Could use some guidance on a dog that feels impossible
Hello all,
I grew up with dogs but never really handled training until I recently moved out and got my own female standard schnauzer. She is currently 9 months old, I’ve had her for 4 months, and she feels impossible. I went into this with tons of time and energy to train her, but it seems like no matter what I do nothing helps. Firstly, her potty training is very poor, I am very consistent in doing all the standard techniques (remains in crate when not supervised, immediately taken outside after accident, praised and given treats when going outside, TONS and TONS of walks like 6+/day), and yet she frequently goes inside. And when she goes, it’s a very small amount so it’s not like she really needed to and couldn’t hold it, and this is the case for #1 and 2. Biting: she gets excited and bites REALLY hard, like extremely painful leaves marks and goes right for the face. I’ve tried disengaging and removing access to me as soon as she bites, she has plenty of toys to bite and I try giving her one when she bites me/others but she’s uninterested, I’ve tried scolding, placing in pen when she bites, she really does not care what I do. Counters/tables, she jumps up and nothing I do prevents this. When she does I say “no, down” and she looks at me and knows what I want, but won’t actually get down no matter how many times I say it until I get up to remove her from the table, at which point she immediately goes down herself. Walking: total nightmare, I’ve been trying the “you pull we don’t move” trick for 4 months and our walks often last 30 minutes and span about 150 feet. I’ve tried front clip harness, gentle leader and none of it helps. No recall, she understands recall well because indoors she’ll often come when called (although less and less recently), but when at the dog park she just looks at me and goes back to whatever she was doing, I can’t even take her anymore because it literally takes 30 minutes to get her back on the leash and leave. She’s well exercised (has been going to dog park near daily for months), walked basically every 2 hours and for long periods of time. My newest failing strategy is whenever I’m sure she understands what I want but doesn’t listen, I say it once again, and then put her in her pen if she doesn’t listen. Feels impossible, I knew a dog would be a lot of work but I thought that if I was truly willing to put in however much work she required that I would have a reasonably behaved dog. Is there anything I’m missing? Maybe something I’m doing wrong without realizing? Thanks in advance.