Big puppy paws!

[Oliver]

Our goldendoodle (Oliver) will be 6 months old next week. He is the sweetest, most laid back (read: lazy, haha) guy ever. He's very smart and tends to point or grab things with his paws when he wants something. Like I said, he's very sweet, and moves very slowly, but sometimes out of nowhere he'll take his HUGE paw and slowly whop it against my face (when I'm on the ground or crouched over). It's more like a slow, sweet, "Hi, I'm here. What's up?," not even very playful or strong.

My husband and I are scared he's going to accidentally hurt someone, especially their eyes. He's slow and gentle, so normally we can move out of the way before we get whopped- other times it happens when we're not expecting it. He understands what "NO" means, and we've tried to do this whenever he does this behavior, but he looks really confused. He's not getting it at all.

Are there any positive reinforcement things we can do to let him know the face is off limits? Is he going to think every time he lifts his paw he's doing something wrong (that's kind of where we're at right now)?

[Tracey]

LOL! I'm not sure that I'm much help, but your post gave me a smile. I'd bet that's the Golden in your Doodle coming out! ;) Our Golden used to flop that big paw of his on us. Started just as you said, and we just gently tried to correct him and place it on our laps or somewhere non-injury-inducing. As he got older, he'd walk over to wherever someone was sitting, sit down and plop a paw on your lap. It was always fine, except that he was 80 lbs. and when he'd try to do it to my son he was a bit heavy (for my MIL as well, as much as she loved it!). Just took a bit of redirecting (and not laughing).

My Dad always got a kick out of it, and when he was talking to a buddy of his (that just happened to breed Goldens) and mentioned it (Dad looooved him some Tucker...first 'grandchild' and all...), the guy laughed and said "Yep, most of my Goldens do that exact same thing!"

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

My 11 week doodle does this too! I thought he was learning it from our cats....then tend to swat at him when he gets too aggressive. Now I notice he uses his hands for everything, especially since he learned to shake hands. Well I guess we can't say our dogs aren't handy

[Debbie and Thomas]

I don't really have a comment except to say that I just checked Olivers pictures on your page! He is SO smart and of course SO cute. The tricks you taught him are really incredible!! I have a 5 month old Golden Doodle named Thomas. He knows, "sit" which he did very early on, "lie down" and then "settle" where he turns on his side from the lie down position. shake paw (which is more of a fun thing than a training thing) "stay" only when he knows he will get a treat. I was just thinking, maybe he raises his paw to you to give that "high five" thing you taught him. I love how you taught him to stay and then opened the door and told him to stay. I am going to work on that right away!! This is an important training method as we do not want them to run into the street when the door opens. Thomas likes to surf the counters in the kitchen-it drives me crazy. Any ideas on how to combat this annoying behaviour?

[Cam & Oski]

Oski is very pawsy too. He will use his paws to bat a ball back & forth like a cat & when he wrestles with other dogs he will swat them with his paws. Sometimes when he's playing with my husband (they like to chase each other & pseudo-wrestle in the yard) he will swat Jason on the side of the head. Even though he doesn't swat the DH anywhere near as hard as he does his buddies when he plays apparently it does hurt (Oski's 1 1/2yo & 79lbs). Except for during playtime & only when the DH gets down & grabs him/wrestles with him like a "dog" does this happen. So I guess my question is, does Oliver swat people when they're either playing with him or down on the ground? It may be that he thinks you're pretending to be a dog, ie--it's OK to swat you?

Regardless, these doods are really smart & Oski's really good at "situational" teaching. He knows that things we forbid under circumstance X is OK for him to do under circumstance Y (like he's not allowed to jump on people unless we're hugging, then it becomes a group hug or as our friends like to call it, menage a dog, lol). If you consistently correct him, say no & ignore him when he swats you, he'll realize that you don't want him to do it & more importantly, it won't get him what he wants which is your attention. Then go crazy when he does something you want him to do, like fetching or playing with his toys. So cute! Good luck :)