# doesn't respond to food lure



## blanca (Mar 5, 2011)

blanca, our white shepherd, is now 21 weeks old, and we've started training her some basic with a clicker.

we're slow in training, so she can do only "sit", "down" and "paw" now (she doesn't know "stay" or "come", but she runs to us immediately when we say "cookie", that's sth we didn't purposely teach her :laugh. i've also followed one of the posts to teach her "focus", so she (sometimes) knows to look at me instead of the treats.

here's the problem: she probably thinks if she wants the treats, she has to "sit" or "down" or "focus", she doesn't respond to any food lure at all, ie she won't follow me me if i hold a treat in my hand, she'd rather just sit and wait. i haven't succeeded in teaching her a release cue, so she'd just jump up on me when she gets impatient with sitting for too long. it makes it difficult to train her sth else, coz most training videos i watch use food lure to get the pup into the desired position, but mine just doesn't respond at all.

am i doing sth wrong? any idea how i can get passed this?

thanks.


----------



## BlackPuppy (Mar 29, 2007)

There are people who train without food. At puppy level, you can "mark" behavior with a command instead of a marker word. 

When you are with the puppy and you see it sit, say "sit" the instant her butt hits the ground. Then praise her. If you are consistant, she will catch on. 

I have a couple dogs who are TOO food oriented and I can't use food to train them. For some things, especially formal heel position, I found Ivan Balabanov's videos very good. But it might be too early for your puppy. 

Another idea is to wait until your puppy is very hungry to train her. I have heard of people who withhold food until training time and only feed during training.


----------



## blanca (Mar 5, 2011)

ah sorry for the confusion.... i didn't mean that she isn't interested in food, she's actually very food-oriented that i can get her attention using her usual kibble or almost anything as treats.

the thing is that she wants the treats so badly, and she thinks that she needs to "sit" or "focus" to get the treats. she won't sniff my hand at all, but will just sit nervously waiting for the treats.

in most training videos, trainers put food in hand and lure the pup into various positions because the pup will usually sniff trainers' hand and follow the treats. but my pup will only sit or lay down or look at me, but she doesn't move with my hand movement.

i think she's basically stuck in sitting, laying down and waiting...


----------



## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

Be more engaging, don't just stand there when you release her. My dogs have pretty solid default cues, no Halo in particular has been so heavily rewarded for "down" that it's sometimes hard to get her to get up again, lol! I ran into that with mat work, she didn't want to release off, even though we'd worked plenty on a release cue and she understood it just fine when it came time to be released to chase a toy or eat her food. So I added some movement, and tossed a treat immediately after the release.


----------

