Darwin does the craziest thing. When he gets REALLY excited, he will rub his face all over you, and his excitement builds until finally he just buries his face in the couch cushions, your legs, or whatever is available. Then he just sits there, breathing heavily, with his tail wagging like crazy... with his head buried. It is hilarious, and reminds me of an ostrich. Does anyone else have a doodle that is part ostrich? Does your doodle do anything weird when happy?
Jack runs back and forth, jumps onto the sofa and throws all the pillows on the floor, but he doesn't bury his face. It must be so cute to see Darwin do that, you have to post a video for us!
Lucca does the face rubbing too and then he starts to "dig" in his bed. We call it digging to China!! He is also in this mode lately: when he is excited to see you he twists his body so his butt is in your face!!! LOVES butt rubs and scratches!!!
How cute is that! Yes, we definitely need a video. When Guinness is excited he does his "happy dance"...twirling, wagging, little happy noises, and the occasional pee. Murph is usually excited at the same time as Guinness, and he shows it by attacking his whirling, twirling brother.
Chewie does the puppy bow and then covers his face with his paws. Then he continues to rub his paws over his eyes. It is so cute. I would love to see a video of Darwin.
morgan does the "happy dance", which consists of "dancing" (he can't keep his feet still), rubbing his face in my legs (& good friends) then rubbing the rest of him on me, then doing a nice sit with his adorable face staring up at me & his tail sweeping up the floor...:) & if he's really excited then he jumps up & wraps his legs around my waist. [i recently realized that he only jumps on people he really likes, for example when we started our 1st obedience class he wouldn't let the instructor touch his leash without dropping to the floor & doing the boneless doodle "puddle" after about 3 or 4 weeks he started jumping on her & wrapping his legs around her waist...:) ]
Since Gavin was a puppy we have had the "no excited coming and going" rule. Although it does make separations easy and relatively painless, I sometimes feel a little disappointed that he doesn't get super wiggly when I come home. I can hear DH now saying "but you trained him that way!" When I have been home a couple of minutes and turn my attention to him - I kneel down to greet him and he burys his head in my chest and I rub his shoulders and back - he will stand there for a couple of minutes if I don't move. I guess it's a pretty cool way to be greeted too. That Darwin is a real character!
Your rule is a good one, and I use it, too. It goes a long way towards ending up with a dog who doesn't jump up on people, ever.
Jack wiggles when I come home, and prances a little, but he doesn't jump, run at me or touch me, really, until I signal to him that I'm ready to greet him by sitting down.
We have the same rule. It has really helped him to calmly come out of the crate, no jumping, etc. His true excitement comes from things like seeing a piece of cheese, playing with his rope toy, us speaking in high squeaky voices to him, etc. :-)
Oh how cute Darwin! And....Yes! Sadie does that too! We were just talking last night about trying to get a video of it, the couch cushions and under her own bed are most hilarious! She also has a shy kind of nuzzle thing going on with it-as if she is using every last ounce of her charm!