Hello everyone, I really need advice and suggestions. My 10 month old girl gets so hyper excited and aroused when people come home that she can't control herself. All the training goes out of the window...she is not hearing me. She will fling herself wildly on them trying to jump and lick their face, legs, hands whatever she can get and this continues for a good 10-15 mins. She is also barking while her tail is wagging furiously! After that she slows down a little, only to repeat the whole thing after sometime! Its like she has a short-term memory loss! I have tried pretty much everything. I keep her on a leash and try to step on it and hold it down, put her in her crate (but she keeps barking to be let out). I tried treats, stuffed kong in front of her face but she ignores everything. I am really frustrated. At this rate, I don't think she can meet anyone who comes home. It has gotten so bad that I am filled with dread when someone comes home. DH is so frustrated that he is talking of re homing her...which is making me cry. I love her so much and she is such a calm and sweet girl when she is at home. Visitors never get to see this side of her. What do I do? Will she ever calm down?
A dog that is highly aroused is not interested in food/treats of any description so it's just not worth offering until the arousal level has reduced and your dog can focus. I would suggest some set-ups to start re-training appropriate greeting but it will take sone time and effort. So pop your girl on lead and ask her to sit, click and treat, have someone come in the door, click and treat while she is sitting. As soon as she moves your 'visitor' turns around and goes back out. Pause for 20 seconds and repeat, and repeat and repeat until she can remain seated then extend by having them walk towards her, again click and treat for remaining sitting and the visitor turns and leaves as soon as she moves, pause and repeat, and repeat and repeat. Next step is for the visitor to stand to greet her which again is only possible if she is sitting, if not they turn and leave and repeat, and repeat and repeat. Gradually she will learn that sitting gets the greeting, and then you can try the whole process with different peopke and then off lead.
Your dog can definitely be trained to greet calmly - you just need to find a helper and spend regular time on it. I’ve given a more detailed training plan of Jojo’s outline above on another thread - I think this is the link: https://thelabradorforum.com/threads/puppy-school-nightmare.22997/page-2#post-356003 The dog I’m working with is ( I can nearly say has been)a wild greeter outside so the plan would need to be adapted for your needs, but the key thing is that we are having success, so you can too.
Oh my gosh! Thank you so much @Jojo83 and @Joy for the detailed plan. I will start working on her using the steps you outlined. I have never used clicker training before. Can I just use it in this instance (visitor greeting?)
You will need to "charge the clicker" first. This teaches the dog that the click means a reward is coming. There are lots of videos on the internet to help you with this. It doesn't take very long.
@Priya71 you don't need a clicker, you can just use a marker word like 'good' or 'click' which may already have been doing in training. If you haven't you need to introduce your marker word - click is useful as we don't use it in conversation very often . This can be done by using the word and rewarding when you pup looks to you, when she responds to her name, when you ask her to sit etc. I always introduce for attention/eye contact so it's a glance towards me, marker word and then reward and build up the connection between the marker word and treat before you start your new training programme. Sit/mark/reward will help you starting out on the training as you can build sone duration into the sit before your 'visitor' arrives.
I use a clicker for some things but we’re not using one in this case as we want a continued period of calm rather than capturing a particular movement. The owner I’m working with rewards her dog repeatedly as long as he remains in the position he was put in ( either a sit or a down) during the distraction. Obviously we will gradually fade the rewards.
Sometimes you have to train the visitor too! Ted used to be over exuberant whenever we had visitors to the point where he would do a "welcome widdle" in his excitement. Not any more. As well as training Ted with much of what's been suggested above, I also had to deal with the "Don't worry, I love it!" kind of visitor who would get just as lively as the dog. Now all visitors are instructed to ignore him - no eye contact, no vocalisations, no greeting, no open body language, no waving arms around to keep him away - nothing. It works every time. He will pop back later to try to engage but my well-trained guests have now got that covered, and he will now literally sigh and drop to the floor in resignation. Then he is praised. Don't make your dog responsible for being the adult in the room - train your guests.
Somebody posted a video of this training which really helped when I was training Inky but I can't remember who? I could do with revisiting it as inky has relapsed a bit.
