Our 10.5 week old is a real moaner (said lovingly). He whinges on the bus, he whinges when he's sleepy, he whinges when he has to wait patiently around other puppies (none of the other puppies are crying and making such a fuss as he does). And may I add he is LOUD. We don't reward the whinging as far as I'm aware, and we praise and treat when he's being quiet. Although sometimes mid-chew he'll start whinging again, a muffled little whinge Whatever we're doing isn't making any difference one way or the other. Is this just something he'll grow out of? I don't want it becoming habit for him but I'm not sure what else we can do. He's quite a confident happy little lad, not timid or anxious at all. I think the whinging is frustration-based.
This is a difficult one. He's doing it for attention. The secret is to give him no attention while he's doing it. Harder than it sounds - as anything you say to him, positive or negative - even eye contact - is attention. Be sure he's had food, play, training etc. Then get a book/newspaper/phone whatever to read and turn your back on him. Make no comment, if he paws etc move further away or behind a baby gate. Totally ignore him. Then, when he settles and starts to doze off, give treats in a low key way then back to your book. The turning your back bit is an important part of the message. Rinse, repeat many times. Always after you are sure his needs have been met. You can then, when he's got the message, begin to do this in public. MUCH harder! We are on this job with Bruce at the moment. I'd say we are half way there as he's stopped doing it at home. But, yesterday, in a cafe, I couldn't ignore him so just had to take him out. I made sure it was to a very boring place - or leaving would have been a big reward. ...
I've heard that whining is often subconscious, so it's very hard to train it out. The article I read said it could be thought of more as an emotion than a behaviour. So it's more a case of training the dog to cope with the emotions that are causing it than trying to stop the whining directly. For example, my Willow also whines when she's frustrated. When my two were younger, on the rare occasions my husband and I took the dogs out together to do a spot of training, Willow would whine when it wasn't her go. When she was really frustrated, she'd start jumping up, too. So, I approached it by giving her something to do and only expecting her to sit watching for a few seconds at a time. Over time, I stretched out the time she was expected to sit and watch. Now, I'm at the stage where she will sit and watch, by herself and untethered, for five minutes quite happily while I work with Shadow, even throwing dummies around, playing with the ball, anything. Because she knows her turn is going to come in time.
It does feel like an emotion, like he's frustrated by whatever the situation is and it comes out as a whine. Other times, it's as Boogie says and it's for attention (say if I'm upstairs. The pitch/tone is totally different, much more focused/demanding). Those I feel are trainable following Boogie's advice, whereas the emotion based ones I'm at a loss. So far we've just been going ahead as if he isn't whining, and not fussing over him while he's doing it, and trying not to get too embarassed as he can really get loud about it
Rory did it when he was younger it was more of a comment on what he felt about doing things and his frustration at the world in general. I ignored or just redirected him and he seems to have grown out of it. He has been one of the most verbous Labradors I've ever had. Hes still a very talkative boy he makes noises like a wookie
I have a loud one too. Whining, moaning, and sometimes "talking" at me, complaining. The complaining/talking stuff is definitely attention and I realize I was giving her eye contact, turning toward her, or going closer to the crate (most of that is crate-related). Taking the attention away definitely helped, and continuing to click for quiet. The emotion-based whine, we have too - she's 13 weeks or so now and it's been gradually decreasing as she learns to manage her emotions a bit more. She did a lot of it when tired (sort of a toddler-like being tired but not being able to unwind/relax/stop playing long enough to fall asleep thing). 10.5 weeks really is so small; I do think he will grow out of a lot of that type of whining.
Willow makes all sorts of noises. She always makes a noise when she yawns (I call her a creaky door), the groans as she lays down, makes loads of noises in her sleep... I think some dogs are just a bit more chatty than others
lol This thread is making me laugh...glad we're not alone! Ours makes funny yawns too, I hope he never stops. One sounds like " ahhhhh- yyyAAH!" the other one is "ahhhhh- nnnOOOH!". It's so cute I die every time.
When Stanley's running around like a loon and gets told to go to his bed, he makes a sulky "humpffffff" noise before he flops. I love the little noise, makes me melt. Then stares at me with the stink eye for the next 20 minutes or so.
Ahh! Bramble does this when she has figured out we are ignoring her...and decides it is time for a moody snooze..she exhales and flops at the same time in a HUGE hummmmpppppffffff....just so we know exactly how she is feeling..then she dozes..
Ours sounds like a chimp...we have another dog that sounds like a rooster. Between the two of them...
Quinn is 9 months and has not yet grown out of whining...she whines for everything...to go out, to come in, to get off the bed, for someone to get her ball, to play, she's hungry...on and on. However, I appreciate that she never barks. Now that she is older, at least we know what she is whining for! Oh, and when she's frustrated she snaps her teeth at us...like she's so annoyed that we aren't doing as she asked and she wants us to know how she feels!
Charlie, my older boy, is a real whiner. It takes various forms. Sometimes, it's frustration and that can be dealt with through training - though loads of people say 'it's an emotion' and can't, with my dog I can address the frustration and train him to be less frustrated at things, and this has been very successful (not without a lot of effort though). I have stopped him whining in masses of situations when he once whined, including watching other dogs retrieve (though that's a work in progress in very exciting situations). He is though, just a vocal dog - although almost never barks. He chunters away to himself, sounding like a pod of whales most of the time, happy as can be. He honks a lot - he sounds like a goose. He honks when he wants to play, to say hello, or just because he is pleased with himself. It's just the way he is. It's no big deal, it's just his personality.
To some extent, it's about what you are prepared to do about this. I cared quite a lot about it, because I wanted to take my dog gundog training and lots of people who go gundog training are a bit up their own bums about dogs whining. They will say really ridiculous things like 'a well bred gundog never whines' and 'whining is catching, move your dog away'. Bwahaha. How daft is all of that. Really. Because I've met supposedly 'well bred gundogs' that are real screamers. If you really, really care then you can go to some extremes to introduce your dog very slowly to environments and situations that will make him whine. The thing is, this isn't all that practical on a day to day basis. So the other thing is just to take him into those situations, and ignore him when he does whine. I struck a sort of middle ground. I did take a lot of measures to make sure my dog was rewarded for quiet and not rewarded for whining. I had remote treat dispensers in cars and so on (that worked really well, and my whining dog is now absolutely the quietest dog in the car at gundog training - he never makes a sound when I leave him in the car). I also worked really, really hard at introducing him to observing other dogs working. I took it really slowly, and spent hours over it. I still can't just pitch up in a new place and have him watch other dogs though, I still have to manage that. Other situations, like he really wants to say hi to a person or another dog, I just ignore him. I just stand on his lead, and ignore him, and talk to the person, or make sure the other dog doesn't approach him. Eventually, he shuts up. Then he gets to say hello. This works perfectly well, and over time his whining has massively reduced.
