# My dog won't listen/pay attention outside the house.



## eaticecream (Jul 27, 2012)

When we're inside the house, my pup really likes to stick to me and please me, but when we go out he becomes a whole other dog. His favorite thing in the whole world is to go on walks and sniff everything around him. He will pay no attention to me at all once we go outside. He pulls like no tomorrow, stuffs his face in any dirt he can find and simply will not listen to/acknowledge me at all. I've tried bringing high value treats like melted cheese on crackers, leftover meat scraps and Natural Balance Rolls, but he just seems to not notice, or care for them. I've been doing the whole "don't move until he relaxes" for a long while and he still doesn't really get it. What should I try next?


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

Work on loose leash walking inside first. This is totally normal. Inside is kinda boring (he sees and smells it all day every day), so inside you're the most interesting thing going. Outside, on the other hand, you become the boring thing in comparison to all the new smells, sounds and sights. So start training inside, get it 100% inside, then move outside, after a nice long play session to burn off energy, in a relatively distraction free area and start training again.


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## eaticecream (Jul 27, 2012)

Thanks for those suggestions! Yesterday, I brought Koby to an large empty soccer field to just let him run around for a good 20 minutes, and I must say that a tired dog is much easier to work with!


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

eaticecream said:


> Thanks for those suggestions! Yesterday, I brought Koby to an large empty soccer field to just let him run around for a good 20 minutes, and I must say that a tired dog is much easier to work with!


It's magic!  

It's very basic, but everyone tends to overlook how much easier it is to work with a tired dog.

Also, I forgot to mention, people tend to think a dog knows something before they actually do. A typical example of this is they train the dog sit, the dog sits on command a dozen times, they think the dog knows sit. It actually takes about 300 successful repetitions in many different environments for the dog to truly know a command. So just keep at it.


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