Piper is 6 months old. We have only had her for about 2 months, and we are having a hard time getting her to listen. She does not listen at all when told no. She constantly is trying to get things off of tables and is just being naughty more times than not. I can't even sit on the couch and drink a soda without her jumping on me frantically to get it. When I take her on walks she does well on the leash, but when any other people walk by her she will try to chase them while barking at them. She also barks at any dog she sees. I know that this is all normal puppy behavior, but does anyone have any tips on how to make her listen and obey?
Abby,I'm so sorry I had a little chuckle st the title of your post .....it's the perfect description of a Labrador puppy entering the teenage terror phase! Let's see if I can make you feel better about life with a young Labrador .... First of all she won't know what NO! means,she's just hearing a human shout at her in a louder voice than normal and that can be super exciting to a puppy and get them more riled up and less inclined to listen to you.Training a behaviour you would like her to do instead is your answer,so I would suggest getting a really strong 'sit' when she's got jumping up to steal things on her mind.Also get to work on a 'leave it' ....... Puppies do steal things ,my way of dealing with this stage was to clear the decks,we literally didn't leave anything out ,we had a very minimal look in the house! If Dexter jumped up at a counter or table he was told 'off' and rewarded with a treat when he put his feet on the floor. Are you using a crate or do you have a seperate area that you can put her into when you are eating or drinking? I wanted my dog to be able to lie on his bed while we eat ,he can now but it took time ,if I didn't have the opportunity to train him whilst I was eating I would put him in his room behind the gate so he couldn't practice a behaviour I didn't want ....jumping up at me whilst I was eating . It's hard to know exactly what's going on on walks without seeing it but given her age and your description of what else is going on she just sounds super excited to see the world and the people in it....again,totally normal for a lab puppy of Piper's age. You sound happy with her walking generally ,just the chasing after people ..I think a good strong 'sit' cue will help you with this too.Ask for a sit when she starts to pull away from you and reward her sitting nicely ,alternatively turn and walk the other way so she can't chase after anything,again you aren't letting her practice a behaviour that you don't want . The barking at other dogs sounds like excitement too ,it can be embarrassing I know,I can't tell you how much humiliation I've suffered at the paws of my dog! Use dogs you see as practise opportunities ,move away to a distance where she's less excited and reward her with a tasty treat for not barking,slowly decrease the distance over time as she can cope with the stimulation of seeing another dog......she's very young and they have little self control when they are young but it will get better .... Have a read through the puppy boards,there are loads of members going through exactly the same thing . There's no quick fix I'm afraid,improving Piper's behaviour all comes down to training but you will get there . Best wishes Angela
I think others will have some great advice here for you (once they wake up ), but the first question for me would be to ask what you've tried already? Dogs don't know what "No" means and need to be taught what to do instead of what not to do. So for the soda thing for example, she needs to learn that if she lays down and is quiet while you are eating/drinking, then good stuff comes. If she's had no training that will be in baby steps. First learn a down, then click/treat for a couple seconds, then stretch that to a few more seconds, etc. Until she gets there, if you want to eat in peace, you can make sure she can't "fail" (i.e. jump all over you on the couch) - by putting her in an ex-pen or crate nearby and giving her a Kong or other goodies to keep her happy and occupied (it's not punishment). Eventually she will learn that, "Hey, my person is on the couch having a snack and that means if I'm quiet, then cool stuff will happen!" For the barking at dogs and other stuff, the principle is the same. Make sure you always go out with something really irresistible in your pockets (stinky liver, chicken, tug toy) and make paying attention to you instead of another dog way more interesting. I had a dog who was dog reactive and it was slow going but eventually whenever he saw another dog coming he would just look at me like, "Where's my chicken?" and with time we even phased that out. It was helpful to me at the beginning to also be very aware of where other dogs were and to start to treat for positive behaviour before he himself saw the dog and started reacting. It's always easier and more effective to re-inforce positive behaviour than try to correct negative behaviour - plus a lot more of a happy experience for you and your dog. Finally, some really good advice I was given: remember that you are training 24 hours a day, 7 days a week pretty much for the rest of your dog's life. "Training" doesn't just happen during training class. Dogs are super smart and they are always watching and learning from our actions and re-actions. That may sound daunting, but is actually really cool as it means that there are constantly great learning opportunities - both for you and your pup. I swear I've learned much more from my dogs then they ever learned from me. She's got baby brain, a lot of energy and is nearing that crazy teen-age period, so your "eventually" may take a while, but you'll get there. Well, I've not had a puppy for a long while, but I know that's what others here will tell you - that you and she will make it through!
Piper sounds as though she's bursting with energy ( typical young Lab!) so perhaps she needs more play and more training. I found that games like tug where you train a release cue had a positive knock-on effect in daily life. What have you trained so far? If you haven't yet, then 'watch me' is useful as an attention getter - hold a treat between finger and thumb close to your nose, when your dog looks say 'watch me' and feed the treat. Eventually you can use 'watch me' without the treat and then you can give another command that you've taught (go to your bed or whatever). Always carry a pocketful of treats while Piper is young. When you want to eat it would probably be more peaceful to put Piper somewhere else. With previous pups we put them in the kitchen ( didn't use crates) but with Molly we just let her lie down next to us, but always gave her something to chew ( like a Kong, rawhide bone etc). This is a demanding stage but you can get through it.
Thank you so much for your tips and feedback! Yes, so does have a crate. I have thought about doing this, and have tried to but the whole time Piper just barks at us until we let her out. If we put her in another room she won't make a peep, but I feel like that is punishing her to put her in another room where she can't see us. Is this true?
Thank you for the tips! Honestly, no I haven't really began training her yet. When I got her she was already trained to sit, but my boyfriend and I have been having such a hard time getting her potty trained that that has been our main focus. We are slowly coming onto her being potty trained, so now we can focus more on behavior training her. What would be a good place to start? I would really love to get her to listen and obey me when she needs to stop doing something she isn't supposed to be doing before anything.
Thank you for your feedback! Piper hasn't really been trained yet. We have been so focused potty training that is all we've had time for since we got her almost 2 months ago. She can sit, but she was already taught that when we got her. How would I teach her to go into her cage on command?
Have you gone through crate training with her,where you build up her time in the crate very gradually with rewards ? Have a read through these articles and it will explain how to approach the process http://www.thelabradorsite.com/crate-training-your-labrador-puppy/ http://www.thelabradorsite.com/your-labrador-crates-and-crate-training/ Piper isn't happy if she's barking at you so I would stop using it for now until you can build time gradually. It needs to feel like a great ,safe place for her,feeding her in there ,throwing treats in during the day for her to randomly find when she wanders in and letting her chew on a filled Kong can all help with this too. You don't want your young dog put away from you for extended periods but she doesn't sound unhappy if you are putting her in another room so I don't see that there's anything wrong in using that if you want to grab a bite to eat or a few deep breaths to regroup your patience ! I would still give her something though when you do , a treat/Kong to chew on or a favourite toy.The danger would be if you were using this method as your default and not training her to cope with being around humans ,doing the normal things we all do. I'm going to attach an article on Clicker training for you to read too as you mention you are ready to move on with Piper's training and this is a really effective method to use http://www.thelabradorsite.com/clicker-training-whats-it-all-about/ And then here is kikopup using a clicker to train a dog to go to its bed...
@Boogie is probably the resident puppy guru so may chime in with some good places to start. I've not had a puppy in so long that I myself am reading all these posts to remind myself! Nevertheless, the tasks/commands that were always most useful to me (regardless of age) were: wait (stay), take it/don't touch, and come (recall). These make life much easier and safer, but they are also not the basic stuff. I would love to hear what other people say, but in your place I think I might start with "Watch me", using click/treat to reward her for paying attention to you, building up to more time. I found that this, along with "target" are really good building blocks for other behaviours you want to train step by step later. Again, it's easier to train her to do what you DO want her to do than try to train her to stop doing something. That's why people train "Take it" before "Don't touch" or "Speak" before "Quiet". It would be the same with a human. If you are walking down the street whistling and looking at your mobile and someone says "STOP!" to you, what do you stop? Walking? Texting? Whistling? Breathing? But if someone says, "Put your mobile in your pocket", you know exactly what to do, no guessing. Same with dogs - break the big behaviour down into little baby steps and train one little increment at a time. Not sure if that makes sense!?
I think recall would be my number one priority. The book Total Recall gives a complete training programme for this. Because I've got more time, I'm doing more training with Molly, but with my previous three dogs all I taught deliberately was recall, loose-lead walking and stay. I suppose I did teach other things incidentally, in that they didn't disturb us while eating, didn't steal food etc (well except for my first adult rescue).
Our Jesse when I started to crate train, cried and barked it helped when i left the crate door open and put a treat in. It took him awhile but he finally walked in and got his treat. He got some attention and a good boy after a few days he finally slept in his crate for the first time without waking up everyone in the house lol. Now he walks in at times and takes his nap in his crate. At bedtime, he gets a small special treat and he knows when he get that treat it means bedtime. No more barking or fussing, when I let him out in morning I make a big fuss over him and now our baby Bella. She was a breeze to crate train and we making good progress with not going in the house.
