Kingdom of Pets

Posted by Rodrigo
Oct 20, 2010

Hi, Dimitri is a 5 month Golden Retriever. He's great and funny but goes crazy when we receive guests... He gets too excited and it's impossible to calm him down... He would nip and jump on people like crazy.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks a lot!

Rodrigo

Posted by KOPCaroline
Oct 20, 2010

Hey Rodrigo,

What do your visitors do when they enter the house? Its probably best to ask them to ignore Dimitri, at least until he calms down. If he still nips and jumps, have them cross their arms and turn their backs to him. Once he's calm and not jumpy, they can say hello and pet him.

When you're out with Dimitri try to reward his calm behaviour around other people and dogs. If he goes berserk around people outside the house, give him a "no" or "enough" command, and ask him to sit. Get his attention focused on something other than the other people. You can do this when people visit your house, too.

Worst case scenario, Dimitri doesn't respond to being ignored and turned away from, remove him from the room, into a "time out" situation, preferably a darker room, by himself. You can let him out again once he's calmed down. If he comes out hyper active again, put him straight back in til he's ok.

You can also try getting a doggie bed for the entrance area/living room, and when guests come over have him sit or lay down on it, train him to a "bed" command for this, so that you can tell him to go there any time someone comes over. This way he's focusing on a command and has his own quiet space, but is still in the room with you and feeling "included"

Hope this helps, I'm sure you'll get more great advice from other users. Good luck!!

Posted by Rodrigo
Oct 21, 2010

Thanks!

I did not try the bed command yet... What do you suggest I start with for this command training?

Dimitri seats, extends his paws, lies down, rolls, stays, fetches... He's clever and catches commands fast. He sleeps on an old couch in a big kitchen corner because he destroyed his doggy bed and an old blanket... So getting a new bed will be a waste of money I think.

Thanks a lot for your help!

Rodrigo

Posted by kjd
Oct 23, 2010

Rodrigo,

Has Dimitri tried to chew up the couch? If not, why not? And is he getting plenty of toys to chew? He's a smart dog -- if you don't provide enough things to chew, he will find them for himself!

kjd

Posted by KOPCaroline
Oct 24, 2010

Hey Rodrigo,

For training him to a bed area in a room, find whatever you're going to use as his spot, it might even be your couch, it doesnt have to be a new doggy bed or anything. Start giving him the "bed" command (or whatever command you want him to learn it by, you could use "quiet", "time out", "relax", whatever ) when you see him go to the spot on his own, and tell him "good boy" afterward. Start out by giving the command when he does the behaviour on his own, which would be easy if you use the couch he likes to lie on (the only problem I foresee with this would be if visitors want to sit on the couch, but you know your house better than I do, obviously, haha). Then, start giving him the command when you're in the room alone with him, and praise him heaps when he gets it. Give him treats, but be sure he's in his bed when you do. Once he's there, try giving him "stay" and see how long he'll stay there.

Then its just about giving him the command more and more, with other stuff going on, other people in the house, noise in the room, other people in the room, etc. You should probably train him on a get up command like "lets go", or "breaks over", or just plain "good boy", so that he knows when YOU are ok with him getting up. The idea is that he'll go to this spot and stay there, quietly, until you decide its ok for him to move around and interact again, so use the same technique of giving the get up command first when he gets up on his own, then more and more as a request of him from you.

Hope it works out!

Posted by MaxHollyNoah
Oct 26, 2010

Hi everyone,

I just came back from Japan where I had a bad experience with some doggies. It really made me realize that I am glad that I had trained our dogs. A friend of mine has 2 female GRs (3 yrs old) that are not trained well. When we visited the friend's home, we were warned that we would get a lot of excitements from their dogs! I can take excitements but no jumping and biting:mad:

The dogs play bits me and my husband on the arms and jumped on us and they just didn't listen to the owners nor us saying "No!".

I was very upset with those dogs' behaviors and the fact that the owners didn't even discipline them!

"On your bed" command is a handy command so I think you should teach Rodrigo. I found it is easier to train like this:

Show a treat to Rodrigo and bring the treat to the bed. Once he gets on the bed, bring your hand down to make him down. Give the treat. Repeat this many times until he understands that he needs to get on the bed and lie down in order to get the treat. Practice this with a command (I use "On your bed"). Once he learns it, leave him on the bed and you go somewhere else. He is supposed to remain on the bed. If he stands up and follows you, tell him again to go to bed. Soon you will be able to send him to his bed from distance. However, the biggest challenge is the distraction (your guests).

You can also reinforce your "Stay" command. Have him stay somewhere and you can walk around him, go to another room, do house chores such as folding laundries, cooking, watering plants while he stays in one position.

Good luck

Posted by Kate-Jacobz
Nov 5, 2010

Hi MaxHollyNoah,

It is of equal importance to teach a get up command like "let's go" or "breaks over" so that the dog knows when you are ok with it leaving the place you positioned it in.

Golden Puppy Crazy On Visitors