Gun Dog Forum

I have a 4 month old german short hair he seems to have lost interest in training, he will not come to me lately and is uninterested in playing fetch.
any ideas???

With out any more info than you gave I really don't know but would strongly guess there has been too much training and not enough having fun. 4 Month old puppies are babies and need time to develop mentally as well as physically. Back off and work on socializing and manners type training and wait 3 or 4 months to get into much other training.

Welcome to our board. Have fun and hope we can help you along the way.

Ezzy

Birds birds birds. Get him on birds.

agree with ezzy.
4months you dont have to worry about him coming, just walk the other way. to much to soon and you wont have much of a stylish hunting dog.

take him where birds are and just let him run and enjoy, no need to say anything.

X 2 on what Ezzy posted.

Mo

How much training are you doing? At four months things should be fun. Training can and does take place but it should be more about fun and less about perfect style and such. When you say he won't come to you, there is a reason. You should be his source of fun and games. Don

Thanks guys! Just basic obedience, would it be best to wait awhile and start back up again?

Do some fun stuff!!!!!!! Go for walks, chase a duck, hide a dead pheasant or a hotdog, visit grandma, roll in the grass, take a nap, ride in the truck, go for a swim, play ball, have fun. Keep him safe but expose him to everything............ Do it in a fun way. Most of dat durn ol OB stuff will fall into place on it's own. Basic OB needs to be fun, in fact almost all training should be fun, keep it light and easy. Then clean it up when he's a bit older. Don

As a disabled veteran, I have an Irish Setter, 2 yrs. old. We NEVER start training before 6 mos or later. You've started way too early and you might have gone beyond his attention span. Never go over 20min. Maybe 30, but wait till he a little older. Let him grow up a little. The military helps me a lot in my training. Good luck.

Teething.


.

I train the bejeebers out of very young dogs. I really like to get puppies at 12 weeks. and work them until they are about 6 months old. But, my training sessions are puppy games in which they don't even know they are learning. They are respondly the way I want them to naturally to the pleasurable stimuli that I provide. In other words, as so many others have said, training needs to be fun for them at this stage as well as short. I believe the rule of thumb is one minute of training per month of age. Age is not the issue, the training method is! A brief word on not coming when called: your pup has associated coming to you with something he dislikes. Perhaps you are sending very intimidating messages non-verbally, or maybe you put him back in the pen, or you are interrupting his play time. Think about what you do consistently when you call him and then don't do it as often. Treat rewards at your pups age for recalling can be really effective for overcoming his aversion to recall.

whoadog wrote:I train the bejeebers out of very young dogs. I really like to get puppies at 12 weeks. and work them until they are about 6 months old. But, my training sessions are puppy games in which they don't even know they are learning. They are respondly the way I want them to naturally to the pleasurable stimuli that I provide. In other words, as so many others have said, training needs to be fun for them at this stage as well as short. I believe the rule of thumb is one minute of training per month of age. Age is not the issue, the training method is! A brief word on not coming when called: your pup has associated coming to you with something he dislikes. Perhaps you are sending very intimidating messages non-verbally, or maybe you put him back in the pen, or you are interrupting his play time. Think about what you do consistently when you call him and then don't do it as often. Treat rewards at your pups age for recalling can be really effective for overcoming his aversion to recall.

Wow! You read my mind, Ezzy too! The pup is associating training with something unpleasant, which usually points to some fault in the method and manner of training.

All dog training relies on the motivation of the dog . If you have a non bird dog breed all the birds in the world will not motivate the dog to see training as beneficial to the dog. Luckily you have a bird dog so learn to see this from the dogs perspective. The dog could care less about what it is that you want. At this age especially the dog is involved with doing what the dog is motivated to do. So training at this level as well as all others should be perceived by the dog as beneficial to the dog. In this respect clicker training is very effective at getting a dog to exhibit wanted behaviors. Since you are using food as a motivator the dog is fully engaged in the training process. This motivation can be adjusted by training when the dog is at his feeding time, using foods that are more desirable, or even skipping a meal to make the dog just a little more compliant. You have great control over the dogs motivation where the dogs desire may be a little lacking. There is no reason to not train for specific behaviors at this age as long as you can make sure the motivation is the dogs and not yours. Good luck with the dog.

Duckdon wrote:How much training are you doing? At four months things should be fun. Training can and does take place but it should be more about fun and less about perfect style and such. When you say he won't come to you, there is a reason. You should be his source of fun and games. Don

Couldn't agree more with Duckdon here. My Britt did the same thing and I followed advice on this forum. Once I made it a game for everything he clicked. At 9 months he's solid on sit, down stay, heel on and off leash. I only wish I would've skipped the sit command until I had him steady in the field. Might cause a few problems for the trainer on birds, but I think he's smart enough to figure it out. When he was teething, I switched to a really soft toy that was a stuffed pheasant and played with that. He is a beast on retreiving. I haven't seen even many labs with his retreive drive. But the important thing is keep it simple and keep it fun and tons and tons of praise. When it is too formal that young they get discouraged quickly.