Reddit mentions of PetSafe Treat & Train Manners Minder Remote Reward Dog Trainer

We did so much polite behavior training yesterday. Kirin did downs and sits while waiting for dogs, scooters, etc to pass! We had a funny moment with this guy watching us train and then he joined us for like 5 mins of our walk asking about him and the breed 😂. That was new for me ..

PS my American peeps the treat and train is on SUPER SALE on Amazon. $63+ tax! Ours gets here today which we bought off a friend and I'm so exited to use it for mat work!

PetSafe Treat & Train Manners Minder Remote Reward Dog Trainer https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0010B8CHG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_PpDPDbPE2XATX

Barking

The trick is not to reward silence after barking, but to shape not barking in the first place. Is your dog reacting to a stimuli? It sounds like he is barking for attention, not as a reaction to a trigger. A better approach would be to shape desired behavior and redirect to a different behavior before rewarding if the dog barks. Try doing place/mat training and focusing on shaping desired behaviors instead of reacting to bad ones. Really focus on offering lots of attention BEFORE the bad behavior starts and set them up on very short duration to practice being quiet (and doing the new desired behavior, like laying on a mat) before reinforcing. If the dog barks, it is very important to completely ignore them (no yelling, no eye contact). In the beginning, you may only offer a simple cue and reward them for doing something ELSE, and use that to build up and add duration to alternative behaviors rather than barking. Simply rewarding NOT barking doesn't teach them what to do instead (the game can easily become "bark then stop to get food"). Try having other people reward the dog randomly with praise, attention or small treats throughout the day. Try to randomize duration and frequency/type of rewards as soon as possible!

It will ALSO be very important to ensure the dog is getting plenty of exercise and stimulation. What is your exercise routine, currently? In addition to daily walks, add in conditioning work and be sure to train new behaviors regularly (tricks, sports, obedience, drill known skills, proof in different situations, etc). You should be spending at least 60-90 minutes every day working and exercising with your dog. JUST walks are usually not enough for a corgi. If you can build up a good routine between desired indoor behavior and plenty of exercise, you will likely see improvement with barking within a few weeks.

Seeing as this is a new dog to you, I'd strongly encourage enrolling in a training class with them and doing at least 2-3 levels of obedience with them, even if your dog know basic obedience already.

There are tips for doing this on the dog training wiki. See :

• Calmness and Relaxation
  
• ABCs of behavior modification
  
• Teach "Go to Bed" with free shaping
  
• Training Basics
  
  
  Waking up routine + Crate problems
  
  This is a routine for her now, so this will likely be the hardest one to work through. You need to do counter conditioning to improve her relationship with her crate and work up to having a good routine around using it at night (and other times during the day). The crate should be a NORMAL routine place, NOT a place for punishment! Never use a crate for 'time out' if the dog already has negative associations with parts of the crate experience! Here is a resource on crate training, you may want to revisit this from the beginning and blend it with place training to help reduce stress/anxiety with the crate.
  
  Ensure she is getting more exercise throughout the day to make it easier for her to sleep. Create a routine about getting up and modify the routine slowly over time to arrive at your final desired behavior. This is really common for training young puppies. An example is : Get up 15 minutes before your dog typically starts barking. Put them on leash. Take them outside on leash. Bring them back inside and put them back to bed (typically back in their crate or back in a controlled area where they sleep). Reward them for laying in bed quietly. Generally you would just let the dog whine and totally ignore them (no eye contact, no speaking, no gestured, nothing), but if you cannot deal with that, you can stay up and use this as an opportunity to work on your quiet alternative behaviors. There are also devices like the manners minder that can be a good tool for these types of scenarios. Over time (think a few weeks of establishing a routine), very gradually start to push back the time you get your dog up by a few minutes. This will take a few months, but is typically how young puppies can be trained to have better morning routines. Management of behavior, shaping of desired behavior, and redirection away from undesired behavior will be key when working through this.
  
  You may be better off starting with group classes at a reputable, positive reinforcement focused training club. Your problems revolve more around a dog lacking manners, routine, boredom, and good ways of asking for what it wants than anything else. A basic obedience course or two will help you build a better working relationship with your dog and likely give you many of the skills you will need to start working through these problems. Your trainer can also help answer questions and give you tips about specific behaviors you are struggling with. Most training classes will range between $80-200 for 4-8 weeks, depending on where you live, who th class is with and the duration of the class.
  
  
  Working through all of this will take time and I recommend breaking up these behaviors into very specific sets of circumstances to work on it. You want to work on changing the dogs reaction to a specific trigger (whatever that trigger is).
  
  Good luck!

I am currently working with a fear-aggressive dog. The absolute best thing to do is find a positive trainer who is experienced with this. Do not punish the barking, any negative reinforcement will increase the anxiety your dog feels. You want to move her to a distance where she feels safe and have someone come in, give her treats if (and only if she stays calm.) You need to try to find a distance where she is not too aroused. Have a friend come and stand by the door if thats what you need, then once she is calm have them jiggle the door knob, etc. If that is too much you can start by rewarding her for staying calm for noises outside. You can also practice giving her a cue to lie down on her mat before ever having anyone over.

Another helpful trick is "go home" once you get cricket to the point where she is comfortable when people enter if she is far from the door you can train her to go to her mat on cue, so that you can tell her to go to her safe spot when people come over. A relaxed down (stretched or on her side) is even better than sphinx style. She will learn that when people are over and she is on her mat she gets treats, otherwise she gets nothing.

To do this teach her 'down' and then have her lie on her mat. Every time she does this say "good go home!" once she has gotten the cue that "go home" is the same as down when she is on her mat, move two feet away and try again. This will take some patience, she may not understand immediately that "go home" means she needs to go to her mat. Just wait, if you get too frustrated you can move closer. Slowly increase the distance you are from the mat when you tell her "go home." It will help to give her the "go home" cue and then feed her on her mat. My dog gets super excited about it now. It can also help to have the manners minder so you can reward from a distance.

I would also suggest Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt. Particularly the "look at that!" game - where you teach your pup that whenever she looks at what she is afraid of she gets a treat.

Another excellent book is On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals by Turid Ragaas it's a really easy read and a really good introduction to doggy behavior. When dogs get nervous they have a whole range of signals they show to calm themselves down and to tell other dogs (or educated people) that they are nervous. You may see her flick her tongue, yawn, shake, sniff the ground, etc. You should reward these behaviors, since encouraging them will help Cricket stay calm.

Obviously I could go on and on. The main thing is try to make people coming over as good an experience as possible for her so that she becomes less and less afraid. You will also need a reward marker - for instance "Yes!" or preferably a clicker. The idea is you click exactly when she does something good. She lays down click. She yawns click. Yes! is somewhat less precise and it's undesirable to have inflections that she will try to interpret. Obviously teach her what these markers mean before using them in the stressful situation. (click then treat, click treat, Cricket! click when she looks then treat, etc.)

EDIT:

One more thing - be sure to completely ignore her barking. Do not try to comfort her, or give her treats. In fact the best thing to do is have your friend stand there and let her tire herself out. As soon as she stops and takes a breath reward her (a clicker is really useful here.) You can even have the friend move farther away when she stops. The idea is "barking gets you nothing, calm gets you everything." Obviously do your best to limit the times when she triggers, but they will inevitably happen

Good luck!

Oh, and there is a very low traffic dogtraining subreddit where dog nerds like me will be happy to go on long training rants for you any time :-)

I've just received the treat and train. I haven't used it yet, but the dvd that comes with it addresses the barking-at-the-door issue using the remote food dispenser. It's a device that beeps and emits treats and it comes with detailed foolproof instructions on how to teach your dog to settle on a mat when someone walks in the door. It might be something to look into if your dog is food motivated.

I have heard good things about this training club: http://www.sicdtc.org/
They appear not to offer private lessons, but perhaps you could call and see if you can get any kind of referral to a positive reinforcement trainer who will be able to come to your home. Failing that, their basic obedience classes might be enough to help you, particularly because there will be other people in the class, who might participate in reinforcing the no jumping, no mouthing behavior. Is this specific to guests in your home or does she do this with strangers outside as well?

I agree with /u/SuffragettePizza that board and trains are usually at best ineffective (because dogs don't generalize training well as he/she points out) and at worst harmful if the trainers use harsh methods you don't agree with - I would be particularly concerned about this with a muscled larger dog because there is some perception that these types of dogs need to be "forced into submission" and "only shocks and corrections work," etc. If you lose the argument with your dad and absolutely must use a board-and-train, Instinct Dog Training in Harlem uses only positive reinforcement in their board-and-train program. It would be a real trek for you, but I'd hate if you sent Genie elsewhere where they shocked her every time she jumped :(. This could make her go from being over excited to aggressive.

Here are some suggestions for the jumping behavior.

Do not let her practice this behavior. Jumping and mouthing is self-reinforcing so every time she does it, she gets rewarded for it and it becomes more likely that she will repeat this behavior in the future. If you do not wish to train her or work with her when particular guests come over, put her in a different room or contain her in some other way: crate her or tether her to her bed or mat and give her a chew toy to work on while your guests are present. Occasionally give her treats for remaining calm in the presence of guests.

I initially used the Treat and Train, which was specifically invented to reinforce calmness around guests. It's expensive, but not as expensive as several training sessions, and if you follow the dvd's instructions, it really does work, although it's a bit large and clunky and occasionally jams. I believe there are other treat dispensing machines out there so you can do more research into which one is the best one. I would actually pay the $100 just for the dvd that comes with the Treat and Train though because it has some really solid, comprehensive, easy to understand training videos especially tailored for overexcited jumpy dogs.

When you have guests who are able and willing to participate in training, keep her on a leash when they enter and prevent her from jumping on them or mouthing them. Tell your guests to complete ignore her, even turn their back on her, when she jumps and only pet her when she's sitting or lying down. To speed up this process, you can keep a jar of treats by the door and have the guest place the treat on the floor at their feet so Genie is forced to keep her head down to eat the treat as she gets petted. Here is a Kikopup video demonstrating this concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC_OKgQFgzw. Depending on how willing you are to act like a crazy person, you can practice this with one of your family members first to make it easier for Genie so she starts to understand what behavior is expected of her before a real exciting guest arrives. So, like, you could have your dad ring the bell, and then enter and pretend to greet everyone just as a guest would.

Sorry for the novel, hope this helps!

This has got to be the laziest, but most genius purchase I ever made: the Treat & Train treat dispenser. It's not super cheap, but I would pay 3 times the price for what it does! The dispenser can be set to dispense a treat at certain intervals without you having to do anything. So I just sit on the couch, and my dog will wait vigilantly for treats for HOURS. Seriously, if I left the thing on all day, I know he would sit there the whole time. He gets a brain workout from all that vigilance, and I get to do absolutely nothing.

My Kees used to do this exact thing - when I wasn't home she never barked or fussed but if I was home and she couldn't be near me (i.e. I'm in the bathroom) she acted like she was dying.

I never crated her when I was home except for overnight - I used an extra tall ex pen (the sides were over 4 feet tall) for when I couldn't watch her closely and mostly just let her follow me around the apartment. Even when I went to the bathroom or took a shower she just wanted to hang out next to me - she would just stand outside the shower and rest her head on the side of the tub watching me like a creep.

I used a manners minder to train some of this away - mostly for when my wife and I wanted a bit of time alone. Basically I filled it up with treats and went into my bedroom and shut the door. As I was closing the door (before she could start barking) I released a treat. Then I kept releasing treats as long as she was quiet. I did this for 5 mins, then 10, then longer. Always extending the time between treats and only releasing a treat if she was quiet.
It took several sessions but now she does a lot better being alone in the living room when I'm elsewhere in the apartment.

It sounds as if he's getting you trained. lol Dr. Sophia Yin created this awesome remote training device. You may want to try something like this out, to let you be away from him, instead of running down the stairs at his command. :)

Does your dog tend to bark more when you aren't around? If so, it might be helpful to record your voices and play that on loop so it seems like you're at home. I was lucky to get a good price on a [Manners Minder] (http://www.amazon.com/Premier-Treat-Remote-Reward-Trainer/dp/B0010B8CHG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409194417&sr=8-1&keywords=manners+minder). Sophia Yin designed it, and it's been great--it's a remote controlled treat dispenser, which helps a lot with "capturing" good behavior. Whenever there are any weird noises or voices, I discreetly press the button, so it actually seems like noises and people = magic treats to my dog. She no longer associates me being around with the treats, since I've been pressing the remote from outside the building also :-).

FWIW--I just moved to a new apartment, and previously it took a month to get my dog used to the new noises and stomping. Our new place is right across the street from some barking window dogs, and after three days of feeding my dog via remote, my dog is pretty calm and hardly responds to sounds.

Honestly if this were my dog I would go in the bathroom, turn on the water, and at the first bark dash out and say "no, quiet" I would do that for a bit then get in the shower, but I would also leave a shower soapy and wet to correct for barking. My dogs aren't allowed to bark ever though. I am pretty crazy about it, but I have to be, I could not have my dogs if they barked. If I had a problem barker I'd get a treat and train so I could reward quiet behavior without leaving the bathroom.

Treat and train https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0010B8CHG
Put the remote in a baggy so it doesn't get wet.

Yeah, it's tough. I love my pup like a first child, craziness and all. We've had a behavioral trainer come in home and help us make some modifications. The best thing we've done is use this:

https://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-Treat-Remote-Reward-Trainer/dp/B0010B8CHG

I can't imagine we paid this much for it, but we might have - being at the end of our rope and all. Basically it's remote controlled so it's super easy when holding a baby. Every time Maybe (our pup) looked at the baby we'd click the remote and it would beep and dispense a treat (we put it AWAY in a corner by her settle mat so she didn't have to get near the baby to get the treat). Then we gradually just started treating her for moving closer, etc.

> He'll quiet when told, but he resumes howling about 1 minute later. I assume he just howls to get the attention, negative or otherwise.

I would use something like a manners minder where you can remotely reinforce. I'd increase the rate of reward to you're rewarding just before he's likely to start howling, and then slowly build that duration up. It helps. :)

I had the exact same problem with our puppy. She would bark as soon as we got out of sight, and we tried the leaving/coming back thing and it really didn't work. If we were in another room of the house, she would bark for HOURS, not just minutes.

We tried everything for months, and finally, I got an automatic treat dispenser. There are a few different ones out there, but the one I got was Manners Minder. A little expensive, but definitely worth it. I put it on top of her crate so that the treats drop in. It has a remote control, so I can control when the treat is given to her, and also has a mode to just dispense treats randomly.

I used this to aid my training. When I went out of sight, I clicked to give her a treat. Then I would randomly keep clicking it while I was away. It took her a couple of days, but she finally realized that good things happen when she's in the crate and I leave the room.

When I leave the house in the morning, I set it to automatically give her treats incrementally. We don't live in an apartment, so it doesn't bother our neighbors, so I have no idea if she barks throughout the day, but I know she doesn't bark anymore when I first walk out of the door.

Also, try doing some basic training. Train the stay command as much as you can. The more he is used to staying in one place not doing anything, the more he will be ok with staying in his crate when you're not there.

But yea, try out an automatic treat dispenser. It was a life saver for us.

I have a Treat and Train It worked through walls for me.

Our Treat n Train Manners Minder arrived today! I'm so excited to try it out!!

1. Stuffed moose
   
   
2. IQ Treat Ball (she gets kibble in it)
   
   
3. Kong Wobbler (more kibble)
   
   
4. Treat & Train (still more kibble)
   
   
5. Snuffle mat (have I mentioned kibble?)
   
   So yeah, the only toy that has held her interest despite its inability to dispense food is the stuffed moose. I've actually put all the rest of her toys away in hopes of someday reintroducing them and having them seem novel again.

The basics (food, leash, collar, dishes, crate) will probably already be taken care of. I'd focus on training and positive dog-kid interaction, because it will set the stage for their relationship. If they're working together then it's easier to commit long term and be responsible, because it's enjoyable.

I guess it depends how much money are you looking to spend.

In the upper ranges, you could pay for a puppy kindergarten class (great for socialization, great for everyone involved).

Or maybe, a manners minder, a very effective training tool.

In the less expensive categories,

What about puzzle toys? They'll keep the puppy mentally stimulated, keep him quiet(er) when left alone, and give your family some peaceful breaks from the chaos. People need to destress too, in order to interact with dogs successfully.

• kong is a classic. Smear some peanut butter on the inside and it's like a puppy pacifier. Or, stuff it with mushy dog food and freeze it for an even longer lasting activity.
  
• JW treat ball is more active and will tire a puppy out. Treat balls are good for feeding kibble at mealtimes (no need to use dishes at every meal!).
  
  Maybe a portable dog water bottle/bowl for long walks? Something like this: gulpy water. That would encourage the idea of exercise and getting out and about, and also the idea that the puppy's well being and safety need to be accounted for.
  
  Books are a good idea too. It depends what his reading level is, and how much he enjoys reading. I wouldn't want to make puppy care tedious or a chore. There's a good training booklist here http://www.reddit.com/r/Dogtraining/wiki/books. If you think those would be a bit too heavy for him, maybe a book of dog trick ideas would be fun.
  
  The sooner kids interact positively with a puppy, the better it will go in the long run. On that note, like flibbertygiblet said, a clicker, treat bag, and a bag of tiny stinky treats would be a great idea. If you go the clicker route, I'd recommend starting with a quiet one, so the puppy doesn't get startled at first. Kids and puppies can be a bit unpredictable, so better safe than sorry. I like the iClick model.
  
  
  

Apologies for delayed response. Just saw this. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0010B8CHG/ref=asc_df_B0010B8CHG5263719/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B0010B8CHG&linkCode=df0&hvadid=218543830990&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2474541849567432655&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011703&hvtargid=pla-355745058183

It's quite pricey, but was well worth it. Especially considering the amount of treats I would have had to buy, additional trainer or behavioral consult sessions. I have gotten away with just using kibble to get the results I've needed with this device.

I'm not sure where you are or if this is available, but the treat and train would be a good option too! My trainer recommended it as a separation anxiety trainer, but in the end, my other efforts proved that I didn't need it. She also uses it for other training activities and keeping dogs interested in things.