Can you achieve a reliable recall and build focus with a stubborn or independent breed?
Can you still use reward-based methods with a dog who does great at training at home, but ignores treats and gets completely distracted on walks?
The short answer is yes. You just have to do things a little differently.
We get a lot of messages from folks saying “I’d like to join your training program, but I have a [INSERT BREED HERE] and they’re really hard to train. Can you still help?”
Usually, they’re talking about Siberian huskies, Alaskan malamutes, cattle dogs/heelers, hounds, or livestock guardians like Great Pyrenees.
But we’ve been asked that about pretty much any breed you can imagine. Including Italian greyhounds and Yorkshire terriers, interestingly enough. Should I be offended that people collectively seem to doubt our ability to train any dog?
Jokes aside, I get it:
There are some breeds (and individuals) with a reputation for being, shall we say, hardheaded. Having a mind of their own, dancing to the beat of their own drum. Your liver treats or stern tone be damned.
First of all, yes. We can help. In fact, a lot of our methodology is specifically geared towards these dogs. We have a soft spot for the strong independent types who don’t need no man. (See origin story below)
But I won’t lie to you and say training a “difficult” dog is exactly like training an “eager to please” dog.
The secret is in tapping into the stubborn dog’s unique strengths and instincts. To figure out how, we have to talk about exactly why these dogs are hard to train. Strap in and let’s dive into some key concepts they never taught you in puppy class.
Why some breeds are harder to train: Environmental focus vs handler focus
If you have a husky or a hound or something like that, I’m willing to bet there have been times where you have felt disheartened by the fact that they don’t really respond to training the way all those malinois, border collies, Dobermans, and shepherds on social media do.
Ya know – all those dogs walking in a perfect heel, gazing up at their humans in adoration, all while inspirational music or a motivational speech from some random alpha bro plays in the background.
It might feel like your dog just didn’t get that eager-to-please gene.
And to some extent, that’s probably literally true.
Some dogs were bred to work more independently of humans and be more environmentally-focused than handler-focused.
I mean, if a musher tells their team of sled dogs to turn right, but turning right would cause them all to fall into an icy river and die, the dogs have to be able to say “yeah nah, we’re not gonna do that, pal. TO THE LEFT.”
A livestock guardian’s job is to scan the environment, assess potential threats, and respond accordingly. With little to no human intervention.
And scenthounds? Their sense of smell is light years beyond human comprehension. So yeah, they’re gonna make their own decisions and get distracted by their noses sometimes.
Compare that to handler-focused types like border collies, Belgian malinois, or golden retrievers. They were bred to work very closely with humans and quickly respond to commands, so they’re easier to train.
(In theory, anyway. Those little overachievers certainly come with their own challenges)
We tend to call handler-focused dogs “eager to please.” Maybe that’s accurate, maybe not.
Regardless, what I think really makes them easy to train is that they have a lot of patience for human bullshit.
Our sloppy communication, poorly timed cues, mediocre rewards, and other training mistakes. They love doing the work, so they put up with all that.
Whereas a more environmentally-focused dog isn’t inherently motivated by that kind of work, so they’re less tolerant of bullshit. They’re more motivated by exploration and finding their own fun. If they don’t understand exactly what you’re asking and what’s in it for them, they’ll be all “peace out, bro.”
If you’re desperately waving cookies in the face of a environmentally-focused dog, you’ve lost them.
Why waving cookies doesn’t work: the Grand Canyon Problem
Imagine you’re at an exciting new place. The Grand Canyon, for example.
After a long drive through the desert, you walk up to the rim and gaze into the abyss for the first time and holy cow! It’s wondrous.
But five seconds into this experience, your friend/partner/sibling/parent steps in front of you, waving their arms and saying “hey! Hey! Heeeey! What about ME? Aren’t I grand, too?”
What feelings would you be feeling toward this person in that moment? Affection? Curiosity? Respect?
I’m gonna guess none of the above.
But when we wave treats in a distracted dog’s face to distract them from a distraction, that’s pretty much exactly what we’re doing.
I certainly wouldn’t blame you for trying that tactic, though. It’s very common and it’s where a lot of us former correction-based trainers start when we begin haphazardly experimenting with positive training methods.
It’s also why a lot of people try reward-based training and then give up in frustration, assuming it doesn’t work for their dog.
The problem with treat-waving, see, is that it doesn’t make the dog WANT to engage with you. And it doesn’t let them make the choice.
When a dog chooses to engage with you because they want to, that’s a gazillion times more powerful than if they only engage with you to get the annoying treat waving to stop.
But don’t swing too far in the opposite direction, because corrections and punishment can also make you lose them. Hearing “no” too many times can shut them down and extinguish their tiny ember of interest in training.
So what do you do?
Meet them where they’re at.
It might seem like your dog isn’t reward-motivated, but really, they’re INCREDIBLY reward-motivated.
They tell you loud and clear what they’re motivated by all the time. But if you’re busy thinking of those motivations as problems instead of opportunities, you won’t see it.
Which brings us to another analogy:
The Pizza Party Problem
Have you ever had a boss whose very brightest idea for keeping their employees from rage quitting en masse was to throw pizza parties in the break room?
What would ACTUALLY lift your spirits is a pay raise, of course.
But no.
Just endless boxes of room-temperature pizza under the buzzing florescent lights, as far as the eye can see.
Annoying, right?
Pizza’s nice, but pizza doesn’t pay the bills. It’s the wrong reinforcer for your behavior. Therefore, the joking-but-not-joking whispers of a mass employee walk-out continue to roil just beneath the surface.
When our dogs are busy engaging in distracting activities like hunting squirrels or exploring new places, forcing them to come to us for a treat is like throwing them a pizza party: the treat might be nice, but it ain’t what they need and it’s not effective.
And sometimes, it’s actively irritating to the dog.
Competing with the rest of the world and begging for your dog’s attention is no fun for either end of the leash.
But the good news is that….
We don’t have to be our dog’s annoying boss. We can be their partner in crime instead
When you think about it, most environment-focused dogs are not total lone wolves; they were still bred to work as a team with their human, just in a broader way.
A way that is less about gazing into each other’s eyes, and more about looking outwardly together, united in a common goal.
Hunting together.
Protecting the flock.
Tracking the missing person.
Finding the safe path through ice and snow.
Exploration driven by an insatiable, mutual curiosity:
What’s around the bend?
When your “herding dog” turns out to be a husky in disguise
You know the cliche about how the universe gives you the dog you need, not the dog you want?
Sometimes it’s true.
Much of the methodology we teach in our programs these days is based on our experience raising our own stubborn little ray of sunshine.
Here’s the shortest version of that story:
When we met Flower, a scared puppy in a Melbourne animal shelter, we fell in love immediately.
We thought she was a kelpie/border collie mix. We looked forward to having an intense, high-drive dog who would happily spend hours playing Frisbee and participating in all the training projects our nerdy little dog trainer hearts desired.
As she grew up, it became clear that she was… not that.
At the park, she was not highly tuned into us, eagerly awaiting our every command the way our handler-focused herding dogs have always been.
She wanted to do her own thing. It was kind of like we didn’t exist. Incredibly high prey drive, she became obsessed with searching for little critters hiding in the landscaping. She didn’t give a single shit about frisbee or fetch of any kind.
Her DNA test results shed some light on the situation.
She does have a smidge of border collie in the mix, but mostly she’s Siberian husky, Alaskan malamute, Rottweiler, and – the real wild card – one quarter Maremma sheepdog, a type of big ol’ fluffy livestock guardian.
The Maremma thing explained why she towered over all the other herding dogs at the park, at least.
So long story short, there was a transition period of being bummed out and frustrated while we let go of the dream of the dog we wanted, and embraced the dream of the dog we had.
We abandoned the Frisbee dog idea and started joining Flower in the activities she wanted to do.
When it came to teaching her the important commands and skills she needed to know in order to safely live in human society, we broke things down into smaller, clearer steps to fit her learning style and short attention span.
We set our delicate egos aside, loosened the reins, and let Flower lead the way for a while.
This resulted in a more engaged, responsive dog with a strong recall, and a bond stronger than ever before.
On adventures, Flower no longer acts like we don’t exist. She’s happy to have us there with her. Instead of staying just out of reach so we can’t take her away from her fun, she sees us as part of the fun. She stays close and keeps track of us, looking over frequently as if to say:
Whoa, did you see that?
Come look at this!
What have you got there? Find something cool?
Isn’t this fun?
The love and loyalty of an environment-focused dog is no less real than that of a handler-focused dog. It just might look a little different.
The 3 Lost Dogs Academy strategy for training and relationship-building with your bullshit-intolerant dog
This post is too long already, so here’s a quick look at some of the elements of our strategy for building this kind of connection:
Stop fighting the environment in a never-ending, futile war for your dog’s attention, and turn those distractions into rewards.
Teach the dog to how to work for environmental reinforcers. Exploration, sniffing, movement, birdwatching, safe kinds of prey-stalking… there’s a long list of “problems” and “distractions” that can be put to work FOR you.
Split training goals into smaller steps and make it easy for the dog to be successful, to gently fan their tiny ember of interest in training.
A common mistake we see is that people make the steps too big. And when they inevitably hit roadblocks in their training, they try to muscle their way through in the name of consistency or “repetition, repetition, repetition” or whatever else a dog trainer lectured them about at some point.
My training-obsessed border collie, bless him, thought that kind of thing was a fun challenge. My husky mix thinks that shit sucks and wants nothing to do with it.
Establish a strong reinforcement history for the commands you want to teach, so that your dog will still listen even when they can’t have the distraction as a reward.
Sorry Sparky, you can’t eat the neighbor’s cat no matter how nicely you ask.
Another common mistake is the assumption that the training process for a command ends as soon as the dog knows what it means. The truth is that putting a behavior on cue is just the beginning of the training process, and the key to reliability is establishing a long history of reinforcement with a wide variety of reinforcers.
Which sounds really tedious when I say it like that, but it doesn’t have to be. Because a lot of this can be achieved naturally by the next element.
Do fun stuff together regardless of its value as a reinforcer.
Yes, training is important. But we also have to stop worrying so damn much about rewards and punishment, and just chill out sometimes.
Be goofy. Explore and play just for the hell of it. Turns walks into a team activity, so you and your dog become adventure partners, instead of making you both feel like you’re just there to keep them out of traffic and pick up their poop.
Focus on the relationship and building trust. Being worthy of trust. This will go a long way towards getting your dog to want to spend time with you and do what you say.
And when you do all this right, magic happens.
Take Brota the Malamute for instance.
When Team Brota came to our coaching program, there was a big disconnect between human and canine. It’s been an honor to watch them build their relationship and become a true team:
They even managed to achieve the holy grail of husky/malamute training, and built a recall that worked when they needed it most:
tl;dr yes, you can train a stubborn, hard-to-train dog
You can get your husky to come when called.
You can get your beagle to focus.
And it doesn’t have to be frustrating. Training can actually be something you and your dog enjoy, instead of just endure.
It all starts when you stop comparing them to the show-off Belgian malinois doing a perfect heel on Instagram, and start embracing your dog’s unique strengths and instincts.
And no offense to my own little maligator, but I’m way more impressed by a malamute with a recall than I am by a malinois with a fancy heel, anyway.
