Finn is six months and a half months old now. He has come so far in certain areas, but in other areas he's definitely getting into his "terrible twos". The biggest problem is his grabbyness. Anything that's not tied down he wants to grab and play with. I'm having the HARDEST time curbing this problem because he doesn't respond to a stern "no/drop it". Everything is a game, and it seems very hard to get across to him that this is inappropriate. I try to replace with a toy when I can, and praise him when he chooses one of his toys. He really tends to act out when he's feeling like he wants something (attention, food, a walk) and I'm ignoring him for the moment. Yesterday morning I let him out of his pen when I woke up and as I was getting dressed to feed him and take him on his morning walk he took a drinking glass off the coffee table and started throwing it around the living room! I was horrified! I cannot believe it didn't break. Why on earth he suddenly decided that was a toy is beyond me. He can also just be SO hyper, especially when I take him to other people's houses. Last night I took him to a friend's house and he was just completely atrocious! Counter surfing constantly despite us being right there, jumping all over the couch, knocking over wine glasses, and overall just being horrific. Is this just an age thing? Maybe I am expecting too much of him. What is a good strategy to curb this "grabbyness" where he thinks he can just jump all over everything and take anything that happens to be there?
Oh wow @FinnOfSoCal we are into roughly our second month of Harley's TT (terrible twos, teenage tantrums) and we have also seen an increase in grabbiness. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING in our hands must be grabbed. Two nights ago I came home and DH had bought me some jewellery and Harley sauntered passed and suddenly tried to snatch the necklace from my hands. I have found that the best for us is to at the moment expect her to snatch at everything and have something better to distract her with at all times. Luckily she hasn't started taking things from tables, she never has so I pray she doesn't discover the pleasure, and if you see my post about her being all doewy eyed for DH at the moment, I use him as a distraction. She left her supper to go to him for a love when he called tonight. Her supper. So he calls and distracts her with a game or a cuddle as a reward for coming to him. She has also started wanting to take ALL her toys and kongs outside. I am sure it is because she doesn't want her cat brothers to take them. The cats occasionally will take her toys but they have never taken her stuffed kongs. But if she has something and she spots her feline brothers she picks it up and heads directly for the door and stands there until we let her out. I think it is her way of resource guarding. Poor thing, it must be terrible to have such awful siblings. I just really hope we aren't in for this for another year because it is like living in groundhog day where you have to retrain basics almost every day, like she has never heard about them before. Oh and she also jumps up now. Sigh. But on the whole she is still a good pup but for her these behaviours are extreme.
We would never describe Quinn as a hyper puppy, but she used to be pretty excitable at other people's homes, not bad, just too excited to settle down, wanting to play, running through the house etc. As she has gotten older, she will flop down and nap and just chill out sooner, but still starts off pretty high energy when we arrive. I always go armed with her toys, kongs, chews and tons of treats and just step away and go outside with her for a bit if I think she is bothering people. I also bring a blanket that is her "bed" and she has to go on her bed and chill if she isn't slowing down. I would sometimes take her "bed" to a bedroom/quiet place and stay with her for 20 mins to calm down. However, she was a year old at Christmas and was a complete hyper nightmare everywhere we took her - she counter surfed for the first time, ate bowls of things from tables, grabbed food out of people's (kids mainly) hands, peed on the floor(!!)...things she never did or repeated at home! The more people were getting upset/chasing her/yelling, the more excited she got. I was relieved when all the visiting was over haha. Not sure that makes you feel better! Quinn doesn't grab anything but toys anymore and I honestly can't remember when she stopped picking up random things...it definitely slowed down in the 8-9 month range considerably to maybe the odd shoe. We were very diligent with not chasing her or making a game out of it and swapping for a treat. I would ignore her, calmly walk to her treat container in the kitchen (she would follow) and drop immediately. We had a short stage of purposely doing this for a treat and then it stopped completely. Hang in there, one day you will realize that certain behaviours are less and less and bam - they are grown up and no longer a puppy
Oh yes, everything that is nailed down is brought to us. She is very good about not taking items off tables, counters or anything thing of height but last night she brought me 3 shoes, 1 sock, toilet roll, and a straw.
Yeah I'm just at a confusion of how to curb the behavior because he thinks it's a game now. I don't chase him, but I give a gruff "ahh ahh" to warn him off or I have him "drop it". But he's just so hard headed he thinks any sort of reaction from me is reinforcement and I'm sure grabbing the object itself is reinforcing. So HOW to stop this???? I am trying very hard to praise him and play with him every time he chooses a toy now.
He's a puppy. It's what they do. Luna is the same at the moment, six months old in a couple of days. Just make sure there's nothing in reach and, if he does get something, ask him to drop (it doesn't have to be gruff, it has to be trained - I ask for a drop or a leave in a happy voice and it works absolutely wonderfully) or ask him to give it to you in exchange for something else. If it's nothing dangerous, use it as a training opportunity. That means, you give it back to him. Even if you don't really want him to have it, give it back, then ask him to give it again. Reward and give it back again. What you're doing is building a reinforcement history. So every time he gives you something, he gets a reward and the object back. Double whammy. If he gets it back ten times for every one time he doesn't, he learn that, in general, giving you stuff is brilliant. You can also ignore him if it's not something valuable or dangerous. A toy played with alone is pretty boring. Over time, the behaviour will likely extinguish - it did with Willow who loved to pick up rocks. I always swapped for a cone and now she very, very rarely bothers with a rock. And you'll have a strong behaviour of "give" for if he does pick up something you don't want him to have. The chances are, he is after attention. So, make sure you're giving him enough outside of these episodes. It doesn't need to be a lot, just a couple of minutes of tug if you feel he's getting a bit antsy. Or even a cuddle or a spot of training.
Mollie has been a TERROR for counter surfing. We keep the house very dog proof so there is nothing she can get at that isn't hers, cushions etc are kept out of the way with all my pups. My motto is 'don't let them do as a pup things you don't want them to do as a 28Kg adult'. But - counter surfing. She has never, once, got any reward for it, we keep the counters 100% clear. But just sniffing and 'checking out' are reward enough for Mollie. So I have been treating her, a lot, for staying on her mat when we are cooking or preparing her food. This is really starting to work. If she heads for the counter at other times I call her away and get her to sit, do a little training, then play an exciting game with her. So my advice is - keep everything, except dog toys, out of the way. Have special dog toys which he only plays with with you. Distract him with a little training then play if he's heading off to do things he shouldn't.
Haha. I was going to make a post about how my boy was driving me up the wall. He just turned 6 months last week and he is just insane, sometimes its almost too much to deal with. It sounds like youre also in the same situation as me, as you are the only person in the household taking care of the little demon! Lol. I swear, its been a big issue with me because Ive been trying to study and get things done but all he ever does is sit there, whine and cry. The second it seems that I dont watch him, he is into something and this is when were in the same room together. Anyway, in a weird way it was nice to see that somebody else is having issues.
BuddysRick Yeah it's almost overwhelming being the only caretaker! My secret is bully sticks and himalayan chews. It's costing me a bit of money, but Finn seems perfectly content to just sit and chew something for quite a while. Thank goodness he has gotten a lot better at just chilling while I'm trying to work, but he has his bad/annoying days. I keep the place pretty puppy proofed so if I make sure all the doors to other rooms are closed he gets bored and just takes a nap. But, this is after making sure he's been run...I usually have to take him to the park for an hour in the afternoons if I want a peaceful evening!
