Dog Walks Away When I Try to Train Him

[BrandyEwing]

Hi there!  I purchased your course a few weeks ago for my new puppy and am just starting to train him now.  I also have an older dog who has never had any training and I'm working on him too.

I was able to teach the puppy sit and lay down pretty easily.  We are still working on reinforcing those two commands, but he's getting pretty good with sit even during distractions.

However, my older dog - about 3 1/2 years old - is a Morkie.  He's small (about 5 pounds) and has picked up other things pretty easily ("go to bed" to get in his kennel, "go outside"), but I can't get him to do any other things.  We started with sit.  He would be there looking at me and I have the lure and hold it the same as I do for the puppy...  and as I start to move it over the older dogs head...  he slumps and walks away.  Doesn't even try to follow the treat.

Is there another way I can get him to sit so I can teach him this command?  I'm sure I'm not supposed to put him in the sitting position myself.  Do you have suggestions for other ways to approach it for this stubborn little guy?

Thank You,

Brandy

[Adrienne]

Hi there,

Congrats on getting your puppy to sit and lie down easily! He sounds like a happy camper! 

In regards to your Morkie, small dogs can sometimes struggle a bit at times with certain luring exercises because they are so tiny and they may be more wary about where our bodies are and have this instinct to slink, move away or back up. 

To answer your question there are some others methods you can try. Read through this thread for some troubleshooting ideas. You can try capturing which is in the last section. Below is a link with a video on capturing. Let me know if you want more details on this training method. Keep me posted on how it goes.