Puppy playfully attacking the broom

Hi Tom,

I smiled when I read your post. My Labrador puppy used to do exactly the same. Her breeder didn't have anything to do with it, it was just that she loved playing with whatever she could find.

Whenever my wife or I would get the vacuum cleaner out she would bounce around and bark at it. The noise, the movement - it was all just too exciting.

She is now 7 months old and when we vacuum or use the broom she just lies on the floor or on her blanket and watches us or even sleeps, no problem at all.

What I did was that every time I got the broom out and she got excited I would stop moving the broom around and say "no" to her.
As soon as she stopped bouncing around or pulling on the broom I would give her a treat.

I would then ask her to sit and stay and continue with the broom. Of course, the stay wouldn't last long, so I would stop, tell her "no" and give her a treat when she displayed the desired behavior. Now she knows that the broom is not a toy and she is supposed to leave it.

It's a good idea to get the broom out when you have some spare time and just practice calm behavior with your pup. It took us about 4-5 sessions over a few weeks before she understood that it really wasn't a game and then another 3-4 sessions before she was calm enough to not even get up to check the broom out.

They do learn right from wrong quickly, it's just a matter of being consistent and always giving them the same feedback. So the broom is never a toy, it's always off limits.

Of course, the other option is to only use the broom when she is inside the house or out of view or when someone else takes her for a walk, but I think it is much better to desensitize them, so that you can do whatever you need to do without the pup being a nuisance.

How old is your pup?

Let us know how you get on.
John

Thank you for the replies.

The dog is about 4 months old.

I hadn't tried the sit and stay while sweeping. She is learning both those commands. It seems that some days she knows them well, other days not so well.

I've had the same problem with the sprinkler, where she keeps trying to go after it while I'm attaching the hose. I can't even see what I'm doing because she is all over it and bumping into my hands.

I tried putting her on a sit/stay a couple of feet from the sprinkler yesterday, but the moment I started attaching the hose she was back at it. I tried it about three times and finally gave up and just hooked it up.

Since she is a Lab and they all seem to love water, I've had to keep her in the house while the sprinkler is running so far, otherwise she gets more water than the lawn. I guess that's the next thing to work on - leaving the sprinkler alone while it's running.

Lots of little things to train her on besides the usual obedience training...

Hi again,
The training will be most effective if your dog sees the broom and does the training every day or even several times a day at first. You can even train with the shovel and broom alternately to work on both. I had a similar situation with my dog who loved to chase the lawn mower which was not ideal in terms of time taken to mow the lawn or safety. Regular exposure to the mower, using an "AHH" sound to correct then redirecting with a command then a game as a reward solved the problem quickly and he no longer has any particular interest in the mower.