Puppy Training

[Navigator]

I have a Labrador that I adopted from the SPCA when he was about a year old and he was very dominant. It took a long time before he stopped embarrassing me in public, but I took him to Petsmart Obedience, and lucked out that the trainer was very knowledgable. Jack Russells are what they are, but they are smart little suckers and probably would respond well to some formal training since it gives their brains something to do. My Lab loves learning new stuff (comes with food!) but I find it does help calm him down too.

The books by Ceasar Milan are pretty good, and they do advocate a lot of walking, and restrained walking - not one of those zip line leashes, keeping them close to establish dominance. I find long walks with a little training session after really worked for my dog and he's pretty good now, very few slips. The one thing that I really liked from training was teaching them to walk on a loose leash - I guarantee if you have a puller - you will look ridiculous for awhile but it works. Take them out on a 6 ft leash and the second he pulls - stop. Have him come back to you and sit. Then carry on - every time he pulls you stop. I must have taken 25 minutes to walk half a block the first night but I now have a 80 lb Lab that walks like an angel on a leash with no gimmicky collars or rig-ups.

[workn2hard2day]

I know that the treadmill saved us. Our Golden never really got tired on outside walks. (2 - 1/2 hr during day and a 1 hour at before dinner) He walks on the treadmill at 4mph for about 10-15 mins.
It is cute to catch him standing on it looking at the control panel wondering why it isnt moving. Started him on it when he was under a year, but the older lab wont even go near it.
I got the idea from Cesear Millan.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by 365seasons

Adorable puppy! I really like his coloring.

I'm not an expert on dogs or anything, but I figured I'd share my experience, and you can take or leave what you choose from it.
My parents actually have a 7 month old boxer puppy right now, and have been going through a lot of the same thing right now, so a lot of this is fresh on my brain.

First off, neutering should help him be a little less dominant, so lets hope for the best there. Hopefully he will calm down a little. As far as the biting, and barking at you goes, you are right. He is pretty much in his teenage years and telling his parents "NO!". My parents and I have found that with Zephyr (their boxer), when the dog starts biting, to calmly say no, and go to another room, or up on a high chair or somewhere where the dog cannot bite. Usually they are doing this for attention, and regardless if you are trying to break the bad habit with techniques, it is still bad attention. So by leaving them, you are telling them that you do not appreciate that and will not tolerate it.
As well, when he barks at you when you ask him to do something, I would suggest putting him on a time out. This should not be a bad thing, where there is yelling or pulling, just a calm time out so he can calm down and realize that you are, indeed, the alpha & boss, and that that behavior is unacceptable.

Something I'm sure you've been doing already, but will mention anyways, is the reward system. Whether your dog is praise oriented or responds to food, you need to let him know exactly what behavior you like and praise him generously for it each time he does it, whether you commanded it or not (at least for now). By doing this, the dog will be trying to please you constantly because he will associate that with praise.

Other than that, he is in his teen years as far as age goes, and as long as you keep on doing what you'd been doing in the start that worked, I wouldn't get too discouraged. He should just be going through a phase and by staying constant, he will come out of it well trained. As he is an energetic dog, try working with his commands and his temper after he has had a long walk or exercise. This may just help your sanity as he will be worn out and more compliant.

Hopefully I could be of some help, and I really hope that you and your fiancee can figure out a solution for the problems you are having. He is an adorable puppy and I'm sure he will grow into a great dog. =)

Thanks. We are hoping the neutering will help a little too but so far, he has come home the same dog. Day after and he is already back to his old ways. We did not expect him to calm down but maybe loose a little dominance. Maybe with time.

Many of the things your mentioning are similar to what we have tried. Many people have told us it will just take some time. This is my first dog but I grew up with many puppies over the years and none were like this. They were all large dogs though.

Originally Posted by The Grizz

How much exercise is he getting? He needs to be totally played out before you do any training. If you wear out his energy he will be easier to train. One idea is a hulla hoop, with treats oin one hand and the hoop n the other get him to jump threw the hoop over and over untill he doesn't want to any more. If he seems like he want to stop get him focused on the treats on the other side of the hoop. Keep your tone of voice calm & monotone when training commands. If you get excited so will he to. Play play and more play is your key to success.

He does NOT get enough exercise and we do know that. Not having a yard is a problem and something we have considered before and after getting him. We have talked a lot lately about whether keeping him is even fair. He is walked daily but I cannot always take him for hours and hours to tire him out. Actually I have taken him for a day long walk around the seawall here and down to the beach but he was still crazy when we got home. I don't think walks or even runs wear him out. I have yet to see him really tired other than going to sleep at night. I suppose it's impossible to never be tired but I don't know what it would take.

We do try to keep calm and monotone with commands as he does respond very negatively to yelling or worse yet, excitement in our voices! If you get excited around him, you have to understand he is going to go nuts! lol

Originally Posted by Navigator

I have a Labrador that I adopted from the SPCA when he was about a year old and he was very dominant. It took a long time before he stopped embarrassing me in public, but I took him to Petsmart Obedience, and lucked out that the trainer was very knowledgable. Jack Russells are what they are, but they are smart little suckers and probably would respond well to some formal training since it gives their brains something to do. My Lab loves learning new stuff (comes with food!) but I find it does help calm him down too.

The books by Ceasar Milan are pretty good, and they do advocate a lot of walking, and restrained walking - not one of those zip line leashes, keeping them close to establish dominance. I find long walks with a little training session after really worked for my dog and he's pretty good now, very few slips. The one thing that I really liked from training was teaching them to walk on a loose leash - I guarantee if you have a puller - you will look ridiculous for awhile but it works. Take them out on a 6 ft leash and the second he pulls - stop. Have him come back to you and sit. Then carry on - every time he pulls you stop. I must have taken 25 minutes to walk half a block the first night but I now have a 80 lb Lab that walks like an angel on a leash with no gimmicky collars or rig-ups.

We have a few books from Milan. Although I do like his methods, I don't think much of his methods are for us but I may have read the wrong books. In the books i have read, he is mostly training using a pack which is an advantage we obviously don't have. He is also using basically a "no love" approach (for lack of a better term) where he is not showing the dogs "human" love and affection but treating them purely as dogs. I have really butchered that description and I think I may have read the wrong books. I will check the others. We did take some stuff from his books like the walking strategies. The long lease....never worked. I tried for a week straight about an hour each day but after I stop, he is stubborn enough to never come back no matter how long I wait and call him back. Maybe I didn't try long enough? We just literally were getting no where. Keeping the lease very short so he cannot walk ahead of us is how it is now but he pulls like crazy and ends up choking a lot. I am stubborn enough to never give in to him but I amount of people who comment on how mean I am gets annoying. I walk him mostly at night now...not good either.

It's amazing how many people on the street have an opinion on how to "fix" the puppy and a majority are just stupid. Someone even told me to beat him and he will listen. I looked at her poor dogs and felt really bad for them

Thanks guys!

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by workn2hard2day

I know that the treadmill saved us. Our Golden never really got tired on outside walks. (2 - 1/2 hr during day and a 1 hour at before dinner) He walks on the treadmill at 4mph for about 10-15 mins.
It is cute to catch him standing on it looking at the control panel wondering why it isnt moving. Started him on it when he was under a year, but the older lab wont even go near it.
I got the idea from Cesear Millan.

I bet this would help but we just don't have room for one and I don't think my gym would like me bringing him along lol. My girl would probably think I am taking the dog to the gym to "pick up chicks" Actually that's one thing he was good at when he was really little. Now he just jumps all over them Not that I'm using him for that hahahaha

[banditpowdercoat]

Tagging along. Our Min Pin can be a handfull most of the time too. Hyper as heck. Even with a cast on!!! She was wrapped up in the daughters blanket when I went to put girl to bed. Dog fell out and smacked coffee table Tough Pup though, I will say that. I splinted it, and she slept till morning when we could get into the Vet....

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by banditpowdercoat

Tagging along. Our Min Pin can be a handfull most of the time too. Hyper as heck. Even with a cast on!!! She was wrapped up in the daughters blanket when I went to put girl to bed. Dog fell out and smacked coffee table Tough Pup though, I will say that. I splinted it, and she slept till morning when we could get into the Vet....

Oh man Im sorry to hear that! Our pup seems to be very tough too.

[banditpowdercoat]

Ya, I felt really bad. snapped it clean in 2. Was out of work at time too, so Vet bills were scaring me to say the least. But she got the cast off the other day the Wife said. So she's doing great now. Was really siprising how well she could get around on 3 legs. Barely slowed her down any.

[365seasons]

Thanks. We are hoping the neutering will help a little too but so far, he has come home the same dog. Day after and he is already back to his old ways. We did not expect him to calm down but maybe loose a little dominance. Maybe with time.

Many of the things your mentioning are similar to what we have tried. Many people have told us it will just take some time. This is my first dog but I grew up with many puppies over the years and none were like this. They were all large dogs though.

Hopefully with time and consistency, he will learn. Most of my experience is with large breed dogs as well, so that may be different, but just keep trying.

Good luck! =) All great advice so far on here. And luckily none about beating your dog like the lady you saw. That's horrible.

[JJB84]

Hi,

I myself have a stubborn dog and he too was very nippy as a puppy and pulled alot when we go for walks. A few things that work when we walk is a gentle leader, its a muzzle looking thing but its not a muzzel you would attach your leash to this gentle leader and when the pup pulls you have more control because it attached to his snout. It takes a bit getting used to for the pup but they do help alot. Another thing I tried that worked was looping his leash (6 foot one works well or longer) around his back end to almost make a choker so everytime he pulls the leash will tighten around his lower stomache and cause some discomfort but its easier on his stomache than his neck. The leash is still attached to the collar when doing this method. hope maybe some of that helped. It took my boy 1 1/2 years to calm down and listen better

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

So its been a few weeks since Diesel got neutered and he is actually listening and progressing much better now. He has the same energy levels as before but seems to actually stop and try to figure out what I am asking him to do even when he is running around like an idiot. So that's been great.

He also seems very, very cuddly and loving since loosing his boys I guess he's gone soft lol. It's really nice actually. He seems to enjoy our company much more than before.

One thing though that has not changed and is the one thing that drives me nuts more than anything else is how he reacts to meeting new people/dogs or how he reacts when he wants to meet people or dogs.

For example last night I was walking him and he was great for most of the walk until near the end when he saw a lady that for whatever reason he HAD to meet. He starts to pull, bark, whine, ect. I hold him back and try to get him to sit but no matter what I do, he will just persist. In this case, the lady wanted nothing to do with him and kept walking. We went around a corner and he was still whining and pulling to go back.

Anyone dealt with this before? Or have some ideas?

When people come over we ask them to ignore the dog and we lease him so that he cannot get to them either. It takes a good 10 minutes for him to calm down but then after we allow the people to approach him, he goes nuts again. On new years eve we had a party with quite a few friends over and he stayed on the lease all night because he couldn't calm down. We took him off a few times to try but he knocked over drinks, jumps on people and just tears around the condo.

I can't really ever tire this dog out. I run almost everyday and now take him with me but even after a long run, he is not tired! He can out run me easily.

Basically we are pretty happy with him lately other than meeting new dogs and people. He just can't seem to handle it!