Visitor Excitability

[Doodlemom]

Hi there, my Labradoodle is 2.5 years old and whenever we have any company, he cries, whines, and wants to jump all over them.  We telll people to ignore him, but he makes it difficult because he jumps up hard on them.  He's super friendly and loves everyone, but sometimes it is crazy.  We tell him to sit and he will, but his excitement takes over and he can't resist.  Any ideas on how to break him of this?

Doodlemom

[Leslie J]

Judy, I'm impressed with your dog training- you are such an inspiration!

[Judy, Meg & Polly Wolly Doodle]

Thanks Leslie, I am really not all that good but manners are important to me and then we like to have fun learning a few show off tricks.  It paid off big time while my mom was in the nursing home, Meg would go with me for visits and stop and show off to those in the common area and in their wheel chairs in the hall, good work for her, made my mom quite popular with the other people there and kept me on my game with handling her.  Meg has been invited to come back even though my mother left that facility.

[Adina P]

Training that slowly works your dog from a light distraction to a tougher distraction is what you need to focus on.  Here is my example of how I trained a sit stay around people:


Since this will be in your house one suggestion is to never let him off leash when visitors come until he gets really great about obeying ON leash.  And even then let him drag the leash before you use NO leash.  Start with him holding a sit stay at a distance (with you near him holding the leash) from the people and if he does a good job, praise him and then give him a treat in his crate and leave him there.  Next time walk him a foot closer to the people visiting, have him sit and stay next to you.  Praise him, then walk away and then return and have him repeat a few times to seal in the lesson into his doodle mind :-)  Each time you have to keep it short and you have to treat it as an obedience lesson focusing on HIM until you're ready to remove him and put him in his crate or behind a gate.  As he gets more and more responsible and able to hold sit stays you can then release him to mingle.  But while he's still 'iffy' you can't let him do the 'bad' behavior.

Part 1 is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPQvT9IhHic
Neither of these videos is supposed to teach you the precise way to teach sit stay as much as give you the general idea of the progression of learning sit stay and how to slowly make it harder and harder.

[Bonnie and Kona]

Oh Adina, I'm sure your video is tremendously helpful but I cannot take my attention off of Rosco. What a love-bug! He reminds me of a blond Kona. Such a big love and such a good boy.  ;o) Rosco is as sweet as can be. I love this video of him. I will watch your video and ignore Rosco in a minute. Right now he has my full attention!

[Adina P]

LOL I don't mind that he steals the show.   I'd rather you look at him.

[Otis, a wonderful doodle]

We placed a small bed in the living room that is Otis' space. When the door bell rings, he usually lies on it until given the ok . However, an additional command is required on some occasions. Don't they just adore company?

[Jennifer and Jack]

Jack is my first and only dog so others may know the right way to do it but what worked for Jack instantly and was an easy fix is a water bottle. Jack hates to be wet....he is amazing one minute after the people get their it's just the initial walking in the door....when the door is opened I have the spray bottle in my hand....I have not had to squirt him more then once and he is good.

I needed something that was stronger the. His down stay because he would just get too excited ....and I do t want to have my guests walking in with me saying Jack down ??Jack stay.....now I don't have to say a word.....at the most I have to clear my throat...

I am not Into walking around with Jack leased either but that I what I would do if the water bottle didn't work....for us that works well....

Jack is not allowed to jump or go on people unles he is invited....and follows those rules most o the time..

I guess you have to find what works for you ...... We have to be really careful because my home RN and respiratory therapist are terrified I mean horrified of dogs so Jack has to be on his best behavior.

[Diane Sloan]

We adopted Molly last January.  When we went to meet her the family was like oh no she will be crazy as I am just getting off work.  I said that will be fine-I figured I wanted to see her at her worst right?  They had her on a harness and leash behind a baby gate and she was jumping all over.  She dove into my lap when I sat on the floor and was rolling like a crocodile.  It was at the point that I said I will take her.  The family was amazed as 4 families said she had to much energy. 

We are still working on greeting people in the home.  She does fine if we are out.  If we are home she jumps up and down, stands on her hind legs and then I say sit and she rolls around and sits in a semi perfect place position for our guests to pet her.  It does not help that she is cute and everyone things so.....

I have found that the leash works wonders then I can keep her back and have them approach when she calms down and sits.  We have a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG way to go with this and I keep saying I am going to ask 30 friends to line up and just keep doing this one after another and maybe we will get through it.  She does fabulous at obedience and we did some agility as well.  She has the attention to do long sits and downs at training and even at the county fair off leash with all the people and animals around.  It is just at our house with visitors.

We sorta started to think this isn't just I am so excited to greet you but more of a distraction technique on her end to protect us so we can get away-think of the mama bird and her nest.  She would do this to my husband if he got close to the couch as well and I was sitting there.  If he gave me a hug she tried to get right in the middle.  My husband says its because she is my dog and protecting me.  It may be a jealous thing I don't know. This is getting better but was a real problem in the beginning. 

When my parents come over they do not put up with it and they tell her down, sit and enough.  They ignore and do not reward any of the behavior of her jumping like a fool.

We have a second doodle who is 1 and he is calm and mellow when people come to visit he grabs a toy and stands there waiting for acknowledgment.  I still blame it on trying to break the bad habits that were formed when she was a pup with the past owners, but we will get there I am not giving up.

If there is a magic way to curb this I would love to know as I am used to my GSD's that I would say enough they backed away from the door and waited down the hall till I said it was okay.  Dealing with a doodle she is not catching on so quickly but we keep working at it when we have people over.  They do require a lot of repetition for some things I am finding. 

Sadly the pet store is one of the worst places for us to meet people anymore-not so much the shoppers but the people that work there.  They get them so wild and wound up that it has no longer made it a pleasant place to work on socialization.  Our younger rescue needed socialization so we spent lots of time at the pet store to work on distances to people and distractions without him backing up.  At one store the employee was down on the floor rubbing my dogs bellies and rolling around with them.  It was hard not to laugh and I kept saying they really are not this bad you really are getting them stirred up.  Thankfully in walked a young girl and they stood perfectly still for her and snapped out of it quickly.

One of these days we will have it down reliably.  Another thing is that if I can distract her with treats and just treat, treat, treat as they walk in that works too but that is not the answer. 

[Diane Sloan]

On a side note at our positive pet training class we had more trouble and it got worse as the trainer would come up Molly would jump all over her and she would ignore her and when she sat she would get a treat.  I was told not to say anything just let her figure it out. Some dogs did well with this and the time that they were out of control diminished.  Not Molly the poor girl, I was bright red from embarrassment and there was the instructor getting jumped all over by my out of control over friendly doodle.  By the end of the class I think it was worse anytime the trainer came into leash range.  I finally said I have to correct her and tell her no and make her sit because the wait till she figured it out and click or reward was not getting through to her. 

In our regular obedience training class she never jumped on the instructor and I think it was the difference in training.  Not that we were mean or harsh or using harsh means, I used a martingale on most occasions.  She did better with the verbal NO and having her sit before she got so worked up.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

A perfect example of why "positive methods only" training does not work well for every dog. 

[Rosemary (Ro) and Enzo]

Karen: you just stole the thoughts right out of my head!

[Bonnie and Kona]

Oh yes! Each dog is different. Kona was extremely sensitive to any correction and we had to retrain ourselves to be exceedingly gentle in our requests for him. Then Owen came to live with us. sigh. Poor Kona didn't know what was happening as this puppy had to be reprimanded repeatedly with strong corrections. It's a balance and each dog has their own tolerance for correction.