Some Daisy Issues

Daisy is doing very well with her obedience training, but she's developed some behavior type stuff that we're having some difficulty in stopping. I want to see what advice you guys have. All but one of her issues involve jumping of some sort, not a good thing with a dog who can stand 6' tall on her hind legs and leap so high her head almost touches the ceiling.

1: jumping on the back door to come in. This is a serious issue. Aside from the dog slobber 7' high on the glass door, we're worried that she's going to break the door down. The entire room shakes when she launches herself at it. Since she's outside, it's difficult to distract or correct her. Being outside with her 100% of the time is not possible. She and the others enjoy sunning and playing in the yard, so they might get an hour of time out there while I'm working, and when she's ready to come in, she leaps at the door. My office is at the other side of the house from the door so I can't see when she comes to the door and is waiting to come in. She will sit there patiently for a bit, but if no one comes to let her in, the leaping starts. This behavior is new, and it's hard for us to not reinforce it because when she jumps, we have to let her in so she'll stop. We've been making her stop and sit before we let her in to break the chain of "if I jump, they'll let me in", but it isn't helping.

2: jumping on people. This was not something she did as a pup. The normal "turn your back and ignore" technique does not work with a dog that can put her paws on a 6'+ man's shoulders. It hurts, and it's dangerous with her size. She could easily knock a smaller person over. If we catch her and give her a verbal as she's getting ready to go up, she'll stop, but only for that moment. If she jumps up and we give her the "off" command, she'll comply. I don't want to have to keep correcting her over and over again. I want it cured, for good. No jumping at any time. It's to the point that when people come over, I have to physically restrain her by holding her collar, make her sit, let the people in, which stops the behavior for that moment, but as soon as you let her go, she's trying to jump up and give kisses. We've been working on this for 2-3 months to no avail.

3: obsession with the cat food. We feed our cat in our seldom used dining room. His food is on the table. The room is closed off, one door that shuts, one swinging door in the kitchen that the cat knows how to push open to get to his food. Daisy will shove open the swinging door and go eat the cat food. If you catch her trying to enter, or if you catch her while she's already in there, she clearly knows that she's being bad, but 2 minutes later, if you are not looking, she tries again. It's like she waits for you to turn your back. No amount of verbal correction is keeping her from repeating this behavior any chance she can get. Of course, if we catch her, correct, and she stops, she's getting praised up, but it's not sinking in that this is not something she should be doing.

4: leaping in the air while waiting for dinner. We finally have her acting properly when I'm preparing their food in the kitchen. I place her in a down/stay outside the room, and she waits nicely, watching me prepare the meal. As soon as I pick up the bowls to go outside where they are fed (about a 75' walk from the kitchen to the back door to the area where we feed), she will walk alongside, leaping in the air. Her head goes higher than me. I can place her in a sit/stay, get to the back door, release her, she'll be good there, but as soon as we hit outside, it starts over. I've been trying to cure this by giving her verbal corrections when she does the bad behavior, and then praising when she acts appropriately, but as soon as you praise, she starts leaping again. My hands are full with 3 dog dishes so any kind of physical collar restraint isn't possible.

My goals are this- the door jumping and people jumping MUST stop. I don't mind if she wants to come up and "dance" with me, but only when invited. I like it when she comes up and gives you a hug like that, but I don't want her doing it to guests. I do not want to have to keep sectioning off my house with dog gates to keep her from the kitchen/dining area. It's inconvenient to the rest of us. I need her to learn that room is off limits. It's inconvenient for me while I'm trying to do my job that I have to get up 10 times a day to get her out of the dining room. I want her to walk nicely outside when it's dinner time. I don't care if she gets the zoomies and runs around the yard like Gunnar does, but he'll run around and run over to his spot and sit and wait for me. If she did that it'd be great, it's the jumping right next to me, with the possibility of her knocking food dishes out of my hands, that must stop. She's great when it's actually time to get her food, I place her in a sit/stay, and put her bowl down about 5' in front of her, and she won't move until I release her.

I've seriously considered an E collar for the door jumping and dining room stuff, since both of those happen when we're not right there with her. My next move with the people jumping is to put a leash on her all the time, and stand on it when she tries to jump up. An easy fix for the food jumping is to crate her, take the other dogs outside, feed them, then bring her out, but that isn't fixing the problem, only keeping her from the situation.

I imagine that some of these issues are just 8 month old dog exuberance, but it's time they are stopped. Gunnar was cured of jumping very quickly just by downing him and using the "off" command, and we never had issues with him fishing for food or leaping at the back door, so these are new problems for us.

Daisy sounds like a devil dog! She really is a good dog, but these couple things are keeping her from being a great dog.

The other stuff I really can't help with, but the jumping I can.

I am surprised with myself, as I have never had to train any dog not to jump on people, but when I had Missy this last weekend I knew it was the perfect opportunity to try! This dog is a big girl as well, and can knock my 5'6" little butt to the ground easy.

So, I would go out of the room, or outside, and leave Missy. I'd be gone a few seconds, and come back in. Treats in pocket, I would wait until she began to jump (she is easily excitable). I would then turn around AWAY from her, facing a wall where she couldn't knock me over, and wait. I would ignore her until she sat or laid next to me. If she jumped too hard on me, I would grab her collar and pull her off, saying "No Jumping!" I would then give her a treat and praise. By Sunday when she would get excited, instead of jumping all over me, she would sit and lie down like an old pro.

Mary even called me yesterday to tell me that she noticed a big difference in Missy, and I just hadn't realized how appreciative she was of me. She also said that I just hadn't figured it out yet, but I had found my calling and needed to go to school to be a vet or trainer.

Hope this helps!

Would you hear a cow bell if she rang it at the back door, or do you have a buzzer for the back door? If so, train her to ring the bell to come in. The jumping on people takes time. If she is a 'hard' dog, the stepping on her toes, yelling etc is not likely to make much of a diff. The teaching her to sit to greet people works great. Make sure she gets NO attention, negative or otherwise (cause negative attention in this case can be better than no attention) if she jumps up. IE if she jumps up, everyone leave the room, leaving her in there (close door)

For the cat food. That one is hard. She has been 'rewarded' for it already. The E collar would work. But I would make sure its a 'good' zap. As effective punishment will end the behaviour in one application. As Dr Ian Dunbar says, most people use punishment wrong, and start to mild..then escalate. I believe it is Karen Pryor who has a good example of effective punishment. Parking tickets are mildly aversive, but they really don't stop people from parking there. (Finding a parking spot is much more rewarding than the risk of the ticket is aversive) But if everytime you parked your car illegally it blew up-you would never illegally park your car. If you go e collar I would make sure the cat is no where near, so she doesn't associate the cat, with the correction.

Most of this is just that she's young and getting mixed signals. Also, she is getting chances to self reinforce that you need to take away.

first thing, reinforce the door so that she cannot hurt herself. Give her another method to let her tell you that she is ready to come inside - give her a bell or something she can indicate to you that she wants in. it's hard because she doesn't WANT to be outside - and you cannot correct her for wanting to be back inside and with you. either train her to do an alternate behavior, or prevent her from physically having access to the door to jump onto it. You cannot fairly correct her for a behavior you aren't witnessing all the time. using an ecollar if you aren't physically there with her is just going to be confusing and unfair, IMO - because you are going to be correcting her from out of sight, without being there to offer her the RIGHT behavior to turn the correction off, or explain to her what you DO want her to do.

she needs time, consistency and for you to keep doing what you are doing. you say later on that you let her up on you - if you want to make the point clear, you need to stop ALL of it - she clearly is having trouble generalizing and in her excitement she is too happy to see people. sometimes commands ARE only for the moment in the beginning - she is a young puppy and expecting that she will be 100% with something when she is happy and excited is not being fair to her - if she responds to you if you tell her to off, and if she responds to you when you catch her before she does it and give her an alternate command, then you're SUCCEEDING and you need to keep doing this. but you need to stop making it ok in some situations and wrong in others for the time being, because she doesn't understand that.

easy - prevent the swinging door from opening large enough to get daisy in. pick and choose your battles - stop giving her the opportunity to get to the food. she's being given time when she is unsupervised that she CAN go get the cat food, so she will - that's your fault for giving her the opportunity. you can train her for leave its and such, but plain and simple she wants something, and if shes presented with the opportunity to get it, she will. my dogs will ignore the cat food when i tell them to, will walk past it - but if im not around, why should they leave the wonderful smelly canned food i put down for the cats - dogs want to please themselves. so what do i do? prevent them from having access to the cat food, plain and simple.

No buzzer, but the bell idea is interesting! I'll have to think on that one...

What is the stepping on feet thing? I never heard of that. It might be something we could try. I've been trying to give her no attention at all with the jumping but it seems to make her want to jump more. I'm falling into her trap I guess. Leaving her in the room alone, difficult to implement but something we could try. There are no doors we could close. Then what happens when you go back in the room and she starts jumping again, keep repeating, but we could spend an hour doing that!

I fully understand what you mean about the correction level. I might be able to borrow an e-collar from someone at the working dog club, I know the one guy has one. I think my wife would be pretty dead set against using it, but so far she hasn't offered any help except to say "Daisy, NO!" from out in the family room when she hears Daisy pushing at the swinging door. Ultimately I'm the one who has to get up, remove her from the situation, and close her off from the kitchen with a dog gate. We have 2 dog gates that are constantly being shuffled around to close her off from areas of the house where there isn't anyone to watch her, and it's getting old.

I have never known the stepping on toes to work...but have heard it said frequently (as in clients have said they have tried it) It might take a lot of reps to get it through her puppy brain that jumping up (which is a young dog behaviour of trying to get to the 'leader's' face) never gets attention. But if they learn that, then you are set for life. (heheheh my dogs couldn't knock over a person over the age of 4 even if they tried...sometimes little dogs rule) It is one of the big things people want their dogs to learn when they come to a family dog class.

How we work it there is..... The owner stands there with the leash held short, and the dog is in a sit. (if the owner isnt strong enough to keep the dog from moving forward, we loop the leash over a t post on the fence, and the owner stands beside the dog) Someone, usually me. Acts all happy and approaches the dog. As soon as the dog shows an inclination (bunching of muscles) to get out of the sit-I turn away. If they stay sitting the owner marks it (click or yess, or what ever) rewards it, and I kneel down and 'visit' the dog. This works well. But NO ONE and I mean NO ONE can reward the dog for jumping up during the training period. So that means careful management around guests. Guests are notorious for saying, 'oh its ok' and patting the dog...or talking to the dog. Both are attention..and this is an attention seeking behaviour. Even a good stern 'NO' can be rewarding...as it is attention. It is not an easy thing to fix..but usually once the dog learns that jumping up is counterproductive to its goals it gives up. But watch for the extinction burst....

Good post doberkim. I guess I feel she's at the point where she should understand that certain things are off limits, but I guess she's not ready for that yet. I keep comparing her to what Gunnar was doing at that age. We never had issues with him stealing cat food, door jumping, the degree of people jumping, or the dinner time behavior.

I'll have to figure out a way to feed her separately. I'll have to crate her or have someone restrain her if I take Gunnar and Bruzer out 1st, because as soon as I leave her alone she'd be on the counter. I don't want to feed her 1st, over Gunnar. He's alpha dog among them and I want him fed 1st.

The cat food thing, it's not like she's unsupervised. She's 20' from me in my office and I'm in a direct sight line to her when she does this. She might go to the kitchen to get a drink of water, and that door is right behind her, she'll turn around and push it open. I want that door to be off limits. Just like the leather couch is off limits. She respects that, but the food drive is too high so I have to up the stakes on how to keep her out of that room.

Re the cat food: Since yelling NO doesn't work, could you try something loud like a fog horn, to get her attention away from the room? I would be something unpleasant to make getting to the cat food less rewarding, but not an actual physical punishment.

Also, to keep my dog out of the litter box I use hook and eye latches on the door, my cats can get through these but he cannot. (I put two on the door, one at eye level and one at dog level so it is more secure.) Make sure your cat can fit through, you can also use wire, string or twisty ties if you need to make the opening wider.

Oh Daisy, you silly girl!!! You're still just a big puppy huh?

Dan, I had the same problem with Charlie jumping on me and guests and everyone gave me the advice of "turn away and ignore" and couldn't seem to understand that that's not really an option with an 80lb GSD so here's what I did:

We practiced "sit" over and over and over every day until it was literally so ingrained in his brain that he couldn't not sit when I said it. Then every time he started to jump - as soon as I would see those muscles tense, I made him sit and give a treat. At first he would sit, get his treat, then jump anyway. But I just kept at it and would have him sit at the slightest thought that he might be getting ready to jump. The key to it was having a 100% reliable sit, no matter how excited he was. After about a week he just quit jumping altogether.

Based on our experience, I do believe that if you use the ignoring method for the jumping up that she WILL jump up worse than ever initially. It used to get a reaction of some sort out of you. Now it's not, so she must need to try harder!! At least, that's what it seemed like when we used 'ignore' for Spanky (for nipping), but it did work, and very well. It did get worse before it got better for a VERY short time.

The ignoring for jumping has not worked at all for me, except that now, Baloo jumps once, then immediately sits. I can't get him to not jump that first time.

Sometimes I feel like breaking out a stave!

:yikes:
Now you're just trying to start trouble!

Dan,
Have you had any issues with nipping? Baloo nipped my granddaughter right in the arse the other day. I didn't know what else to do but crate him for a while.

No, not really an nipping issues, in an aggressive way. Sometimes if she's washing your face with her tongue, she'll nibble at you a bit. I thought she was going to give me a hickey on the neck the other day! She practically makes out with you, putting her paws around your neck and then kisses you. You have a herding dog- it's part of their nature. Gunnar has nipped at my nieces and nephews before, they were running around, and he was trying to herd them back, and he'd give them little nips.

Charlie's mom- if I wanted to start trouble I'd have pointed out how Dekka's comment on having a correction being hard enough to get the dogs attention was pretty much what Richling said in one of his posts! Oops, did I just say that?

And here I was being so good and leaving that one alone!

i just want to second or third of sixteenth on training her to ring a bell when she wants to come in rather than jumping at the door...

we like bells in our house lol