cairn terrier - obiedience

Question
Frodo is a 6th month old cairn terrier. We got him when he was 12 weeks old. At home he comes when I call, sits and lays down. My problems are: When we leave the house he pulls on the lead and ignores me totally - very stubborn. We have started dog school and there it is even worse I can hardly get him to to anything he always pulls and yowls when we have to stand still. I respond by being just as stubborn and stay still. At the end of the lesson we are both exhausted. The instructors there give me advice, but it works at home, but not in public.
Secondly - he is house trained, but I would like him to go in the same place every time instead of all over the lawn. How do I go about this?


Answer
Liesel -

OK - Pottying in one place.  Do you mean pee or poop ?  The second one is much harder to do. The first one can be done by using the little pee posts they sell or picking one of the places he usually goes. If you give a reward every time he uses the place you like, he will eventually be going there consistently.  If they have you using a clicker at training, use that.

The best way to handle a dog who pulls is to do 2 things.

1.  In the house work at a command called "look at me". It's easy to train by putting a treat by the outside corner of your eye - like you are pointing to it - and say look at me.  It won't take long before he reliably looks at you when you say it.

2.  You can right away start with this outside.  Every single time he even starts to pull, turn around and walk the other direction - do not slow down.  Once he quits pulling and catches up to you, you can turn around into the original direction.... but be prepared to do it again and again.

As long as you are consistent and persistent in not letting him pull on you, you can resolve the issue pretty quickly.

Now, the best thing anyone ever taught me is that instead of yelling or nagging at a dog who is doing something wrong, I instead interrupt them, and then ask for something good.  I use look at me or sit, and then give a treat.  This helps a ton at working on getting him to focus on you when there are other distractions.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

-Beth