From: liza@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Liza Miller)
Subject: Re: Behaviour problem: Dog pretends he hasn't heard and slinks off
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 20:00:36 GMT

In article <1992Jul29.132244.1@ssrl01.slac.stanford.edu> tcox@ssrl01.slac.stanford.edu (Tony Cox) writes:
>Hi all,
>
>	My 5 year old, unneutered male, Australian Shepard mix, "Thufir" has
>recently developed (two weeks back) an annoying habit which I would like to
>break him of.

>	I live in the heart of the Santa Cruz mountains, in what most dogs
>would consider doggy heaven. The nearest road is way off, and most neighbours
>have dogs which wander around visiting each others houses, etc. etc.

	Having grown up in the Santa Cruz mountains, I can appreciate the
doggy heaven aspects of it.  However, I can also appreciate what an
incrediable bother the loose dogs cause up there.  There are leash laws in
most of those communities (without knowing exactly where you live, of
course).

>	Frequently, of course, it is necessary to get Thufir to come in on
>command (at night, for example, when he likes to bark at racoons or deer).
	Good, if he's currently barking at them, he may end up chasing them
and racoons at least can do some damage to most animals if they are
cornered.  Not to mention the damage your dog could do if he runs with a
pack of other loose dogs.
	
>	Recently, he has discovered that human night vision isn't up to much,
>and so will lurk in the shadows and pretend he hasn't heard the call. Worse,
>he will ignore me and just slink off. No amount of shouting or stern words
>will bring him back.
	Of course not!  Would YOU come back if someone was shouting sternly
at you?  Nope, you'd run off and forget about it.

>	Of course, he comes back after an hour or so, full of smiles. How
>does one discipline the dog then? Clearly, the pea-brain has forgotten all
>about ignoring me, and interprets any harsh words or slaps as odd behaviour
>from a normally reasonable master.
	Punishing or yelling at him when he DOES come back is only going to
make the problem worse.  Don't blame him for not havinga long memory for
things like that -- he's not a pea-brain.  In fact, in my opinion, he's
doing exactly what you have trained him to do.  He's obviously gotten the
message that running loose and not coming when called is okay behavior that
is YOUR fault, not his.

>	Does anyone have any idea what I should do?

	I have several suggestions.

1.  Fence in a dog run for him and keep him in it.  It will keep him safe
and keep him from getting shot by an irate animal owner.

2.  Take him to an obedience class and train him to come when called.  Keep
him fenced or on lead until such time as he is 100% reliable off-lead. Be
aware that with the "training" you've given him earlier, he may never be
reliable off-lead -- he's already learned about the fun to be had in the
wilds of the Santa Cruz mountains.

3.  If you are unwilling to fence your dog, then you have a serious
problem.  The dog knows it doesn't HAVE to come to you and therefore won't.
Especially if you are yelling at it.  I would start by calling it ONLY at
mealtimes, with a dish of food in my hand that I bang on so that he knows
it's dinnertime.  When he comes for his dinner, praise him warmly for
coming to you and give him his food.  When he is coming reliably for his
dinner, start calling him at other times, but always have a food reward
ready for him -- a dog biscuit or a handful of kibble. When he comes, tell
him how wonderful he is and then give him the reward.  Eventually, you will
call him without the food and just give him verbal praise.  This could take
MONTHS.  In the meantime getting angry at him for NOT coming when called
would be counterproductive.  You have no way to correct his bad behavior,
so there is no point in trying.  If you were to fence him, then if he
didn't come, you could corner him and punish him for not coming, but if
he's free, there isn't a chance in the world that you could catch him.

4.  Should you decide to fence him and want to teach him the come, use the
method above for the first several weeks until you are SURE he knows what
"come" means.  Then you can start to punish him for not coming.  The most
effective method I know of is to make NOT COMING so unpleasant that he will
choose to come and get rewarded.  What I do is to corner the dog and drag
him back to the spot I called him from by his collar (at first).  I simply
drag him (generally with his front feet off the ground) back, calmly
repeating "come, come, come" and when we get to where he was supposed to
come, I say, "Good dog.  Good come."  The dog is confused as hell, but
eventually gets the message that NOT coming results in a painful drag back
to the spot he should have come anyway and coming results in being praised
and rewarded.  If the dog doesn't respond to being dragged back by its
collar, then I drag it back by it's ears - they WILL respond to this, it
hurts!  

As with any dog training, you have to take responsiblity for the training
of your dog -- good or bad.  If the dog makes mistakes or has annoying
habits it is YOUR fault, not the dogs.  You have to make sure the dog
understands a) what you want it to do and what will happen if it does and
b) what you don't want it to do and what will happen if it does that too.
And, PRAISE is the real key, not punishment.  I am not punishing my dogs by
dragging them around, I am making it unpleasant to not willingly obey me.
The bottom line is the same, they WILL come, it's just that one way is
pleasant and one is awful.  Eventually, the dog will get the message and
come when called.  

I know I sound like a real hardnose about all this and frankly, I am.  I
don't think dogs should be running loose for so many reasons that I can't
even mention them all.  I also feel that each owner must take
responsibility for training their dogs.  Two of my dogs are NOT
well-behaved and I know exactly whose fault that is -- MINE!  The other two
I got later and they are quite well-behaved and I know that I have trained
them to be that way.  My dogs aren't dumb or pea-brained or smart or
biddable -- they are trained and untrained.  And losing your temper with a
dog is NOT a good training method.  You train the dog by CALMLY teaching it
what a command means and then rewarding good behaivor (even if you force it
into that good behaivor) and correcting bad behavior such that they perform
the good behavior and you can reward them.

Well, enough lecturing . . .


Liza Lee Miller         My dogs are labradorable!     liza@pangea.stanford.edu
Cibola Labradors            Field * Show * Fun                    415/326-5309
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