Can You Teach an Old Dog New Tricks?

We have been dog training in Ponteland recently with Oliver the golden retriever.

Oliver quite badly reacts to other dogs. Mainly those that are moving quite fast like spaniels or chasing balls etc.

He is an 8.5 years old rescue so this is teaching an old dog new tricks, which will take longer than a younger dog. The family he is with has A LOT of Golden Retrievers and it's heaven walking into their house.

Oliver seems to be very conflicted with other dogs, he seems to be frustrated that he can’t get there, and then because he’s got frustrated that he can’t get there, they’ve almost become aversive to him.

Essentially what we’re doing is when he sees a dog at a distance where he can handle it, we start putting food in front, so he sees a dog, we put a bit of food on the floor in front of him, and when his head comes up from that food, he sees the dog again and then we put a bit of food on the floor in front of him again, this way he’s learning to process that dog being there without having to react at it. If we think he’s going to react, we’ve taught him a cue so we can call him away.

On a whole, he did really well on this session, we did get a little bit of reactivity and he did pull on the lead out of his owner's hand to get to a dog, but like I say once he’s there, he seems quite happy to be there, he seems quite playful and wants to interact with the dogs.

Well done Oliver and family - they've done really well.

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