Need to fix this ASAP

Laurelin

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#1
Okay so... Mia's a screamer. My dad does not like screaming dogs. I like to bring her over to his house when we have family get togethers. And it's an issue.

She is so excited about the other dogs and the cat that she screeches from the moment you pull in the driveway until you get her through the house and in the back yard. It lasts maybe a minute or two tops.

I've tried: carrying her into the house so she can't race through and scream. It causes more frustration and increases the screaming.

I've tried taking her straight to the back yard but his fence is iron and papillons can fit through iron so she ends up escaping then sitting at the front door and screaming. Stays not working.

I've had screeching issues before and worked on them but I need something fast or Mia is perma-banned from family functions, which would suck for us both. I think I need to figure out some management system that will just bandaid for a while. His advice was to 'smack her', which... yeah.

I think next step is to crate her in the back yard then get the other dogs out and see how that goes?

Anyone have any advice on how to manage it for now and work on it?
 
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Shai

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#2
Time it so you show up early while he's in the shower or something and get that minute over with? ;)

With my dogs in that situation I'd stay out at the car doing precision exercises til I had their brains back then make them heel through the house to the backyard then release. And practice before big family functions. Kim used to bark and scream going into agility class and that's what worked for us. She had to earn the right to go in and if she didn't we'd be late for class but so be it. Didn't take her long to compromise. And by "compromise" I mean cave in and shushing up lol. But if she's been able to do this for a while it's going to be a lot harder to rein in.
 

Laurelin

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#4
Yeah I've thought about crating her in the back yard then working with her until she calms down some to get that initial excitement period over. Maybe I can come practice some while my dad is not around...

I was hoping carrying her in would work today but it obviously made things worse by quite a bit.
 

BlackPuppy

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#5
Teach her that if she screams, she stays in the car. LIke my parents said, "If you kids don't shut up, I'm turning this car around and going home!"

The first day will be the hardest, but it can be done. Wait in the car until she stops. It might take an hour, but it will be easier the next time. I learned this from a trainer who needed to teach her dog to settle down when they got to the farm for herding lessons.

Wait until she stops screaming before getting out of the car. If she starts screaming again, get back in the car and wait. Repeat until she stops. At first she will scream louder, it's called the extinction period. It's worth the work.
 

Lizmo

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#6
Have you read Control Unleashed? I've just started (about 1/3 of the way thru) and it sounds like she'd be a good dog to try some of her exercises on.
 

Red Chrome

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#7
I would crate her in the car and only would she get out once she quit screaming. If she started screaming on the way to the door, I'd issue a "Quiet" command and stop all forward movement if she gave me an iota of quiet I'd reward her, if she continued screaming, I would turn around and walk back towards the car. I'd do this until she could learn to contain herself. When she was quiet, I'd give a VERY high value reward and tons of praise the second she was quiet.
 

milos_mommy

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#8
She's only screaming for a minute or two and your dad still wants to ban her? He's tough! :p
 

Laurelin

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#9
Yeah, he and I have very different tolerance levels for dog vocalization. It's unfortunate. To me this is one behavior that if left up to me, I see no reason to do anything about. But... they don't feel the same way.

I do have control unleashed and have done some of the stuff in there but not all of it. I'll keep working on it, but it's hard since we don't go over there that often and she doesn't scream anywhere else (like agility, the park, etc). She doesn't start screaming until she reaches the door. No screaming in the car.
 

stardogs

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#11
I agree with several others - the moment she starts screaming, back to the car. Currently, she thinks that screaming works to get her where she wants to go and that needs to change before the screaming will show improvement.
 
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#12
She's only screaming for a minute or two and your dad still wants to ban her? He's tough! :p
I was thinking that, too!

I agree with the "turn around the second the screaming starts" approach, and also with CU. A lot of the exercises in CU are about self control/impulse control, which will spill over even if they aren't directly about screaming. The first couple of times it might seem like it takes forever, I'd even be prepared to just leave. Just grit your teeth and keep counting to ten.
 

spiffy

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#13
Give your dad earplugs and give him a call when you are about to pull in his driveway :lol-sign: If your dogs does not scream anywhere else, it is possible that it is getting bad vibes from your dad.
 

milos_mommy

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#14
I would also recommend heading back to the car as soon as she starts screaming. If she stops, get out and try again. She screams, back the car.

You might be doing this for a longgggg time, so I'd plan a trip just to work on it - possibly when Dad isn't home.
 

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