[vandog]

Recently my puppy (she’s 5 months) has begun to demand bark. She rarely barks other than when she’s playing or if we ignored her bell to go potty/come inside. She doesn’t bark when people come in the house so we’re not enjoying the demand barking! We’ve been ignoring it and then praising her when it’s quiet. However, she only does it when she wants a stuffed toy (which she isn’t allowed) or food (which we don’t want her begging). So we’ve been giving her her toy after she’s quiet which works sometimes.

She also has begun to jump up (at table/counter/island/shelves) to try to get food or toys that she’s not allowed. We’ve tried saying no (which she’s learning) and have a can full of coins as well. Would a water sprayer work?

Does anyone have any suggestions for one or both of these issues? We would like to nip them in the bud before they become impossible to break.

We are going to talk to our trainer that she’s been going to but we can’t do that till next Monday because she’s away on holidays.

Thank you!

 

[lily cd re]

Both of those issues can be helped greatly through impulse control games. Look up "It's yer choice" by Susan Garrett.


You must be super vigilant about counter surfing as it is nearly impossible to break once the dog has self reinforced it at all by collecting something yummy. Lily is an unapologetic counter surfer. Javelin would never dream of doing anything beyond a little up turn of his nose when near any table or counter top. Some people will disagree with me on this but the difference between them were the penalties imposed as the behavior started. Lily got the bottle with the pennies shaken at her (also tried spraying water which she thought was funny and used other booby traps to no avail also). The first one or two times Javelin put his nose over the edge of the counter to try for something I threw the bottle with the pennies right at him and winged it off the top of his head. He has never looked again. The dissuasion was meant to be extreme since this can be a life saver to break that habit. For him now picking up the bottle and rattling the pennies a bit or even just emphatically saying PENNIES to him will interrupt whatever he s thinking about doing.

 

[Ghost]

How are you feeding her? Do you change out the toys often enough to keep her entertained? One of the things I’ve switched to is measuring out her food in the mornings and doing food dispensing toys. I mix in a couple of premium treats to make it special. She gets two larger servings this way per day, and then the rest is given through toys like a puppy Kong. I also count treats as part of the daily caloric intake, and reduce her food accordingly, so when we are doing extra training she gets smaller food servings. We are currently working on the command “quiet” and “calm” - she is a ferocious barker at people, dogs, and doors. So we’ve been working with YouTube videos on a Bluetooth speaker by the door with those sounds playing to desensitize and enforce the “calm” or “quiet” commands.

I’m not sure how this could work with food, but one suggestion would be if she is demanding food: have her on a leash and a serving of food in a bowl waiting for her. Have the leash connected to you (umbilical training). When she starts barking for her bowl which is in sight, use a command like “quiet” (or whatever you prefer), when she is quiet, she receives a small treat. I bet umbilical training would be great for counter surfing too but I’ve never had a dog tall enough to reach counters ?

The reason I asked about how you feed is it’s really improved Lilah’s behavior by doing the dispensers. The work put into those food puzzles really exercises her mentally and she enjoys it. By doing the food this way multiple times a day it can probably keep your pup entertained and distracted, and perhaps feeding throughout the day will help reduce the demand barking for it.

 

[doditwo]

I just discovered that I can make my dog (Mimi) stop doing an annoying behavior with a trick.
It might work on jumping on tables or demand barking. But in Mimi’s case it was grabbing onto & humping my leg whenever I walk across the living room.
(She discovered the joy of humping during her recent 1st heat.)
I began to pretend it’s the most darling thing ever, turn around, grab her in my arms to pick her up and walk around like that giving her a GREAT BIG hug w/kisses (something that she understands well intentioned but very annoying humans do and must be avoided). Since then she’s stopped humping me.

Maybe something like that could be modified to stop other behaviors like the problems you’re having?
I’m not a trainer so take it with a grain of salt, but I’m calling my method “positive elimination”.


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[lily cd re]

doditwo what underlies your trick is redirecting the dog to something else, although you don't give Mimi much choice and I would probably try to leave it a bit more the dog's choice to switch off the annoying thing to something more concstructive. Sometimes you need a temporary solution that accomplishes what needs to get done. It's yer choice is just that something the dog has to choose with respect to. Also as they get better at understanding how the game works you can make it harder.

 

[doditwo]

doditwo what underlies your trick is redirecting the dog to something else, although you don't give Mimi much choice and I would probably try to leave it a bit more the dog's choice to switch off the annoying thing to something more concstructive. Sometimes you need a temporary solution that accomplishes what needs to get done. It's yer choice is just that something the dog has to choose with respect to. Also as they get better at understanding how the game works you can make it harder.

No, it wasn’t a temporary solution. Mimi doesn’t hump my leg anymore.
The inspiration for the trick came from some advice I got after Mimi’s class from Francis Metcalf, the Bay Area Canine Circus trainer extraordinaire.
I asked him how I could get Mimi to stop jumping up on me. After all, in Mimi’s first circus class he used her as the demo dog and had her doing sit pretty on the second try so I figured he’d have the miracle answer.
He showed me... when Mimi approached and inevitably jumped on him, he pulled her closer to him for a few seconds.. which she instinctively resisted. I did the same, and low and behold she stopped jumping on me... forever.
If other people would do the same she’d stop jumping on them too, lol.
https://youtu.be/D7gQUtsrWlQ


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[glorybeecosta]

If what you are doing works for you great, but some people don't like to handle dogs, and would not want to pick it. Or does he not bother other people just you.

 

[doditwo]

If what you are doing works for you great, but some people don't like to handle dogs, and would not want to pick it. Or does he not bother other people just you.

She only wanted to hump me, thank goodness! (... or not...)
I wouldn’t want other people to pick up my dog either..
I didn’t mean that the solution is always picking up a dog, it could be any response that mildly annoys but is benign. Kind of like picking up a food bowl after a limited but sufficient time works to teach a picky dog to eat on schedule (something I should do w/Mimi!).



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[vandog]

Thank you for your replies!! :act-up:

Both of those issues can be helped greatly through impulse control games. Look up "It's yer choice" by Susan Garrett.


You must be super vigilant about counter surfing as it is nearly impossible to break once the dog has self reinforced it at all by collecting something yummy. Lily is an unapologetic counter surfer. Javelin would never dream of doing anything beyond a little up turn of his nose when near any table or counter top. Some people will disagree with me on this but the difference between them were the penalties imposed as the behavior started. Lily got the bottle with the pennies shaken at her (also tried spraying water which she thought was funny and used other booby traps to no avail also). The first one or two times Javelin put his nose over the edge of the counter to try for something I threw the bottle with the pennies right at him and winged it off the top of his head. He has never looked again. The dissuasion was meant to be extreme since this can be a life saver to break that habit. For him now picking up the bottle and rattling the pennies a bit or even just emphatically saying PENNIES to him will interrupt whatever he s thinking about doing.

Thank you! I will be looking into the impulse control games! I've been trying to correct it and I've been working on reminding my kids not to leave food on the counter/islands/table. We just tried with the water sprayer and it is not a deterrent for her as she thinks it is a fun game (and she loves water!). Once she gets told off or made to sit and then redirected, she typically will sit down and stare at whatever it is on the counter but won't jump again. I just want to nip her attempting to get it off the counter in the bud before she gets older.

How are you feeding her? Do you change out the toys often enough to keep her entertained? One of the things I’ve switched to is measuring out her food in the mornings and doing food dispensing toys. I mix in a couple of premium treats to make it special. She gets two larger servings this way per day, and then the rest is given through toys like a puppy Kong. I also count treats as part of the daily caloric intake, and reduce her food accordingly, so when we are doing extra training she gets smaller food servings. We are currently working on the command “quiet” and “calm” - she is a ferocious barker at people, dogs, and doors. So we’ve been working with YouTube videos on a Bluetooth speaker by the door with those sounds playing to desensitize and enforce the “calm” or “quiet” commands.

I’m not sure how this could work with food, but one suggestion would be if she is demanding food: have her on a leash and a serving of food in a bowl waiting for her. Have the leash connected to you (umbilical training). When she starts barking for her bowl which is in sight, use a command like “quiet” (or whatever you prefer), when she is quiet, she receives a small treat. I bet umbilical training would be great for counter surfing too but I’ve never had a dog tall enough to reach counters ?

The reason I asked about how you feed is it’s really improved Lilah’s behavior by doing the dispensers. The work put into those food puzzles really exercises her mentally and she enjoys it. By doing the food this way multiple times a day it can probably keep your pup entertained and distracted, and perhaps feeding throughout the day will help reduce the demand barking for it.

She is getting fed twice a day currently. She gets 50% kibble (grain free) + 50% home cooked w/supplements. She also gets a kong with treats/kibble + natural peanut butter if she goes in the crate. She also has food puzzle/dispenser toys to play with as well. We're lucky that she doesn't bark at the door or people but the demand barking is so annoying. I will be looking into the umbilical training because that might help for the counter surfing. She can reach the main 3 counters in our kitchen + table with ease currently and she can reach the 2 islands with her paws but can't grab anything if it is pushed back. We have been working on the quiet command and she is sloooowwwllly understanding the concept but we are still working on it.
She barks if we're eating and she isn't or there is something that smells good (i.e eggs or bananas). So we have been trying to give her a kong or a food puzzle when we're eating so she is distracted.
I will be looking into more interactive puzzles that are a little more durable because the ones she has she does pretty quickly.

I just discovered that I can make my dog (Mimi) stop doing an annoying behavior with a trick.
It might work on jumping on tables or demand barking. But in Mimi’s case it was grabbing onto & humping my leg whenever I walk across the living room.
(She discovered the joy of humping during her recent 1st heat.)
I began to pretend it’s the most darling thing ever, turn around, grab her in my arms to pick her up and walk around like that giving her a GREAT BIG hug w/kisses (something that she understands well intentioned but very annoying humans do and must be avoided). Since then she’s stopped humping me.

Maybe something like that could be modified to stop other behaviors like the problems you’re having?
I’m not a trainer so take it with a grain of salt, but I’m calling my method “positive elimination”.


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I will be looking into positive elimination because that might be useful. We've been trying to ignore her until she quiets/stops barking at the toys. We also try to redirect the behaviour before she does it by for example giving her a treat/puzzle before we eat.
The next step we might do is removing all the stuffed toys and putting them in totes so she can't see them? We don't allow her to have stuffed toys because we don't want her stealing the kids stuffies...which she doesn't but it doesn't stop her from barking at them! :argh:

 

[doditwo]

That’s great she has mastered the self control to not steal the kids stuffed toys! Kudos to her.
Maybe she’s barking to say she wants a stuffed toy of her own, too.
I think dogs have a definite sense about ownership rights, they learn what’s mine&yours quickly. Also they don’t tend to generalize well so one stuffy doesn’t nessicarily = all stuffies.
Maybe try actually getting her a stuffed animal of her very own?
But I’m just imagining, you know your puppy and I certainly don’t presume to have the right answer for your situation
Good luck, I’m looking forward to hear what happens & what you come up with.


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[vandog]

That’s great she has mastered the self control to not steal the kids stuffed toys! Kudos to her.
Maybe she’s barking to say she wants a stuffed toy of her own, too.
I think dogs have a definite sense about ownership rights, they learn what’s mine&yours quickly. Also they don’t tend to generalize well so one stuffy doesn’t nessicarily = all stuffies.
Maybe try actually getting her a stuffed animal of her very own?
But I’m just imagining, you know your puppy and I certainly don’t presume to have the right answer for your situation
Good luck, I’m looking forward to hear what happens & what you come up with.


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We've been working on that since we got her! She is learning what she is allowed to pick up vs what she isn't but that doesn't stop her from barking at it which is quite annoying. She isn't allowed stuffies because we bought her a tuffy toy (the Raddish Rabbit) and she ripped it open with a tuff scale of 9.
She is a really strong chewer so we don't want her eating the stuffing or anything or learning that destroying stuffed toys is fun! LOL.

She has sort of been better today with the jumping up towards the counter. We have been using the shaker can religiously and today she was sitting on the mat beside the table while we were eating. She only tried jumping up twice and that was when my daughter was eating in the kitchen by the sink. Eventually we will move the mat farther away slowly but right now we're making slow progress.

 

[doditwo]

She isn't allowed stuffies because we bought her a tuffy toy (the Raddish Rabbit) and she ripped it open with a tuff scale of 9.

She is a really strong chewer so we don't want her eating the stuffing or anything or learning that destroying stuffed toys is fun! LOL.

OMG I relate so much to this. Mimi has disemboweled almost all her stuffies, and subsequently pooped the evidence.
The one brand that’s held up is Fluff and Tuff. Her favorite is:
https://www.amazon.com/Fluff-Tuff-Tiger-Ball/dp/B00BTLSPRE
and
https://www.amazon.com/Fluff-Tuff-Beach-Ball-7/dp/B00UXY3NM0
Plus I can vouch for the Skunk and the Goldfish as being indestructible.

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[Poodlebeguiled]

What you describe Doditwo reminds me of Patricia McConnel (I think that's who it was) who described a dog that would come up while she was sitting down and bug her for attention, press his nose at her, lift her forearm up, push and shove for attention. Instead of getting up and walking away like most of us would do to show the dog that isn't going to work, she did what she called, "the slappy happy." She would pat the dog on the head in a up and down, on and off fashion, pat, pat, pat and be cheerful toward the dog. She didn't hurt the dog but it was not exactly a super soft landing with her hand. Dogs anyhow dislike that kind of patting on their heads. So it was sort of passive aggressive on her part but it worked. lol. "oh hi!" tap, tap, tap on the head until the dog sat nicely and waited.... At which time I think the dog probably got reinforced. (don't remember the details) The dog learned that by being pushy that way, all he got was a rather uncomfortable, not very pleasant greeting. But by sitting or lying down or whatever, he got a preferred greeting.