[Olga]

Papaya is four and a half months and has never met a stranger. On walks, she need to say hi to every human and dog that is within a close proximity (thankfully shell more or less ignore people/dogs across the street or too far ahead). We’re working on not pulling as well (she gets so excited she starts trying to gallop). Anyone have any tips for managing this behavior?

 

[Liz]

Perhaps some impulse control and redirection towards you would be helpful. Have you tried the game Look at That? Here's one of many videos on YouTube. Essentially you reward the dog for seeing a stimulus and not reacting, and it's one of those exercises you can never do too much of.

 

[Olga]

Perhaps some impulse control and redirection towards you would be helpful. Have you tried the game Look at That? Here's one of many videos on YouTube. Essentially you reward the dog for seeing a stimulus and not reacting, and it's one of those exercises you can never do too much of.

I’ve been trying to redirect her, and we’ve been working on stay, but often when she sees the people/dog I don’t exist (even a treat won’t help).

 

[Liz]

Thank you, that's helpful info! If she's not able to redirect to you, that means she is over-threshold - she is too stimulated. When you start training with a process like "Look at That," you want to start with something that's of low interest, so that she's not challenged and can learn the rules of the game. This may mean choosing a different stimulus, but because you say she reacts to people and dogs (and they're the easiest to work with), then moving farther away from the stimulus may be a better choice.

 

[PeggyTheParti]

I recommend the book Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out for learning about thresholds and how to keep your pup under threshold so her brain doesn’t turn off. What you’re seeing is an over-excited puppy, which isn’t pleasant for anyone (including her).

I also recommend the online training courses from SpiritDog.

At 20 months, Peggy still gets excited, and some specific situations will still push her over threshold. There’s no quick fix. But we’re miles ahead of where we were a year ago. Even in those crazy moments now, I can see her trying to calm herself down.

 

[Rose n Poos]

Start doing the LAT game at home, somewhere she is in a more relaxed state to begin with. This will be found in most of the videos.

To get you started, this is a favorite video from one of our certified trainer members, Click-N-Treat

 

[Olga]

Thank you all!! We’ll definitely start working with these. We went on a long walk yesterday, and her behavior improved when she realized that there’s lots and lots of people...