Hi, I'm looking for suggestions regarding my 6 month old lab (he's much bigger than my avatar pic now). He weighs close to 45 lbs. he's been to obedience training, and I know it's a constant training, but we also have a 4 and 6 yr old. He totally respects our 4 yr old, but sees our 6 yr old as a litter mate, and therefore a playmate. We are also breaking him, or should I say redirecting him from the alpha male. He is neutered. So any suggestions on breaking him from jumping would be greatly appreciated.
We've got a lab mix and she jumped some when she was younger. Use a calm voice (lower the tone of your voice a little) and tell him 'no' firmly. Grab his collar and tug it downwards. Praise him when she stays down. It's harder when the other dogs are around because the dog you are training will pay more attention to the other dogs than to you. (Our lab bonded with our other dog before she did with us, so the trainging dynamics were more complicated) My dad said to step on Lucy's back foot if she kept jumping, but she was up and down and up and down and my timing never worked. Your dog will outgrow the tendency to do this eventually.
If you are talking about jumping on people then use a spray bottle & say no while you spray at the dogs face (water) I have 6 dogs & on 5 all I have to do now is show the spray bottle . My biggest Lab Brutus likes to catch the water coming out of the bottle so it is not effective on him nor did it work on a 115# rottie. Good luck
I was told by our trainer as well as Zoo to simply turn your back to him. Do not give him ANY attention at all. As soon as his little feetsies hit the floor, praise praise praise! Zoo and my trainer swear by this! My little guy is a jumper, but I never worked on correcting the behavior because he's little. Our lab is not a jumper...the only time she puts her paws up is for a "hug".
I've had several goldens and labs, presently an english setter, only two that were jumpers. I've always used the mother dog or alpha male approach when ours were young and throughout the first 2-3 yrs., grab the back of the neck using your fingers like teeth, force them to the ground, flat on their side until they become submissive. If you truely have a strong alpha male with this one, your praise after reprimanding him could confuse him, praise a dog only when he is in a submissive/calm state, wait several minutes after using your method of correction and only if he's calm. Presently our english setter is somewhat of a jumper, 11 mths. old and only does this when he is very excited and forgets he shouldn't jump. For whatever reason, he has never jumped on a child, just the oldest daughters boyfriend and oops, darn if I don't forget to reprimand him during those times . When you find the method that works for you be consistant. Good luck and check out the Dog Whisperer on National Geograhic or Ceasar Milans (sp.) book in stores, he is the best.
Dear Blessed2Adopt2: I don't know if this will help you, but certainly it's worth a try and easy to do (well it was for us anyway)... No dog likes to have a knee in their face, so what we did with "Buck" (our humongous chocolate lab) was this: Every time he attempted to jump up on us, we would just simply raise our right knee (dogs are typically "left handed"). Nothing aggressive, just raise the knee immediately. And we never even had to say a command to him, just raised the knee and after about the 7th time that he got a knee in his face or chest, he never offered to do it again. While I practice operant conditioning, this is easy enough to try and I hope this helps! Good luck! Abundant Blessings and Shalom! Kimberly Carter ELCICERONE@aol.com
Honestly - kneeing isn't the best way to break a dog of jumping - it works on some, but if you have young kids, or elderly people they cant always knee a dog in the chest PLUS - it isn't the nicest thing to do. Water bottles work - BUT you don't always have a water bottle in your hand and some breeds LOVE water - I know a few Labs who enjoy being squirted. SIMPLY turn around - for short folks or kids, cross your arms and turn around, the dogs paws automatically fall to the ground and you didn't have to say a word, NOR raise a leg. Ignore the dog. Wait a couple of seconds and if the dog doesn't repeat the jump, then ask him to SIT and then when he does, praise him. Keep in mind that if you correct a dog in any manner, when they stop doing whatever it was they were to make you correct them and you then praise them without giving them another task to do (such as sit) in the dogs' head, they deduce - How did I get them to say GOOD DOG? Oh yeah, I jumped up on them and then they said DOWN/KNEED me in the chest and I put all my feet on the floor and then they said GOOD DOG - OK now I'll jump up again. . . By asking them to sit or lay down or fetch something, you have diverted their attention and they will associate your praise with what they just did for you. The jumping habit will stop because it receives nothing positive or negative - it is basically ignored. I work with a ton of dogs and I can promise you that after a couple of times with them they never jump up on me - All I do is turn around and do it consistantly and the dog remembers. . .I have clients who have said - Wow, he doesn't jump on you! It's because the dog figures out quickly that they will get nothing from me without all four feet on the floor. The thing is the ENTIRE household needs to do it to have the dog learn the habit of not jumping up on anyone.
Just trying to be helpful here... When it comes to the very different personalities of each and every individual dog, I don't think that there is any one single authority on training that will be a perfect fit for all dogs. Of course there are the common sense basics with operant conditioning, but dogs also have quirks just like people. And rather than be critical of the techniques that worked for others, I myself prefer to be less critical and more supportive to Blessed2Adopt2 who originated this thread. ZooKeeper wrote: Honestly - kneeing isn't the best way to break a dog of jumping - it works on some, but if you have young kids, or elderly people they cant always knee a dog in the chest PLUS - it isn't the nicest thing to do. Yes "it works on some" but there was nothing unkind or not-nice about how we used the knee maneuver with Buck to train him not to jump on us -- it was nothing more than a simple, blocking/redirection maneuver we employed without any fanfare, and it was effective enough for him to get the point, for good. We had neighbors and friends come over to visit us all the time, including a very elderly couple from next door and small children of our friends (including toddlers) and Buck never jumped on any of them because once Buck was trained to NOT EVER jump, he did not jump on anyone, ever. So in our case, our visitors (elderly and small children) never had to be burdened with training our dog -- that was our job and it worked for us permanently with this particular pet. Also, years ago, a friend of mine who owned a pawn shop and who also obedience-trained dogs (very similar to Cesar Milan's techniques), had 2 of the most precious Dobermans named Bonnie and Clyde who, although they were monstrous in size (the biggest Dobies I ever saw!), they were big ol` babies who thought they were lap-dogs but were very rough-and-tumble when playing with people. (Sorry for the run-on sentence LOL.) Anyway, this friend tried the turnaround/ignore technique with Bonnie and Clyde, exactly as it has been explained in this thread, and thinking it was a game, the 2 of them would circle around and continue to jump because they just simply wanted to play. Those 2 never quite 'got' the hang of this turnaround/ignore technique. So I suggested that he try the kneeing maneuver and even though he did not think it would be effective for his particular dogs, guess what? It worked! When employing this kneeing maneuver, he worked with each dog separately, as well as with both of them together because whenever the 2 dogs were together, it was 'big time playtime' and everyone was fair 'game' LOL! It didn't take him any time at all to train them not to jump using the kneeing maneuver because, apparently to the dogs, it was something that they both understood based on their own individual personalities when they were together and apart. I used to call them 'The Dynamic Duo' LOL because they had the most playful dynamic of any dogs I've ever met. I really miss those 2, especially Clyde because he would sneak up from behind and goose ya real quick LOL! Clyde was the funnier of the two. ZooKeeper also wrote: The thing is the ENTIRE household needs to do it to have the dog learn the habit of not jumping up on anyone. ZooKeeper, ain't THAT the truth! Please tell my hubby that because after all these years, he's now decided that it's better to be the 'fun parent' LOL! <pulling my hair out> »§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§« Anyway Blessed2Adopt2....ZooKeeper even said that the kneeing "works on some" so again, I hope this helps because there is no one single technique that will work for every dog which I'm sure you already know. So just keep at it until you find whichever is the best technique that works for both you and your Lab, whether it be the turnaround, water bottle, tug-down, kneeing or whatever! These are all great suggestions but the best one for YOU will be the one that does the 'trick' (no pun intended LOL)! Blessed2Adopt2 wrote: He totally respects our 4 yr old, but sees our 6 yr old as a litter mate, and therefore a playmate. Since I've never been able to have children, I would not know how to handle this. And I don't know how helpful this will be but I was just wondering and thinking aloud: Perhaps the 6 year old is more coordinated, mobile and active than the 4 year old. And maybe the Lab and your 6 year old have similar energy levels which could explain your Lab 'relating' as a peer instead of another pack leader. In any event...again...GOOD LUCK and hang in there! Abundant Blessings and Shalom! Kimberly Carter ELCICERONE@aol.com PS: Just curious: Where did you take your Lab for obedience training?
I would NEVER grab my babies and force them to the ground...as I would never grab a child and "teach" them anything that way. That hurt my heart to read that....
Ask any expert in dog training and they will tell you that alpha dogs can become very aggressive. This method of holding the dog on the ground for a few minutes until he/she calms down is a natural method, mind you this is not to be painful, just a method that is used very effectively with very aggressive alpha dogs to show who's in charge. If the position of who's in charge is not established you will have one big mess on your hands with an alpha. This is a very natural way, one that is used in the wilds with the pack leader and used by a mother dog when her pups do something she needs to correct. If you know anything about dogs or have had any true experience in training the alpha pack leader you'd know that this is very effective. Once again, this is not cruel or suppose to be painful in anyway to the animal. We all love are animals like children, but they really are still dogs and when placed in particular situations their reactions will be that of a dog not a human.
This is a related story. My sister had a very, very big Golden. This Golden was the worst jumper I've ever encountered. He jumped on children and adults. If you turned your back on him, he'd jump on your back and scratch the crap out of it. Kneeing did not work, yanking at the collar did not work and so on. We were there on a visit for the holidays one weekend and I'd had enough of Chunk jumping on my kids, used the holding until submissive/calm tech. and he finally after understood that his actions were inappropriate and we "the humans" were in charge of the pack, not him.
Hi, just catching up. Our dog is not jumping near as much. We used the calm, lower your voice down method. I'm not saying he's perfect, as it's a daily process. Honestly, with regard to my kids and the dog, my son and the dog do have the same amount of energy. I'm not going to say where he went to obedience training, because that's not the subject of this issue (although we loved the place and I feel they did a fantastic job). The issue is more with my son still and his interaction with the dog. The dog sees my son as a playmate...so we're still working on this. Also, I know it's up to us to wear the dog out so he won't be so full of energy
In your first post, you mentioned that it's your 6 year old son which your dog doesn't seem to have the respect for - One suggestion: Since your dog has had some obedience training and your son is 6, it should be easy to do this - Take 10 minutes per day and arm your son with some training treats and have HIM give your dog the commands it knows. Supervise this, and make certain your son speaks in a calm, but firm voice. Also, make sure that he doesn't reward your dog unless the dog does as he asks. Try this out for about two weeks and be consistent. This should help your dog re-think who's where in the pack order. Hope it helps.
Blessed2adopt2 wrote: > I'm not going to say where he went to > obedience training, because that's not the > subject of this issue (although we loved the > place and I feel they did a fantastic job). The reason I was asking which training facility you took your Lab, was not because I thought they were unsatisfactory or lacking in any way -- but because I was hoping it might be closer for me to drive so I can take my white miniature-schnauzer puppy for training. A couple years ago I had gone to Bon-Clyde in Sanford and they were awesome and I really loved their service but they are just too far for me to travel (I'm at McGee's Crossroads). So if the facility you went to is closer, I would really like to know where it is. If you don't feel comfortable saying onlist what the facility was that you went to, please PM me offlist. Thanks in advance! And last but certainly not least.....CONGRATS to you, your son and your entire family on the progress you are making with your Lab! It makes a person feel confident, and the dog too, when even the slightest measure of success is reached. Obedience training is a lifelong endeavor for all, so keep up the good work! Abundant Blessings and Shalom! Kimberly Carter ELCICERONE@aol.com
yep, knee in the dog's chest EVERYTIME he jumps up (by the person he is jumping on) and he will stop almost immediately.
A good swift knee in the chest when he jumps works quite well. Not kick the crap out of him for those of you who try so hard to read between the lines.
Falcon - it's not that some of us try to "read between the lines," it's more like those of us who have posted suggestions other than using their knee to disrupt/correct this behavior either have small dogs ( and they don't come close to knee height), OR we are involved in animal rescue and have / or have had dogs who have been abused physically. My answers to dog related behavior problems are typically ones that are safe to try on ANY dog. If you attempt to knee, or give a swift yank on a collar (which would put your face close to theirs) to correct the wrong dog, you may end up getting hurt. Also, a small child - under 7 or 8 years of age typically can't knee an 80 lb dog in the chest. I have one that was beaten to within inches of his life - if I had attempted any move which he might have anticipated as a threat, he could have easily reacted violently. I have almost 50 years of experience with dogs - I've seen just about everything. While not everyone with dog questions own a battered dog, I'd rather play it safe and advise moves that would never be perceived as a threat in any dogs mind.
