Minor Dog Behavioral Problems

Karma25

Okay so first time owner of a dog and she is nearly a year old. Her behavior is pretty obedient around the house. We used the nothing in life is free method for everything besides the pee training which we just used positive reinforcement.

The only difficulties we have are the following:

A) Walking the dog. She pulls a fair bit on the lead. She is a King Charles so its not a problem physically. It's just we are constantly pulling her back and we cant get the max enjoyment out of the walk. She is generally good after bout five laps round the field and bout fifteen minutes of play, she doesn't pull as much as when we enter the park. A lot of people comment how fast she is for a king charles and how she loves the outdoors. This could be down to her first trip outside after vaccinations was to a nearby hiking woods.

Meeting other dogs. When she was young, we socialized her so well with humans so much so that she goes hyper when people enter the room and tries to lick the face of them.She adores people. Unfortunately because we knew no one with a dog we couldn't give her socialization with dogs as much besides the walks. On walks she met a lot of big breeds her first few dogs were an adult great dane, border collie and German Shepard. She was grand meeting them tail wagging and jumping up to smell them.

However, lately as she has got older she doesn't seem to be on the same wave length as other dogs especially the bigger breeds.She can be grand with other small breeds. She almost falls on her back once a dog starts sniffing but she has the tail firmly tucked in and won't allow the dog a sniff basically. There is no aggression but when the dog leaves, she begins her barking. What could her issue be with dogs?

c) If your still reading is a minor one, Whining! She whines constantly in the car. Is there any method I could do to encourage better behavior in the car.

Any suggestions would be great.

Zapperzy

Karma25 wrote: »

Okay so first time owner of a dog and she is nearly a year old. Her behavior is pretty obedient around the house. We used the nothing in life is free method for everything besides the pee training which we just used positive reinforcement.

The only difficulties we have are the following:

A) Walking the dog. She pulls a fair bit on the lead. She is a King Charles so its not a problem physically. It's just we are constantly pulling her back and we cant get the max enjoyment out of the walk. She is generally good after bout five laps round the field and bout fifteen minutes of play, she doesn't pull as much as when we enter the park. A lot of people comment how fast she is for a king charles and how she loves the outdoors. This could be down to her first trip outside after vaccinations was to a nearby hiking woods.

There are a number of things you can do for pulling on the lead. Firstly you could try a headcollar such as the halti, dogmatic or gentle leader. The lead is attached to under the dog's chin like a horse's headcollar so when the dog pulls there head gets pulled to the side and makes it uncomfortable to walk. There are also harnesses which work in much the same way, you clip the lead onto the front of the harness so when the dog pulls it gets pulled around.

Secondly you could just try a basic flat collar and her lead. You start walking with the dog to your heel on a loose lead, say heel. If she pulls ahead immediately turn in the opposite direction. You will look like a lemon and for a few walks you probably won't get much further than a few steps down the road but it pays off in the end. The dog pulls because it gets rewarded, it's reward is it gets to it's destination faster (or so it thinks it will by pulling), you turn in the opposite direction=no reward.

Karma25 wrote: »

Meeting other dogs. When she was young, we socialized her so well with humans so much so that she goes hyper when people enter the room and tries to lick the face of them.She adores people. Unfortunately because we knew no one with a dog we couldn't give her socialization with dogs as much besides the walks. On walks she met a lot of big breeds her first few dogs were an adult great dane, border collie and German Shepard. She was grand meeting them tail wagging and jumping up to smell them.

However, lately as she has got older she doesn't seem to be on the same wave length as other dogs especially the bigger breeds.She can be grand with other small breeds. She almost falls on her back once a dog starts sniffing but she has the tail firmly tucked in and won't allow the dog a sniff basically. There is no aggression but when the dog leaves, she begins her barking. What could her issue be with dogs?

Firstly as regards people, again she's doing something she gets rewarded for, she loves attention and when she jumps up and licks people she gets it, dogs don't really differ between you going 'ohh thats a good girl fluffy (sorry I don't know her name ) you jump all over me thats the good girl', and 'fluffy get down, go away' while your picking her up to move her or using your hand to push her away. Once you give her eye contact and talk to her she's getting what she wants.

So when you have visitors (also practice it with yourselves, only let her jump all over you and give her attention when you decide you want it), tell them to completely ignore her, don't make eye contact and don't speak to her when she is in that hyper jumpy look at me zone. If she jumps up while your standing just turn around but don't look at her or speak to her. If your all sitting down it helps to have her lead on and keep your foot on the end of it so she doesn't get a chance to jump up. Only when she has calmed down should your visitors then greet her.

To be honest the hardest part of doing all that is not training the dog but training the visitors. Especially when it's a cute wee king charles as soon as you explain to your visitors that your training her and don't give her any attention they will turn on the 'ohh little fluffy are they being mean to you sure I don't mind you saying hello to me'. :rolleyes:

As regards the dogs. As you said yourself she wasn't socialised as a pup so just doesn't know how to greet other dogs or what to do so she reacts with fear. She's not too old for socialisation. A good group socialisation class with a good trainer should help with this. If you can't bring her to classes just get her to meet as many friendly dogs as possible, it's essential that they are friendly as the last thing you want is for her to approach an unfriendly dog and get attacked as that will cement her fear of other dogs and make it twice as hard to overcome. When she sticks her tail between her legs at meeting other dogs don't fuss over her and try and reassure her as that will give her the impression that there is good reason to be afraid.
If possible find somewhere secure that you can let her offlead around other friendly dogs, (once you have already talked to their owners and get their permission of course, you don't want her running up to every dog), leads tend to increase tension because the dog feels they have nowhere to escape to so often feel the only way to react is with fear, submission or aggression.

Karma25 wrote: »

c) If your still reading is a minor one, Whining! She whines constantly in the car. Is there any method I could do to encourage better behavior in the car.

Any suggestions would be great.

You could try giving her a stuffed kong for car journeys. If her mouth is busy with food she can't whine!

If she's whining out the windows then cover them. But it's probably just anticipation that she's going somewhere nice for a walk. You could try just bringing her for a few small spins in the car and going straight back home again so she learns that not all car journeys are particularly special to look forward to.

jets799

i got a girl out to show me what to do, it was well wort the money, my dog was pulling me down the road, so easy to stop when you now how.
its good to ask for help.
www.problempaws.ie best thing was she came out to me and she does clases to.