Socialisation and bonkers puppy

So I'm now on my third set of training classes, and we've done lots of work on not jumping up, recall, following commands like sit, come etc, all going quite well. Her recall is great until another dog appears ... the issue is she wants to go and play with every dog she meets and she is super excitable. She literally pogos up and down like zebedee when she sees another dog. So for now, if we are out and I see another dog I call her back and put her on the lead, then we work on walking past and trying to keep her focus on me (lots of rewards etc).. otherwise she runs off to play (last time it was my neighbours spaniel) ..
but I feel that what she really needs is to spend time other dogs. There's a lady who lives near me who has a lovely flat coated retriever, who is perfectly behaved at 9 months, and she suggested that we could take them out together. I'd love to try this, but Holly is so excited by her she actually made the other dog growl and bear her teeth ..she was in the lead but just jumping all over the other dog. how do I go about it if we go out, clearly I can't let her off the lead, but would walking in the company of a sensible dog help her?
I feel like I have the most bonkers puppy on the planet and people keep joking about chocolate labs being mental .. but she really does seem to be more excitable than any other dog I have met so far .. I feel like she's totally crackers

 

To be honest, with a bonkers puppy, I don't think they need to get to play with other dogs. I think they have to learn to be calm around other dogs, so training her to ignore them would be my first step, using Look At That. Only once she can focus on me at least a little bit around other dogs would I let her off to play with them.

Plying with other dogs does not make a puppy that's excited by dogs less excited. Quite the opposite!

 

I guess I was rather naively thinking that if she was taken out with another dog that she would eventually get used to another dog being around and learn to be calm .. but I can see that it could just send her over the edge and probably wouldn't be much fun for the object of her attention either.
Maybe we could do short "meetings" where we practice walking past without saying hello.. this is what we do when out every time another dog goes by, I get her to focus on me and reward her if she is sitting nice / walking past nicely.
I was just worried that if she never plays with another dog until she's older then will she be ok with other dogs. I'm totally new to all this, so I really want to get it right, and I want to end up with a dog who knows how to behave with other dogs. At the moment I have an over exuberant hooligan

 

It's good to find someone who has a dog who will ignore your puppy, if that's possible. My pup met a few dogs who just weren't interested. They wouldn't tell her off, they would just ignore her and turn their backs on her when she was being ridiculous. That was really good for her. Yes, it's nice to have a dog or two they can play with, but you have to ensure it's a dog that won't be pushed to reacting to her exuberance.
Luna got to meet the wonderful Benson (part of the @Beanwood pack) when she was a young puppy. He was wonderful, as he was a real gentleman who would play nicely with her. He could be trusted 100% not to be nasty to her if she pushed her luck. I think that's really important in finding a good playmate. And definitely have those boundaries of, "you get to play once you've shown me some nice manners first".

 

I can totally get where you are coming from with this, it's so difficult to know the right way to get the balance. I decided to take Cassie to a training class for improvers when she was 13 months -- the dogs were allowed free play before and after the class, I thought it was great for her, but actually it was the worst thing I could have done. She then began to get excited by every dog she saw, instead of just her friends, which wasn't happening before ! So now I'm having to work on LAt and ignoring, but it is slowly working.

 

Totally agree with @snowbunny if you can find a stooge dog then great otherwise don't work, on calm - quality, not quantity when it comes to socialising has worked / is working for my two.

 

It is a really difficult balance and I had a few problems when Harley was younger that she also wanted to play with every dog she seen. I done a lot of work getting her to focus on me and made myself soooooo exciting that she eventually ignored other dogs. She has her doggy friends that she plays with, but she often has a quick sniff then walks away from dogs she doesn't know, or ignores them totally.
I arranged a few play dates at my house for Harley when she was younger which helped in teaching her to play nicely and as it isn't a huge garden, I was able to interrupt play if it got too boisterous. She does play really nicely with other dogs and is fantastic with pups.

 

I'll stop feeling guilty about her lack of dog company / friends and focus on her behaviour then.. we're still doing the training classes, we'll keep working on the walking past ....
I just keep thinking "What if she never calms down"..

 

I expect she will! She's still very young isn't she. I know the feeling though, but with a bit of help from you she'll get the hang of it.

 

Hehe, they do get a little less bonkers as they get older. A little

 

Don't feel bad about her being bonkers... Labrador owners often feel like they have the most bonkers dog for miles around. You're not alone! And they do get less bonkers as they get older. You also learn to adopt a more zen attitude towards the bonkers episodes.

 

She's lovely really, I do love her to bits. We're off to some serious training tomorrow with people who do gun dog / obedience etc.. so I'm expecting her to show us both up in style (although it's a class full of 6 month old puppies so maybe she won't be the most bonkers). Thanks for the words of comfort.

 

Bonkers is far more fun than a dog that never does anything

 

I used to worry about this every day. Especially when people used to say "aren't you doing any training with him??", as my dog runs round in circles barking and leaping at every living thing nearby...

He's still fairly bonkers, but he no longer embarrasses me in public, and I love him for his enthusiasm!

 

I also really struggled with this question - Jess was completely bonkers as a puppy and completely dog-obsessed. She was desperate to get to every dog she saw. At 12 weeks old she would have cleared a football pitch to get at another dog. And we also got lots of people saying that she was the craziest spaniel they'd ever seen and asking if I'd ever thought about training her!!

The good news is that she's absolutely fine now and has been for a while (she's 16 months). If she's on-lead she might show a bit of interest in the other dog but can be pretty easily walked past. If she's off-lead and another dog is close by or looking at her she is likely to go and say hello but if I walk in the other direction or if I call her, she'll come with me. So I'm happy with that, that's all I wanted. But I'm not sure whether it's the product of my excellent training choices or just that she's grown up a bit .

When she was young and bonkers and i was despairing, people consistently told me they stop being so interested in other dogs as they get older, and I think that's at least half the story for Jess. Things I did that may be helpful:

- I constantly worked on recall, including practicing recall from other dogs (and including a couple of 1-1 training sessions to practice it seriously with a trainer and her dog)

- I didn't want her to run up to every dog that she saw, which meant she spent a lot of time on lead and only got off-lead when either there weren't other dogs around or when we were with a dog that she was able to play with.

- But I also tried to find doggie playmates for her so that she was getting time with other dogs. I felt this was important - as an only dog and as an urban dog who has to meet new dogs every day, I wanted her to be comfortable about interacting with other dogs. And she was a puppy! I wanted her to be able to play with other dogs. Jess clearly has dogs that she likes a lot and dogs that she's not that bothered about, so if she really liked a dog I would try to set up playdates - just going for a walk at the same time as its owner - so they could run and play. These weren't as stooge dogs to try and teach her calm - usually quite the opposite, equally bonkers young spaniels who would zoom and chase her. I don't know whether it was a good training choice or not but she really loved it and it made me feel that she was getting quality doggie time to compensate for all the time she spent on lead.

Those are the main things that I remember. I'll add anything else if it comes back to me! It is really hard, but I do think it gets easier as they grow up.

 

Thanks. I'm open to all advice / suggestions. I know she will calm down a bit eventually, but it's knowing the right steps to take during this period where she's learning so much!!

 

Hi @Holly Chocolate Loveheart I SO see where you are coming from with this thread. We had the ONLY labdrador in the class for all her classes and it was horrific - every week we died a slow death of labrador induced shame. She bounced and got WAY over excited and ignored the treats and and and...it was really tough. Until we found the magic treat. In her case it was cheese and she was about 6 months old. But it was really like magic. All of a sudden we became more interesting than the dogs at class. I also think she found the class work a bit meh. But boy, oh boy, she was willing to do meh for cheese. And it was all onward and upward from there. We took a short break because of work and then joined the next set of classes which were clicker training trick classes. And Harley loves a clicker - because clicker = cheese. The dogs that we were in class with were some of the same dogs we had come up the ranks with but Harley was now lightly more mature, absolutely in love with cheese, and because we were the givers of cheese she was focussed on us. She was a super star in the class. She enjoyed the variety and clicker training and moved way faster than the rest of the class. She really enjoyed it.
We also felt guilty because Harley is an only dog but the others are right. She must get play time, but that is not necessarily at training class. Because she couldn't say enough. So we organised some play dates with dogs from class that she liked and they get to play on different dates and locations. But class is where cheese comes to be eaten and labradors come to focus.
I also thought Harley would never change. But she matured and so much changed

 

We went to a new class today, a lot calmer and more disciplined; positives; Holly did her best and for most of the class she didn't seem any different to the other puppies.
Negatives; when attempting a sit (walk away) stay, which we've never done before she got really furious about being tied up and ATE a part of the plastic pole she was teathered to. Then she escaped. Finally she had to be tied to a very solid fence so I could walk away from her without pole destruction / escaping!!

 

That sounds like simple frustration. My puppy gets frustrated, too. You just have to take things very slowly and increase her tolerance bit by bit. Don't be afraid to say to your trainer that what is being asked is too hard for your puppy. I'm quite surprised with the trainer's solution. In this instance, I would have made it easier rather than finding something she couldn't destroy - the issue is with her emotional state, not with the solidity of the thing she's attached to

 

Yes, once tied to the fence she looked confused and I felt guilty.