Hello, In the new year we are going to try and teach Paddy and Pippa some basic commands, mainly 'down' and 'stay'. We want these commands for when visitors come to the house and the dogs can get a little over excited and scare some of them stiff. On going we are working on trying to discourage the chase drive but this is obviously a long road and we will never get rid of it but hopefully will be able to dull it down a little. So have any of you Greyhound owners got your hounds responding to commands? If so which ones? Any pointers o how you got there would be good! Thanks Jamie
Hi, my ex racer already knew a few commands which i discovered myself, have you tried using "wait" - thats one mine already knew, mine have learnt just on our walks in the woods, they know "this way" just by me saying it and a few others
Pippa definitely doesn't know any commands, I think she had very little human contact and from what I can gather the contact she did have wasn't very positive. Paddy seemed to know wait when we got him like yours, it isn't great but he definitely responds to wait in situations like going through doors. In the morning when I say 'go on Paddy' he gets off the couch and goes up stairs so I can close living room door to go to work. He has got a little better recalling from a whistle since we got him but still has very poor recall.
I took Bella to the dog training club and she did KCGC ,she has passed Bronze and Silver and is on Gold now,she has taken to it real well and I never thought I could get her to 'leave it' with food , might be worth a try if there is a club locally ? Bella is really food orientated so training was made easier for that reason and she had Tom to copy who had already reached gold when she arrived. She will still chase and her genetic instincts will never leave her but I can now get her to focus on me in most situations. We have had a pretty full house the last few days and both dogs were fab , they greeted our visitors and then settled in thier beds and our friends wondered if we really had dogs , its taken time but in the house they are the most well behaved dogs you could wish for. (They still sleep in our bedroom tho ! ;-) )
Paddy and Pippa sleep in our room (On dog beds not human). I'll have a look into a training club. I've no experience of them or how they work. Is Bella in a 'group' situation or on her own with Tom? Paddy is absolutely crazy for food, you wouldn't believe how food motivated he is. Pippa is a little but nowhere near as much as him, if something is happening while her dinner is out she will walk away to investigate, a bomb wouldn't stop Paddy finishing his dinner in 3 seconds flat!
Bella is in a group situation and in our group there is a BC , a staffy, a labrodoodle, a springer and 2 golden retrievers , I take Tom on a separate day so I can give them one 2 one at the training sessions , Toms class is smaller , just him , a dobie and a lab.
I've emailed two training classes so hopefully will get something sorted . What sort of thing do you cover in the KCGC?
Here the link to the KC site where you can see what is ibvolved for each of the awards ;-) http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/dogtraining
We went to training classes for a while (stopped when I was suffering pregnancy tiredness and they wanted us in the later advanced class) - was slow going with Nancy for a few weeks and she'd do nothing more than "watch me" - then she suddenly figured out that bum on floor (she sits quite naturally or we wouldn't have taught it) = treat and immediately started sitting like a champ to levels of jaw dropping from everyone else that night. Trouble is now sit = whatever you have... I WANT IT AND I'M DOING A SIT WITH MY GOOD GIRL FACE ON SO GIMME IT NOW!!!! Had a bit of an issue when we had four Great Danes in the class - she took a while to realise that dogs came in extra extra large varieties as well!
I was thinking of starting off with just our two at first before joining a class. Pippa still needs to see other breeds of dogs on walks yet - she is very curious of smaller breeds yet.
Guinness knows "wait", has a pretty good recall providing it's me that's calling him (he often doesn't come for other half) and knows "in your bed", which I taught him by tossing dog treats into his bed and saying it when he got into it to get them. I'm working on "leave it", but at the moment there is no way in hell he's going to leave it if it's edible. One thing I do regret was doing recall training sitting at my PC and reaching into the cupboard of my desk for treats as rewards. Now, whenever I open that cupboard door I magically have a greyhound beside me, and he pesters me for food if I'm eating while using my PC.
