Obeys perfectly until distracted. Then, I don't exist? Help?

My dog is a GSD mix. She is between 14 to 16 months old. She was a drop-off that showed up on my land and I rescued her on March 23rd. She apparently had no training at all.

I have been training her over the last month. She does super great during the training sessions and has learned many commands. She understands Sit, Lay Down, Fetch, Load Up (to get in vehicles), Heel, Come, and a few more. When she is on a leash and I have her attention, she is like a robot and obeys my every word. She does the same when she is off-leash as well, UNTIL..... she get distracted, and then, I cease to exist, and nothing I say or do has any effect on her. I mean zip. zilch, nada!

This is a real problem that I MUST correct and I need serious real methods to correct this. She runs off and it will get her killed. I live in the country and she will run after a car that she hears on the road a quarter-mile away. I have wild animals like hogs, packs of coyotes, and bobcats. Additionally, she looks a lot like a large coyote and every farmer around here carries a gun and will shoot her on sight. In fact, she had already been shot before I found her.

She has to obey me or she cannot have freedom, not where I live, and I do not believe in keeping dogs on chains or cages. I am willing to put in however much work it takes, I just need to know how to teach her to listen to me, over everything else at all times.

Again, I am looking for serious real methods. I have done a lot of searching and have read hundreds of posts before posting this and have not really found anything on how to deal with this issue.

Thanks in advance.

So if I get this right, you have taken in a stray that had no training whatsoever about 2-3 weeks ago and expect the training you have given her to be good enough to hold with distractions???

If that is correct, your expectations are way off the charts.

Build on the basic training. Get the commands rock solid without distractions then GRADUALLY build them in

No. You don't have it straight at all. Not even close.

You got her on March 23rd and it's now the 18th of April????

How long I have had her is irrelevant to the question. Please, if you don't have something helpful to offer, goes somewhere else.

John, I was trying to be helpful.

Your expectations are way too high.

Get those basic commands rock solid without distractions, then add mild distractions, when they are solid, more robust distractions.

Honestly, a little bit of patience pays high dividends in dog training

No, Chris, you were being judgemental and making assumptions based on your preconceived notions.

I did not state what my expectations are, you ASSUMED those. I stated what my NEEDS are. You did not read the OP, or you did not understand it. If you would have read it, you would have seen this line.

"I am willing to put in however much work it takes, I just need to know how to teach her to listen to me"

My" Expectations" are that this is going to take work from me, and my understanding is that I need to learn to achieve it. My expectations are that if I fail to help my dog, she will die run over or shot. Those are my expectations.

I may need to learn how to teach my dog, but you need to learn three things.

1. Read and understand what is written.
2. Stop Assuming things.
3. Stop being judgemental.

If I have offended, I apologise

Okay. I appreciate that. Take a big person to do that and I accept it.

My dog is an amazing dog and has far exceeded my wildest expectations in the short time I have had her. Unfortunately, the hard reality is, where I live, if she runs off chasing a rabbit or a car, she is going to die. People around here shoot stray dogs on sight, no questions asked. My wife has an AKC Shih Tzu that is an inside dog only and only goes out to go to the bathroom. Last month, for some reason she ran off. She is tiny and the grass around us is two feet tall, so once she got in the grass, it was impossible to see her or know where she was. We were all looking for her within minutes of her running off (I think she got lost). We found her within 20 minutes. I got a note from a neighbor in my mailbox the next day saying that my Shih Tzu had shown up in their yard, and they shot at it to warn it off, but if it ever showed up in their yard again, they would aim to kill. I kid you not. And this is how they react to a Shih Tzu! for crying out loud. To this dog here.




Right now, I have to keep my dog penned up and on a leash because of her tendency to run off when she sees, smells, or hears an animal, or a car. She has very keen senses. I do not believe in keeping dogs penned up or chained up. I have had several dogs in my life that did not need to.

I know that this is something I have to teach her. The issue is, that I don't know how to teach her to NOT do things. I have no trouble teaching her how to do things. She is a quick learner when it comes to learning WHAT I want her to do. I just don't know how to teach her WHAT NOT to do. She needs to understand NO, as well as she understands YES.

I have looked and I cannot find in instruction how to teach a dog how to understand NO. All my other dogs seemed to naturally understand it. If I said NO to them, they would respond by stopping doing whatever they were doing. This dog has zero reaction to the word NO, even when she is not distracted. She does not seem to understand the difference in my tone of voice when I am happy with her and when I am upset with her. Dogs should be able to sense this change of emotion. Or at least every dog I have owned thus far has been able to do it. It doe snot mean they know why, that is my job to teach them, but this dog does not even sense it. whether I am happy or upset, it is all the same to her.

Again, I am not complaining about her. I am saying that I don't know how to deal with this. If I cannot get teach her to obey and not run off and chase things, then she will live a caged life. I don't want that for her. She does not deserve that. She deserves to be to run and play and be a dog.