Yard Training

- Spirit Rider -
Anyone have advice on teaching a pup his yard limit?
I let my pup play in the yard the other day and he wanted to tour the
neighborhood. I happened to be there when he took off and after 15
minutes
of
chasing him finally caught him. In the process I was scared he would
run
out in a busy street and get killed. Any advice would HIGHLY be
appreciated.

- Nehmo -
I might take a lot of work, but it's possible to train a dog to stay
within pre-designated physical limits. Basically, you have to
communicate to the dog what these limits are, and this is possible even
with a puppy.

Have a seat outside while allowing your dog to run free. Every time, I
repeat, _every_time_ your dog crosses a border of the area, you say,
"No!", or whatever you say to communicate disapproval. Once the dog
re-crosses the border and returns to your area, you communicate approval
with "Good dog", or whatever you use.

If your dog leaves the area and doesn't respond to your disapproval or
commands to return, you must immediately go get him. Don't discipline
him after you catch him, but as soon as you cross the border with him
back into the yard, start praising him for being back home.

After your dog is trained to stay in the area while you are outside,
start leaving him outside alone - while you watch through a window. Do
the same thing: if you see him leave the area, go outside and show
disapproval, then approval when he comes back into the area.

Dogs have a highly refined sense of territory. Once you have an
understanding with your dog on this subject, you can easily adapt the
area limits to fit new circumstances. The designated area can change
form a room in a New York apartment to a ranch in Kansas.






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* Nehmo Sergheyev *
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In rec.pets.dogs.misc Nehmo Sergheyev wrote:
I might take a lot of work, but it's possible to train a dog to stay
within pre-designated physical limits. Basically, you have to
communicate to the dog what these limits are, and this is possible even
with a puppy.

It is inedded possible to teach SOME dogs to stay within pre-designated
physical limits. To do so you need to start with a dog that has some
sense of territory. Many dogs have little or none. Some dogs are
oriented only toward their pack members, with virtually no affinity for
place. Some dogs are primarily oriented toward the hunt with neither pack
nor place taking priority.

Have a seat outside while allowing your dog to run free. Every time, I
repeat, _every_time_ your dog crosses a border of the area, you say,
"No!", or whatever you say to communicate disapproval. Once the dog
re-crosses the border and returns to your area, you communicate approval
with "Good dog", or whatever you use.

This step must, of course, include every likely distraction and
temptation. It also must continue well into the maturity of the dog as
the dog's drives and behavior change with maturity. A dog that is not at
all territorial at 6 months may become quite so at 18 months. And during
all this training other issues must be carefully evaluated. For example
the dog's behavior toward delivery people and other service people must be
oberved to ensure that the dog won't become a danger to them. That is
often the case with a dog that can be territory trained. It is because
they care about territory that they become aggressive in their defence of
it. And even if the person judges the dog not to be a danger the behavior
of the dog must be such that none of these people *feel* in danger. Dog
owners can be and have been successfully sued when a person frightened by
the behavior of the apparently unrestrained dog steps into the street and
is hit by a car, or trips and falls in an effort to evade the dog. In
these cases the reasonable fear of the person rules - that the dog would
not or could not cause harm was not a defences.

If your dog leaves the area and doesn't respond to your disapproval or
commands to return, you must immediately go get him. Don't discipline
him after you catch him, but as soon as you cross the border with him
back into the yard, start praising him for being back home.

After your dog is trained to stay in the area while you are outside,
start leaving him outside alone - while you watch through a window. Do
the same thing: if you see him leave the area, go outside and show
disapproval, then approval when he comes back into the area.

Dogs have a highly refined sense of territory.

Actually only some dogs have a highly refined sense of territory. Many
dogs do not care about territory. Even among dogs with a sense of
territory there are other drives e.g. prey drive that may predominate and
defeat attempts at boundary training.

Once you have an
understanding with your dog on this subject, you can easily adapt the
area limits to fit new circumstances. The designated area can change
form a room in a New York apartment to a ranch in Kansas.

There are an awful lot of dead dogs whose owner's refrain is "Funny, he
never did that before." Boundary training is labor intensive even when
successful. Even when the goal of recognizing the boundary is achieved
there are many downsides to leaving a dog unsupervised and uncontained.
For the vast majority of dog owners it is a loser in the benefit-risk
assessment.

Diane Blackman