If she doesn't come when you call her, and you let Dad be the one to call her, you're teaching her that she doesn't have to listen to you when you call her. So go back to step one, and teach her all over again that when YOU call, she comes.

It's also important that you stop doing off lead recalls until she's doing on lead recalls 100%. Get her to the point where she thinks there's a lead there, even when there isn't. Then go back and do off lead recalls. Right now, she thinks she doesn't have to. You have to go back and remind her that she does.

 

Yes..I do believe she's testing me...she wants to see just how long she can ignore me before I get serious about it. I also had an idea. Usually when I recall her, she has to stop doing something fun...like running in circles, sniffing grass, or simply sitting while staring off in the distance..whatever..she finds all sorts of things other than coming back to mom fun. Dad on the other hand is almost always fun...he'll run around in circles, chase her..whatever...but usually not come sit or get hooked back to the lead...I'm sure it's a lot more fun to come back to dad when she know she doesn't have to stop goofing around...

 

That's an excellent observation. Perhaps you could keep her on her toes by interjecting some fun into those recalls. Start doing some recalls as part of a game, rather than all formal recalls. Play the 'chase the person' game as part of your training.

 

Trainers always say to NOT call your dog to you for something that is not fun. If "Come" always means "you're getting a bath" or "we're going home" then the dog is not going to want to come to you. In those situations, they say it is better to go get your dog than to call her to you. Or if you do need to call her (like she is a zillion miles away from you), call her in and do a fun game or give some nice treats or something and THEN snap on the leash to go home.

At the dog park, I usually call the girls in to me and pet them and tell them how good they are and act all excited. Then I tell them, "let's go home" which means they get leashes on and we have to go. Nala doesn't always want to get the leash on, but she also doesn't want to be left behind so I can usually get the leash on her by the time we are approaching the gate. Also, I call them to me several times when we DON'T have to leave, so they know that "Come" doesn't always mean "go home".

If Annie has learned that "Come" from you means not fun stuff, you might want to retrain with a different word.

It is also very much worth it to teach some sort of emergency come command. Make it a different word than Come. It can even be something like COOKIES!! or something like that. Teach it by calling her to you when you KNOW she will come. Then when she gets to you, feed her yummy treats one after the other continuously for a whole minute! Do this about 3 times a day for a week or so, and then you can start cutting back on the number of times you do it. She will quickly learn that THAT command means YUM!! It could save her life someday.

I always meant to do this wth my dogs and never have, but Nala has learned the word "treats" and I recently realized that if she won't come to me I can tell her "let's go get treats!" and she will come right to me and dance around. I don't use it except when I really need her to come and nothing else is working.

I also use it to get her to do things. Like if she isn't paying attention to me, I tell her if she wants treats she has to perform first. I think all she hears is "blah blah blah treats blah blah blah" but her ears prick up, she does what I want, and then we walk to the treat bin and get something out for her.

 

Excellent advice Jamiya! Calling several times before leaving the park sounds like a great idea.

 

I have the same problem when wylie is off leash, and I try to make her "come" that is my command and alot of times there are too many good sniffs, she doesnt listen, but when she does I give her lots of praise and have used treats in the past. i dont know why but she listens to my husband almost all of the time. i sometimes give up when I call her and my husband says dont do that, he says you called her, you make her come, if you dont she learns she doesnt have to. I started out with the long rope and practicing the come command.

Jimiya she loves the word cookies, I wonder if I should try that, or would if confuse her, because when I say the word"cookies" she runs to the pantry door and stands there and if she is off leash oustide she wouldnt know what to do? I think I am going to start carrying treats again and still use the word "come"

 

hehe..Annie knows "cookies" well...but she doesn't come all the way back..she turns around and looks, and if I shake a cookie at her, she'll come galloping all the way back to me 80% of the time....otherwise, she doesn't think cookies smell that good. I can also have her stay with no problem and go get her...she will stand patiently for me to come up to her and not run away...it's just the coming all the way back to me. Which is strange..because I can yell out "stay!" and she will. but I yell out "Annie, come!" she doesn't even cock an ear back in my direction.

 

Hey, the stay is a neat trick! I don't think Nala would do that.

I think Nala obeys my husband because he is a man. He is big and has a deep voice and he has been declared pack leader by default. He NEVER works with the dogs and they don't always obey random commands from him, but they DO listen when he means business.

 

Maybe you could train differently for having her come in the park, as opposed to a formal recall that you'd use in obedience. Of course, you need a different word for one of them.

She is already used to the word 'Come' when you want her to come to you in the park, so I'd probably stick with that one, and add in the fun and games for when she comes to you.

If you want to do a formal obedience recall, try retraining her using 'Front', rather than 'Come'. And that word has to mean 'Do it now. This is work, not a game'. Of course, during the initial training, 'Front' has to be fun too. But your goal is to have her come and sit in front of you, not come and play a game. So two different commands might help her sort it out.