Great Dane is Distracted, and Dont Care

[LEON RAMOS]

We are new and have just begun.. We have two Danes. Our first was a dream and has been easy for the most part. Our second Dane who is 1 year old , and we are anxiously waiting for his neuter in a few weeks. 

We have completely started from the beginning with the sit click and treat. He does pretty good, until he is distracted or no longer cares to pay attention.  

We are not sure how to keep him in the training zone? any help will be appreciated. 

 

Thanks

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi Leon Ramos, welcome to the forums!

In these cases, we need to carefully assess what may be triggering his paying attention to other other things/acting distracted. Here is some troubleshooting that you can do to determine the underlying issue. 

A Too Noisy Environment

Pay close attention to your Dane's body language and watch his ears. Are they orienting towards distant sounds? Dogs have 18 muscles in their ears and these allow the ears to swivel in all directions capturing sounds like satellite dishes. There may be distant noises that we may not hear, but they can easily sense. 

In these cases, we need to train in an area with less noises or we may need to buffer sounds by using some type of white noise (fan, TV or radio station, YouTube white noise channels).

A Matter of Anxiety

If a dog is worried about things going on around them, they will be unable to cognitively function. Therefore, we need to closely evaluate in what circumstances dogs are unable to pay attention to us and work on making them feel more at ease and relaxed. 

For instance, if a dog responds well to our cues to sit in the living room, but then on walks he appears distracted, stress or anxiety may be at play. We can deduce this by looking at our dog's body language. If our dogs are walking in a zig-zag fashion, their ears are moving in all directions, they look in all directions and  want to sniff everything, and their face and body is tense, chances are they stressed or overstimulated. 

There is little space for learning obedience cues when they are in this state. These dogs won't be interested in responding to a sit cue because they are worried about other more important things, such as finding an escape route. These dogs will also often not take treats. You can read more about this here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/

The Onset of Adolescence

As dogs reach their adolescent stage, they are prone to undergoing some behavior changes which can make them less in tune with us and less responsive to our cues. This is a time of raging hormones, with dogs seeking out more reinforcement in their environment. These dogs may rather go sniff and explore at a distance from their owners rather than stick nearby and obey to obedience cues. 

Fortunately, things start to get better as they mature, but if we keep up with their training and aim to train in a way that keeps them interested and motivated, our consistency and patience will be rewarded as they mature. Here is more about this stage: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/survive-dogs-adolescent-stage/

If your dog is not neutered, there are chances of some female in heat nearby and/or he may want to sniff and urine mark, so he may be not interested in practicing obedience cues, especially during walks.

Use of Low Value Treats

Sometimes, dogs may simply grow bored of the treats used to reinforce the behavior or they may not find them worthy of working for. There are treats and treats when it comes to training. So-so treats lead to so-so responses. Over the average treats can make a difference in their responsiveness. It may take some experimenting to see how dogs react to different treats and which ones yield more enthusiastic responses. I have seen dogs who acted lazy during training session transform into enthusiastic participants once introduced to the right treats. 

In higher distraction areas, higher value treats need to be used. For instance, in the home, kibble may work well in dogs who love their food, but then on walks, you may need to use high-value treats to get the same response. Pet stores offer a vast array of treats nowadays. In areas with strong distractions, such as in training classes where several dogs and people are around, dog trainers often suggest to use baked calf liver, roasted chicken breast or low-sodium beef hot dogs. 

Training Not Generalizing

If the dog can sit no problems at home, but struggles on walks, you may need to train in an intermediate area before he'll be able to respond in such a distracting environment. Dogs are that great in generalizing cues unless we help them. So after obtaining a fluent response in the living room, practice more in other areas gradually increasing the level of distractions. For instance, ask for sits in  kitchen, then in front of a window, then on the deck, then in the middle of the yard, then in front of the home, then nearby the home on walks, then in front of a school, then at a distance from dogs, then watching dogs playing at the dog park. 

If your dog struggles in any of these environments, take a step back and train more in a calmer place before attempting to train in that area again. Remember to increase the value of the treats as you move to more and more distracting areas. 

Importance of Temporarily Going Back to a Continuous Schedule 

As our dogs improve in our training, it's tempting to stop giving treats for every single good sit, and start giving them at intervals such as every other sit and then randomly. This is a good thing to do, especially once the behavior happens fluently, but it's important go back to a continuous schedule every time there is an increase in challenge just to ensure our dogs get the feedback they need.

For example, if our dogs have been sitting well on walks every time we stop at a traffic light, and we have started giving praise in place of a treat every now and then, that day when we take our dog to a pet store, we should go back to giving a treat for every sit (and use treats that are higher in value) since this is a different environment. Once our dogs do well on this too, up to a fluent level,  it is possible to go back to a variable schedule, but we need to be extra careful on extra challenges that may present themselves (for instance, asking a sit in presence of a barking, reactive dog) where we'll once again up the ante in our training. More on this is covered here:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/polishing-up-training/fading-continuous-rewards/

Training is For Too Long 

If your training sessions are too long, they risk becoming tedious and your dog may become tired and less responsive. We also need to consider that a sudden loss of interest may be due to the dog getting thirsty or needing to go potty. 

Medical Issues

Sometimes dogs may act distracted when they have some underlying medical issue. For instance, older dogs may have pain in their joints, small dogs with long back may have back issues, dogs with anal gland issues may find it painful to sit. As large dogs develop, they may also get growing pains (panosteitis) which can cause achy joints. Any time a dog suddenly refuses to respond to a cue and there's nothing distracting going on in his environment or no other possible identifiable issue, consider whether something medical may be going on and discuss with the vet. 

Here are several other possible issues with solutions:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/ignoring-commands/

If you identify a pattern or possible cause, please discuss it here and we can go more in depth on it. 

Happy training!

Best,

Adrienne