Things you wish you'd never trained?

[CollieMan]

A few weeks back, Jan, at the suggestion of our training instructor, taught Ellie to raise her front paw and hold it in the air for longer and longer periods of time. It looks cute, and it does help to build her focus, I suppose, so where's the harm? How could that possibly harm anything?

The problem is that has now become her default behaviour, and she does it sooooo many times. If I'm walking in the street, and give a "sit", I now, invariably, get a sit with paw raised. cop-cop? I get cop-cop with one paw raised. You name it, we get a "would you like raised-paw with that?". So much so, I now refuse to reward it, in the hope that it will fade away.

So, anyone else got a behaviour that they wish they had never taught? Though, it might well be for completely different reason!

 

[leema]

I wish I never trained Mac to stay!! Seriously, he believes that if he does nothing for long enough this will be rewarded and this really stops him from offering any behaviours or sometimes even... Doing what I ask. :/ Because he's staying.

 

[luna may]

Kesem does it too... :neutral:
Did that help?

 

[CollieMan]

he believes that if he does nothing for long enough this will be rewarded

Sounds like my Brother!

You have to laugh though at a dog who is clever enough to work out that "actually, stay is a perfectly valid behaviour, and they will just have to learn to accept it. I see no need to expand on this, thank you...".

 

[nereis]

Speak! Oh I hate it. I hate barking, it goes through me, so why did I encourage it?! He used to just bark occasionally, hardly at all really. But NOW, whenever he doesn't know what to do, he barks. He also barks when he's confused, but he always did that, it's a different kind of bark. He's offering a behaviour most of the time, and OH I wish he'd shut up. I will NEVER teach speak again. I will never encourage something I hate in any way.

And don't believe anyone who tells you you can stop nuisance barking by training it to a word command. Lies.

Thanks to teaching limp, Alfie often stands on three feet during training, but having him know limp was worth that.

 

[CollieMan]

I've heard various theories about the "speak" command and the subsequent cessation (or lack thereof ) of it. I must say that it's something that I just don't dare train, precisely for the reasons you've highlighted.

 

[nereis]

Seriously, take my advice, you're right not to do it. I will never do it again, or advise anyone to do it.

 

[jasperaliceuk]

Advice taken - I was pondering over whether to teach Milo 'bark'. Compared to my last barky collie cross he is almost silent - occasionally does a couple of barks if he is worried by a noise, if he's frustrated in training or just for the hell of it at things like the watering can or umbrella. I was going to teach him 'bark' to let me know when he wants to come i from outside but perhaps I'll stick with him bunging his nose through the catflat!

Sue

 

[leema]

Mac does a high pitched bark in frustration which is nothing like his speak on cue. His speak on cue is deliberate, he looks at you, and it is often deep. His frustration bark is high pitched, and he often throws his head back or does something else when he does it. I haven't found his frustration bark to increase or decrease since being taught speak... However, he has known speak for a very long time, so I don't know.

Clover, however, has never done a 'nice sounding' bark, so I won't encourage it... Maybe she will when she's older we might give it a go, but not if she continues to have an awful sounding bark.

 

[nereis]

It's not his frustration bark that has increased, he just offers the learnt 'speak' ALL THE TIME.

 

[emmasmamma]

It's not his frustration bark that has increased, he just offers the learnt 'speak' ALL THE TIME.

And they say it's the females that talk so much!
On the subject of "Why did I ever train that?"...I trained my first toy poodle, Button's how to fetch a tennis ball, soon thereafter, I taught my mom and dad's Boston terrier too. Both of them would play fetch until their tongues hung out longer than they were and still wouldn't give up. If you stopped playing, Buttons would, bark or nudge you until you played again. My dad swore that if he ever got another dog he would not let me teach it to play fetch.

 

[l_l_a]

I wish I had never taught my dog to ring a bell to tell me when he wants to go potty.

I had hung a bell from the back door and taught him to ring it to tell me he needs to be let out. He learned it very quickly and it worked beautifully for a few days. However, pretty soon he figured he would just ring it anytime he wanted to go out into the yard whether or not he had to potty. And then from there he started to ring it just to get attention.

So I stopped answering his rings if I KNEW he didn't need to potty. I wanted him to learn that only if he needed to potty should he ring the bell. But instead, this put his ringing behavior on a variable reinforcement schedule, since sometimes I would ignore his ring and sometimes I would answer it. And being on a variable reinforcement schedule, it made him even MORE persistent in his bell-ringing.

It got to the point where he was summoning me every 10 minutes in the evening like I was the maid. It was driving me crazy!!! Friends and family who were visiting were making fun of me too.

in the end I took the bell away. Still, he sometimes continues to use his nose to push against the door to make a noise, a left over behavior from his bell-ringing days. At least that sound is not nearly as annoying as the bell ringing off the hook.

interestingly, a friend asked me to teach their dog to do the same so I did. And so far he has not tried to "abuse the system" so it's working nicely for them.

 

[Jean Cote]

LOL!!!!! That is hilarious .

My husky sits and looks at me whenever she needs something, food, water or going outside. It's kind of freaky sometimes when I'm at the computer and she sits behind me and stares at me. But I like this behavior so I give her whatever she needs after. Actually I just say "What?" and she brings me to whatever she needs the food bowl, the door or the water bowl.

 

[storm22]

the worst one for me was speaking too, storm was virtually quiet he wouldnt even whine till he was about 1year old and i taught him to speak up, i did need it for shifting horses that are stubben but now he dont shut up he does sometimes (if hes listening) but thats a rare occasion when hes excited he just barks on and on and on

 

[CollieMan]

I wish I had never taught my dog to ring a bell to tell me when he wants to go potty.

I had hung a bell from the back door and taught him to ring it to tell me he needs to be let out. He learned it very quickly and it worked beautifully for a few days. However, pretty soon he figured he would just ring it anytime he wanted to go out into the yard whether or not he had to potty. And then from there he started to ring it just to get attention.

lol I've always fancied getting a doorbell and fixing it near the patio door, to see if I can get Ellie to push it when she wanted to go out. You've made me think twice!

 

[luna may]

I wish I had never taught my dog to ring a bell to tell me when he wants to go potty.

I had hung a bell from the back door and taught him to ring it to tell me he needs to be let out. He learned it very quickly and it worked beautifully for a few days. However, pretty soon he figured he would just ring it anytime he wanted to go out into the yard whether or not he had to potty. And then from there he started to ring it just to get attention.

So I stopped answering his rings if I KNEW he didn't need to potty. I wanted him to learn that only if he needed to potty should he ring the bell. But instead, this put his ringing behavior on a variable reinforcement schedule, since sometimes I would ignore his ring and sometimes I would answer it. And being on a variable reinforcement schedule, it made him even MORE persistent in his bell-ringing.

It got to the point where he was summoning me every 10 minutes in the evening like I was the maid. It was driving me crazy!!! Friends and family who were visiting were making fun of me too.

in the end I took the bell away. Still, he sometimes continues to use his nose to push against the door to make a noise, a left over behavior from his bell-ringing days. At least that sound is not nearly as annoying as the bell ringing off the hook.

interestingly, a friend asked me to teach their dog to do the same so I did. And so far he has not tried to "abuse the system" so it's working nicely for them.

Oh thank goodness you told me- I was just about to teach it! :dogblink:
*Imagines* *Faints*

 

[hockey390]

I too was going to teach the bell ringing, but I heard too many negative stories about it to finally teach it.. Good thing!

I wish I would have taught Emma lay down from a standing position instead of sit.. If I tell her to sit and don't give a "wait" command, she will almost immediately lay down thinking that is coming next.. I've been working on this one, but it is still a pain.

 

[l_l_a]

lol I've always fancied getting a doorbell and fixing it near the patio door, to see if I can get Ellie to push it when she wanted to go out. You've made me think twice!

Collie Man I think Ellie, smart girl that she is, will quickly figure out how to abuse the system too! I wouldn't give up dreams of teaching this behavior though, just that you may need to do extra planning BEFORE you start training to figure out how you will stay one step ahead of her!

 

[l_l_a]

Yeah, bell ringing off the hook all evening, for more than a few days, is NOT FUNNY ANYMORE!!

 

[emmasmamma]

Like Jean's husky, Emma comes to tell me what she wants (although I didn't teach her, she picked it up on her own) and she will ask to go out even though she doesn't have to go potty, she just want's to do laps around the back yard.