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Old May 13th, 2011, 01:09 PM
Brad1976 Brad1976 is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 4
First we were taught that we had to start making things more on ours terms. We would only pet him, give him food, played with him when we wanted to and not when he was demanding it from us. This really improved his overall general obedience. Next was we learnt how to get Finnegan to choose us over other distractions. We started with toys and treats and if we called him he had to choose us over those items. To stop Finnegan from going to the object we would use a growly type noise and a hand clap if necessary to break his focus on the object and when he would turn to look at us we would call him into us and when he came he got lots of pets. Everytime he chose us over something he got lots of pets.

Once we got good at that, the trainer brought her dogs and we repeated the same thing. Finnegan was on a long leash for safety reasons at first. By watching his body language I could tell when he was getting to interested and getting ready to escalating into Cujo mode. I would give him the growly noise to break his focus and then call him to me for pets. The key was I had to start correcting him for even looking at the other dog at first because he would go from 0 to 10 on the freak out scale so quickly. Now he can walk by most dogs without any issues at all. Certain dogs with particular body language peak is interest more then others and I have to give him the growl once in a while.

It is hard to explain everything we were taught but the key was to start getting Finnegan to choose us over other lesser objects and then work up to the object being another dog, because if your dog isn't going to give up a treat for you it most likely won't give up another dog.

I have read some other posts regarding Barkbusters and during my experience at no time did we do anything physical other then the petting when Finnegan did what we wanted him to.

Hope that helps
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