Don't know if I put this in the right forum, but I'd appreciate any help all of you experienced people could give me, even though I'm not exactly a newbie, having 15 years of experience with dogs. I love my 2-year old Malinois female to death, but I find it almost impossible to motivate her to work. I wanted to do IPO work with her and with that in mind I got her from a breeder that centers on the working dog qualities, but when I took her to the training ground and to my very qualified trainer, she laid down and ate grass despite his attempts to engage her. We tried several times but he told me that wasn't it for her. Subsequently I have tried tracking, searching for objects, obedience and my dogsitter has tried agility, but still problems occur. She's now just over 2 years old, and I'm at my wits end. I talked to several trainers and they told me to wait her out for a bit, but this is what happens: Tracking - blood tracks, she goes "yeah so there's blood there, what do you want me to do about it?" This is despite the fact that she LOVES food and I use the front leg of a deer with meat still on it as the target/bait. She will track SLOWLY and lazily no matter how much I try to rile her up, and if I have to adjust her just a little bit she'll quit and/or lay down. Searching for objects - She loves to do the searching, but won't bring the objects back no matter what I do, ie trade the item for a snack etc. Obedience - Starving and in the morning before she's even peed it works for a little bit, then she lies down and loses focus. This has gotten better though, I've worked a TON on contact with exercises and games. I seriously doubt we'll ever get to a competition level though Agility - One round works fine, then she seems to think "Ok, done that and finished."
I'd be grateful for any help, I got myself a working dog and I'd like to work with her! There's nothing wrong with her energy or will in general, and her physical condition is tip top.
I know that bjorn and others here that can aswer your questions, I just hope bjorn will come back to visit this forum soon. Dont give up on waiting...
I had a Tervueren grey female before this dog, she was alsow very hard to motivate. You said that your dog loves food, but that it dosent help . Try to lern her to love something else then. A ball or anything that will later motivate her to work.
Dont play with her other times then when you work with her and dont make it a big deal from the beginning, try to make her think that she is not working. Play with her more then do boring stuff. Maby she will get interesed. I usually hide the dogs favorit ball and take it out from time to time at home. I play with him 1 minute or less so he gets rellay pumped up, then I hide it just when he is most interested.
Well, there are some people who can answer your questions here. Just dont give up on waiting...
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Yes she loves food, but I starved her for 48 hours and then laid a track with food stomped down in the trail, it went well until she strayed from it, I gave her time to get back on track but she seems to get kinda blocked, I had to correct her and tried to do it as smoothly and gently as possible but she quit the second I corrected her, it was as if she said "my way or no way"
She likes balls as well, but NO toy is funnier than that she doesn't bother if she has to work to get/find it I have toys like you talk about that she rarely gets to play with and I use them for fetching work but the minute I take it away she isn't interested anymore
I really hope somebody can help, I have trained with my IPO trainer as well as a hunting trainer for the tracking and searching work, but nothing even though they're both very good trainers.
Sounds like you have never found the right motivation for your dog. If you are sure nothing fysical is wrong and the dog does have a lot of energie it should be possible to find a way to work her. Maybe it works to put in a bridge signal like a clicker. If she loves food this should work. You need to work her in really short sessions and make sure you stop before she even starts to lose interrest. For me it is hard to explane the way the clicker works in the brain in English but you can find lots of articals in English on the internet. Motivation should be the key word and motivation can be anything. If she loves to run free she needs to do a short training, the reward is running free. If she loves to eat you can use her diner, healing for a couple of staps means go to your food. For some dogs building motivation can be done by putting them on a leach and play with an other dog in front of them for a couple of times. ( I think its called competative learning in English) Then some dogs just like to be a nice famely pet even the ones bred from working lines. If the dog lacks courage it might even be mean to trie and work them in Ipo. I really think the dog should like it as wel. Good luck
I can only agree with Jeannette. Try to find out what you dog would kill for and try to work her for only very short times (one excersise maybe enough at the beginning).
When you tried to work with her, was this always in a working environment like training grounds? Or does she also have this problem when you try to build in short excersises when you go for a walk?
Saskia
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Again people, thank you for your input and ideas, but I am at my wits end with this. Clicker I tried with my obedience trainer, she doesn't care after a while, not even food is incentive enough (see tracking in my orig post for description). She's almost never on a leash, but being on one doesn't faze her in the least. Neither does watching other dogs work or play, she'll just watch for a tiny moment and then do something else like lie down and look, or look away or eat grass. Like I said before, obedience works for 5 mins in the morning, but other than that I still haven't found anything to make her WANT to work. I agree that it's about motivation, that's what I can't seem to find in her. I'm not the kind of person who wants to keep her on a leash for two days and starve her as well to make her go practically nuts so I can work with her, I would just like to find what makes her tick so we could have more fun than just regular 3-hour walks in the forest. :-/
Maybe you can use the walks as an incentive. Do the excersises during the walks, preferably the first half. But do not do more than one excersise at the time (like sit and then lay down and then continue the walk). Then try to reward her in different ways and see what has the most effect. If you see that it is working with just one excersise at the time then gradually build up the length of the excersises.
Saskia
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He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.
My dog wasn?t interested, just like yours (you dont need another dog). I made her interesed, but it took time. We were compeeting in obedience III in the end, she was usually older then the other dogs, but the was always 1, 2 or 3rd. So there must be a solution to this problem.
This is the way I did:
When we walked in the forest, I did only one thing with her (like saskia wrote). Sit, stay or what ever. If she wasn?t interested in me I always ran away from her, and when she came to me, we played with something for a very short time. I always stoped playing when she got little interesed and belive me, it was hard to make her. When I said sit and she did it, I played with her emediatly and I was jumping around happy happy, like if I won a milion dollars or something. She couldent belive, it was that good what she did so... everytime she did something I said to her, she waited too see what I would do. That was the beginning of everything. In that way I got contact with her to start the real obedience training.
I think you need better contact with your dog. It takes time to get a real good contact. Your dog is only 2 years old, dont just give up on her. It is different too make contact with non interesed dogs, then with dogs that are interesed, but in other things then you.
If I jump around like that with my new dog, like I did with the female, he would get creazy
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It is not so uncommon, although it sounds strange, for BSD to lack interest in working although they come from working lines. It takes a long time to train them and the dogs I know never really got to like it and preferred a life as a house pet.
Saskia
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He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.
It is not so uncommon, although it sounds strange, for BSD to lack interest in working although they come from working lines. ?It takes a long time to train them and the dogs I know never really got to like it and preferred a life as a house pet.
Saskia
That was what I was going to say, but I got a bit upset I CAN make Uzie do things, but I cannot make her want to. There's a huge difference between those, and she seems happiest to roam around the forest and play with her friends. These things she can do 24/7, nothing wrong with her energy just her desire to work.
I have now begun to take away her toys and bring them with me on walks, then I will hid them in the woods. She loves that, but as soon as I make her wait to search and to come back to me with the toy (even though I do it VERY playfully, jumping around like she'd done the greatest thing ever), after a couple times (two)she quits and leaves the toy. Today it's just going to be the one time, I will also try leaving her tied to a tree and get the toy myself. I will feel REALLY silly
yeah, do that, she will get like ?, what it she doing now? Why dosent she give the toy to me ?
Yes, do a thing only one time and the be happy happy, she really needs that. But do like that for a longer time, maby a few months.
One more thing...when she does something you told her, dont wait a second to be happy and play, everything must happen fast. After that, tell her "hopp och lek" or something. But do that like with a tone, now we are not having fun anymore.
I did that many times, went to forest, tied her up by a tree and walked away from her, played with a toy my self or told her to come, and she got exited when she couldent do it.
Just dont give up, Im an expert on dogs like that, because I had one my self for 16 years, but Im not on the kinds I have now...
In one way its good to have a dog like that, because you can lern the dog to do stuff and later make her to like it. The only thing is that you must do it the right way and everyting comes in place.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2004, 02:55:54 PM by admin »
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The truth is out there, but so are the lies. - Dana Scully
i have seen this problem by other dogs too. My opinium:
first take away all her toys and then chose for one kind of training. Not agility, Clicker , food. Perhaps you have done too much in a joung age of this dog.
Thake her with jou and a long line van 5 meter. put the line around a three of somthing like this. than you need a toy and for a Malinois is a biteroll the best. But don't take it in you hands put it on a long line too. Stay 1-2 meter away from the dog and play with the biteroll. if she shows interess in that thing let her bite and fight a little bit. But not to hard - she must win. If she lost it take it very fast away with the long line and begin again. do this 3-4 times and the stop. If she has s strong charakter you can also take a swipe with you. this is the methode from Manfred Motz. Only if the dog shows enough drift of the toy you can begin to work. If you found it interesting i will tell ou more.
Author
Don't know if I put this in the right forum, but I'd appreciate any help all of you experienced people could give me, even though I'm not exactly a newbie, having 15 years of experience with dogs.
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I have toys like you talk about that she rarely gets to play with and I use them for fetching work but the minute I take it away she isn't interested anymore 
everytime she did something I said to her, she waited too see what I would do. That was the beginning of everything. In that way I got contact with her to start the real obedience training.
I CAN make Uzie do things, but I cannot make her want to. There's a huge difference between those, and she seems happiest to roam around the forest and play with her friends. These things she can do 24/7, nothing wrong with her energy just her desire to work.
