Charging and jumping on visitors

[mcburniefarm]

Hi, I'm new here, I've been lurking for a few days reading up, and wow you guys are a great group! I too have learned a lot in just a few hours. I would really like some personal advice.

 

We have our first BC, Pirate, he is now 6 months old, and we've had him since he was 8wks. I thought I knew about training, my mom was a Rough Collie breeder and trainer in the 50s, and we grew up with many shelter rescues and trained them all to be obedient and loving family members. But I'm just an animal lover with some skills, I'm no trainer.

 

Our new baby however is smarter than us! He's a joy and amazing, but we have a problem with his exuberant charging full speed at nearly every new person to our farm (we have a horse boarding stable, many people come and go). He learned it I think from one gal, who adores him, brings her dogs to the farm for doggie play groups, but she baby-sweetie calls him with open arms and he charges her and jumps onto her and they have a party every evening. "Come" is not heard, so I don't interfere...

 

I assumed he could learn who IS and who ISN'T to be jumped on, and that only the "Go Get Daddy" command was the OK to jump on him...he did for a bit...but now he's charging and running everyone else over if we are not immediately there to intercept (impossible I'm 41 and he's fast as a whip). It's wonderful to be so loved but this is not ok. He knocked down a 8 yo child 2 days ago.....and charged Daddy's truck last night. I'm lucky so far.

 

On personality & family life, he is very well socialized with his doggie pals, accepts my dominance in every aspect I have asked it, sleeps next to me, and has it pretty easy. He has 2 adults and 2 kiddos he adores, 2 cats who tolerate him, 11 horses, 1 horrid pygmy goat, and hundreds of acres. He knows all his very basic verbal commands and hand signals, does "COME" even when saving us from the squirrel invasion, but we're losing it in other places.

 

Since finding this board and learning about renaming commands, we think my 7 yo son may have worn the word out.

 

SO I am seeking some advice on an instant help, and a long term plan. We have no fences he can't jump over already, and have always let our dogs run free on the farm. I am having to keep him confined in the house from 5 pm until 9 pm, and leash him for visitors in the house. I feel like I'm in slow motion, he's so FAST!

 

Thank you everyone, I will listen. Susan

[Ooky]

I feel like I'm in slow motion, he's so FAST!

 

He, he, he, welcome to the club. No seriously, welcome. We are just coming through the stage you are describing (the OMG I love you so let me tackle you!!! stage). Ours didn't jump up as a puppy so when it started happening it was unexpected. Many here are so much more experienced, I'm sure they'll have lots of advice for you. But I consider the art of polite greeting to be one of the hardest things we've taught, and has taken/is taking months to get down solidly. We took a CGC prep class, but before he really started going into this stage. That might help.

 

As for other people being "bad influences", I've observed that too. One of my coworkers (I take mine to work sometimes) loves him to pieces but has no idea what she is doing when she gets him so ramped up. I've caught her encouraging the use of a volley ball in a 8X8-ft office (not *my*office, eep!), teaching him to play tug with his leash, encouraging him to blow off my recall in favor of coming with her for more ball, asking him to "Speak" inside the office, etc etc. I found that talking to her about how difficult it is to train him helped, and giving her clear ideas of things she was allowed to do and not allowed to do. Maybe it would help if you talked to your friend about how they could really help you through this training hurdle by not encouraging such a crazy introduction? She could be a "practice" person to greet, and would not give him attention unless it was a nice polite greeting.

 

Good luck, this reminds me so much of us!

[mbc1963]

My dog's not a jump-greeter, but I took two rounds of puppy school with an excellent trainer whose protocol seemed to work without fail - within minutes, he had energetic puppies greeting calmly.

 

He would have the owner stand holding the dog's leash, and have the dog sit. He would approach the dog, who would immediately break the sit and try to jump to greet. Upon seeing that, the trainer would turn on his heel and reverse direction. Then repeat. Every time the puppy went to jump up instead of sit, the man would remove what the puppy wanted (his attention). Within minutes, the dogs would have learned that to encourage the trainer to greet them, they had to maintain a calm sit. When they could do this, he would lavish them with attention.

 

I tried this for a couple days with a little jumpy dog we used to meet on walks, and the owner laughed and said, "Every time she sees you, she goes into an obedient sit." So, I can testify from witnessing and practicing this that it does work.

 

The challenge is getting people to consistently practice with you. They need to absoutely withdraw attention unless the calm behavior is there. As soon as people start rewarding the jumping with attention, the deal is broken.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Mary

[bc4pack]

Teach SIT to greet over and over and over. no greeting UNLESS sitting. It should be to the point of being automatic.

 

The more practice he gets jumping on people the more he'll do it.

How about a long line or even converting a stall for when you can't keep direct supervision?

[Jumpin Boots]

I would reccommend setting up a communication board somewhere in your barn for your dog. Have a list of commands he is learning and what that command means. If you are training 'down' to mean lay down and when he jumps one of your boarders says 'down' instead of 'off' or whatever your word is, your pup is going to be confused. In my experience as dogs get more seasoned they will figure out what different people are wanting, i.e. our house sitter uses 'lie' for lay-down and we have trained w/ the word 'down' but the experienced dogs seem to get the point, but to expect a young dog who is learning to figure this out would be pretty unfair.

 

You could also mention issues on the communication board, ie. Pirate is having greeting troubles and we don't want him hurting anyone, when greeting him please do... This way everyone in the barn knows whats going on and as a community you can train him.

[bc4pack]

The board is a good idea.

[Alaska]

The board is a good idea.

Yeah, I need to wear a sweatshirt or something to broadcast the training message of the day for people we encounter on our travels

 

You are totally right to make this a priority. My youngster - who is, um, 3 1/2 now - gets his greatest joy (and he's a pretty joyful dog) from leaping up and giving me a very enthusiastic bear hug when I come home. I love it too, and I really hate to deprive him of this pleasure, but I really, really need to teach him not to do it to my 80 year old mom. Polite greetings should be the norm and bear hugs given out only on invitation.

 

We're working on it.

[flyer]

Oh lord, thank you for this affirmation. This morning I said to my DH that I am going to have to ask my daughter not to greet Colt, my 12 week old BC pup the way she does anymore. He has always a polite little greeter. He would sit and squirm and wag and as we bent down to him he would lick and snuggle. Two days ago he was so happy to see my DD and she went over the top seeing him and he just went ballistic with excitement jumping all over her. The very next day she comes home from school and he threw himself into her arms and again went nutzo. Of course she loves this and it is soooooo cute but he did it to one of my son's schoolmates this very morning who also gets very excited seeing Colt.

 

OP you have convinced me I need to put a stop to this regardless of the cute factor. I did ask DD if she be OK with a 45 lb. dog flinging himself at her and she said; Oh he won't do that then.

 

She's right!

 

Flyer

[mcburniefarm]

The barn board IS a super idea. We already have a great daily logbook/notebook in my office that everyone communicates with about the horses, so it would be a PERFECT way to expresss our, ahem, "new" greeting training....Love the sweatshirt idea!

 

Still question if we sould be locking him up or long leashing during visitors?

 

Already since finding this group and burrowing around at others' questions and advice, I've found we are more focused with what we do with him. My easy 4xday on-leash walk down the drive for the kids busses has improved, within the past 5 days we can now HEEL off leash for a short time! He walks at my pace and checks in with me eye to eye often! Just like you guys said he should. He's got it down on short leash, but doesn't look at me, he just accepts his boundry without needing to ask? We also are paying attention to "4-feet on the floor".

 

I've seen the book "control unleased" mentioned, should I get that? I've always been a NILIF type mommy (but didn't know it had a name), that's how I was taught. But I am a positive reinforcement mom, even negative discipline is attention. I use a AAAHT, and my Alpha look, and then avoid eye contact. Of course, I'm only a human, so that one and only "bathroom garbage can with diapers and unmentionables adventure" was a pretty scary can to stick your head into ever again.

 

We were just talking about how sweet & mellow he can be, My DH was standing over him wiggling his feet under Pirate's back and shoulders while Pirate is on his back, tongue lolling out, legs spread. Gee I wish he trusted us more..... :-)

Keep the advice coming, I'll keep learning!

Thanks!

[Jumpin Boots]

One thing you might try is to have a tie back area. Young dogs or dogs that are new to your home often get so excited w/ everything going on around them that even if they know a 'go lie down' command, they may find it very difficult to hold when new people are in the area. I ride reining horses, and while I don't have a boarding or training facility, while I'm working w/ my horses I don't have the time to keep one eye on the dogs to make sure they are behaving appropriately. So I have a tie back area, a cinder block w/ a short leash attached that the dogs get tied to until they learn to behave appropriately. So anytime I am in the barn setting or out at the arena they are tied up. No one is to speak or make eye-contact w/ them. For me, this exercise has worked to teach the dogs to hang out by themselves while I am busy. Often the dogs will bark at first or throw fits, I just ignore them and let them figure out that being tied away from the action and just watching is ok. You don't want to make a big deal of them going onto the tie-back or coming off of it, the exercise just becomes part of their role when you are in the barn or riding and not able to pay 100% attention to them. I also use this exercise in the house to help them to learn that it is ok to 'just be' while people and other animals are moving about. Right now we are working w/ two aussie fosters who came from puppy mills and tying them back in the house has down wonders to help them relax.

 

I guess my overall opinion is that by putting him in the house when people come and go isn't teaching him to deal with that excitement appropriately. IMO he needs to learn to be around the excitement and be calmly in his area out of the way. Another thing about having a tie-back in the barn is that if he was causing issues for your boarders while you were busy they could put him up to get him out of their way.