Hello, everyone! Hamilton is now 6 months old! Most of his training is doing great, but something he is terrible at is jumping up and running towards new people, and barking at people through the window as they walk by. He gets so ridiculously excited he pees everywhere (even after he has gone out) jumps up on people, and bites (not really biting anymore but more of his mouth around someones hand or arm). He does fantastic loose lead walking, but the instant he sees someone walk past he wheezes and coughs while pulling towards that person/dog. We walk him on a harness because it doesn't hurt him so much when he pulls towards people. We do not know how to control his excitement, and he goes completely "deaf" and will not sit, heel, quiet down, look at me, get down, or any of that...even for juicy chicken! We have also tried time-outs at home. He gets 2 lead walks and one off lead walk a day, and we make sure to get him extra exercise if we know someone will come over. I took him to the vet and ran him for an hour before hand, hoping it would calm him down, but sure enough as soon as we walked in it was complete chaos jumping on everyone, barking at other dogs, lunging towards every possible direction, and piddling everywhere. How embarrassing :-[ Everyone reassures us he's a puppy and he will do this for quite a while. Is there anything we can do to calm this extremely sociable puppy down, or do we have to just deal with it until he's older? I have just bought a head collar but not sure if we will use it.
Re: Very Excited Puppy Hello! Well, the good news is that they do grow up a bit and, overall, get less excitable. The bad news is that they don't grow out of jumping up, pulling towards interesting things on their leads, and barking at things through the window. The barking at things through the window is the easiest - make sure he can't see out to rehearse the behaviour. More exercise won't stop him being excited or jumping up, it'll just make him fitter - so he can be excited and jump up for longer. With the people on lead, what you have to do is train him to walk by people. So you need a person, stood quietly, and at a distance that he can manage walk him by on the lead and reward him when he doesn't pull. Then get a bit closer, and a bit closer etc. You have to repeat this with the person being more interesting - walking, moving, jumping, swinging a bag. And then a new person. And you've got to do it in a number of locations so he gets to understand he must keep his lead loose even when he sees a person that he wants to say hello to. With the jumping up at home, the first thing is to stop him doing it. So have him on a house line so you can control him when you have visitors. Then you have to reward him for not jumping on people. There are different ways you can do this, but one way is to have your dog on a lead and have a visitor approach you. If he goes to jump up, the visitor takes a step back, or leaves. Then when he is quiet, takes a step forward etc. Until they are stood by the dog and he is still quiet. You have to do this lots and lots of times with lots of different people.
Re: Very Excited Puppy I have had the barking at the window problem with Gypsy. I used treats to distract her - every single time, which meant having tins of treats all over the place! It took a lot of time (3 months) but now if someone goes by she doesn't bark, she comes for a treat.
Re: Very Excited Puppy I recognise everything you write as I too have a super excitable puppy. Although I think Maturity helps tremendously, you really have to work at the training. I have endured many months of failure as Molly tried to jump up at everybody she saw on a walk. She is only being friendly, but people have an absolute right not to be jumped on by my dog. It is a real problem with a large dog like a Labrador, little dogs look cute when they put their dainty little paws on your knee. Labradors look menacing because of their size, simply because they can knock people flying. I have trained the 'Sit' and 'Give Paw'. And finally, yesterday at 18 months a stranger stopped to talk to her. "Sit" I said, and she did with her tail sweeping the pavement. Then 'Give Paw' and she did much to the woman's delight. I would have performed cartwheels of joy all the way home, but I was holding the dog's lead. That and I have never been able to do a cartwheel in my life
Re: Very Excited Puppy [quote author=Mollly link=topic=10302.msg151393#msg151393 date=1427100498] I would have performed cartwheels of joy all the way home, but I was holding the dog's lead. That and I have never been able to do a cartwheel in my life [/quote]
Re: Very Excited Puppy Haha thank you everyone! I love how helpful everyone is on this site it has been my sanity through my first puppy process as I've had people point their nose up and say ,"well MY dog never does that..." and makes me feel like a complete failure. [quote author=JulieT link=topic=10302.msg151380#msg151380 date=1427095041] More exercise won't stop him being excited or jumping up, it'll just make him fitter - so he can be excited and jump up for longer. [/quote] Haha it's funny that you mention this, JulieT, because we have had people say "wow he's so fit an toned! What a beautiful lab!!" While he's jumping up on them continuously : The problem with not letting him see out the window is that the front window is about a foot from the ground so he reaches perfectly and it is about 5'x5' and overlooks a busy golf course. He can hear people walk by and has destroyed a blind so we now just leave it open, but he has never seen the golf course in action yet, so I am very nervous how he will react in the summer when he sees the golf carts drive by, or the occasional terrible golfer hitting the ball from our yard ;D. I imagine my lab getting loose and chasing after golf balls on the golf course scary thought!! Has anyone had any success with the head collar?? I have been slowly getting him used to just wearing it and I think we're ready to try using it maybe on a leash in the house to start off. I think it will be extremely helpful to use when people come over and he tries to jump on them.
Re: Very Excited Puppy After experimenting with various harnesses, and various head collars we settled on a Gentle Leader. I have laboured long and hard to teach her to walk nicely on a lead by my side. Nowadays she does most of the time. But she is a strong, young lady who weighs over half my weight, so I need something for those moments when she dives into the hedgerow after something truely disgusting (or in her view luscious) or another dog that she just knows wants to be bounced all over by her.
Re: Very Excited Puppy I would get something robust to put across the window, perhaps. The problem won't go away otherwise and indeed the behaviour will get stronger the longer you allow it to persist. Unless you do as Mags suggests and train him to do something else when he sees people through the window although you would have to not leave him in the room unsupervised, and if there is a busy golf course outside, it might be quite labour intensive... I'm not a fan of head collars, although other people are. I would particularly not be a fan of a head collar on a dog that jumps around - you'd really risk injuring your dog by controlling him from his head when he jumps up. At six months old, your puppy is the perfect age to teach him to walk properly on a lead, and also not to jump up. A harness would be both easier and safer...
Re: Very Excited Puppy I don't think a head collar would help with jumping up either. I used one with my first dog, a lab/golden mix, and she really didn't mind it (I think it was a Halti) but it was *only* used to stop pulling (and in retrospect, we should have tried a harness, but we just didn't know, and we also didn't really train her to walk on a loose leash… so the Halti at least got her out for lots of walks). I can't picture it helping if a dog was jumping and in fact the dog might twist out of it while jumping. Have you tried stepping on the lead when you are near people so he physically cannot jump? I would do this only with a harness, and experiment at home with how much range he needs to not be tugged on but not be allowed to jump, and then put a knot in the leash at the point where you need to step (I think I got that tip from someone else on the forum). A harness is also nice when trying to stop jumping up as you can hold the harness and it holds them down without grabbing at their neck or face.
Re: Very Excited Puppy [quote author=maisiesmomma link=topic=10302.msg151472#msg151472 date=1427128718] Have you tried stepping on the lead when you are near people so he physically cannot jump? I would do this only with a harness, and experiment at home with how much range he needs to not be tugged on but not be allowed to jump, and then put a knot in the leash at the point where you need to step (I think I got that tip from someone else on the forum). [/quote] I think this might have been me or at least it's exactly what I did with my dog. It actually works best with a flat collar as then the lead runs directly down to the floor and your foot. It doesn't jerk the dog's neck if you get the length right, because there is virtually no slack in the lead for them to build up any speed so no jerk force is possible. If you get it wrong though and have the lead too long it does jerk them, plus they can end up in a heap on the floor when the lead stops the jump, so worth making sure you get it right (the knot makes sure you get it right, and also stops the lead from slipping out from under your shoe - put the knot on the opposite side of your foot to the dog ).
