Hi All,
Long time lurker, first time poster :) Sorry for the essay!
Just a question stemming from reading the approaching strange dogs thread.
We acquired a beautiful 5-6 month old cross bred puppy (greyhound x mastiff we think) about seven weeks ago.
We have recently finished four weeks with Underdog and loved it and will most likely go back for intermediate and/or agility training at some stage, however we want to get some of the beginners training cemented before that.
His recall is great apart from when there is no other dogs around, and as such we keep him on the lead when we are likely to come across other dogs at the park or at the beach. We use 'who's that?' (shoving treats in his mouth when he looks at us) and this has worked quite well for on lead. We practice the recall in all environments, but obviously he places higher value in other dogs than us when off lead. We have tried a variety of different treats, but when his attention is on another dog (owner has approached us with their dog/let their dog lunge at us/off lead dog has approached us) I can be shoving the treat into his mouth but obviously his arousal is wayyy too high and he won't take the treat/pay any attention to me.
I know some answers will be that I need to remove dog from situation, need to get out of that situation in order to lower arousal, but we live in St Kilda and are always out and about with the dog in tow. Sometimes its hard to even see the dogs hiding under cafe tables! We have a small backyard and rely on the exercise at the park and beach to keep him happy and we love to see the greyhound in him stretch out and run!
I guess my question really is, how do we go about creating higher value in humans than other dogs? People in that thread have mentioned that they have trained this into their dog, and I was wondering how to start this? Is it something we can learn from books, internet or do we need hands on training?
Many thanks for reading the essay :)
