Dog Health Questions: I need advice on dog training?

I have a 6 month old male shih tzu named Conner. Recently we did some obedience training with our dog with our local Kennel Club (the last training class was last night).

Conner did very well with obedience training but now Conner won't come when he's called. I say his name and tell him to come and all he does is sit there and looks at me like I'm from a different planet. How can I train my dog to come to me when he's called? Is this just a phase that my dog is going through? Will he grow out of it?

Were getting Conner nutered on friday and my husband thinks that Conner will listen better after he's been nutered. Is my husband right?

Dog Training - Enjoyable Dog Obedience Training Techniques

Recommended Answer:
Well, nuetering him will help. You should have done it alot sooner. Hopefully he hasn't started spraying everywhere!

What you can do is give him a treat when you call him. He'll learn that coming when called will result in a treat.

Do it regularly for the first day. So he gets a treat every time. Then the next day, every other time, and so on and so forth.

That should really help!

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• The first question you have to ask yourself is: Does Conner know what "Come" means. If he does, and is simply refusing to comply it's time to go back to square one. Put a leash and collar on him and tell him to "Come" if he fails to comply issue a leash correction. He must learn that there are consequences to not obeying commands that he knows and understands if not he'll do what he wants on his own terms and needless to say that can be very dangerous when you're talking about a dog who won't come on command (could get hit by a car or a plethora of different things). I hope I helped if you have any other questions feel free to e-mail me I'd be happy to help! Good luck!


• Your husband's wrong. Neutering isn't going to make Conner understand the English language any better at all.
  
  I think part of it might be his age - dogs go through a stage where they rebel. But it mostly sounds to me like he just plain doesn't understand what you want. Did he thoroughly understand this command before you expected him to obey it off leash? This is a command you absolutely never give a dog when you can't enforce it. That means you never give this command to an off-leash dog until he obeys it 100% of the time when he's on leash. That takes a lot of training for the average dog.
  
  Your puppy's only 6 months, he needs to work on this command with the leash on until he's really reliable before you let him try it with no control. Put him on a light-line after he's reliable on the leash so he thinks he's free.
  
  At this stage, if he's sitting there looking at you, he's got to go back to the beginning of the recall. Be more patient and go slower with him, he's still really young.


• No Not So Ever.
  
  Blow a whistle and than give a treat. slowly scoot back every time.


• neutering wont change calling to come, unless he is distracted by a female and that is why he wont come. training done by force can often lead dogs to believe that there will be a leash drag following come. training done with treats in view may cause dog to think i am not coming unless you show me a treat. squat down, pat your legs and have a piece of chicken in your hand... or go up to him and run away so he wants to chase you. reward him when he gets there! make him earn all his food for coming and other training. you should ask your trainer, since you already paid for a service you should get a follow up question


• Well, I have two awesome dogs, due to the news paper take a old newspaper for bigger dogs, catalogs for medium, and an envelope for small dogs!
  Hit them on the mouth with it, I have a dog that hates the news paper and all we have to do is just pick it up and he stops we are currently trying to train our puppy, we breeded pitbulls at once...and for everyone we've had enculding a lab/pit is affaid of any type of paper because of the noise!!-Liv


• One class does not a trained dog make. You should have learned that you do not give a command to a dog when you have no way of ensuring it is done. Likely you went to a puppy class and it was good that you learned some things but you need to continue with classes and training as the dog is not 'trained' and neither are you :) It is like assuming your child can be a rocket scientist with one math class :)
  
  add: OMG do NOT hit your dog with a newspaper! Don't hit him with anything! Would YOU want to come to someone that was always whacking your with stuff??? geeez!