Discouraging Undesired Behaviour

[flux]

My 2 cents:

There are some things with Jazz that we boldly "claimed" as ours right from the start - to my amazement and with very little effort she totally respects piles of our washing and the fridge contents. Likewise with some others who've posted all we had to do was "claim" it and mean it. I am a big Cesar fan and deliberately tried to pick a calm puppy from the start so we wouldn't have to compete with an "energy" that was too much for us personally. Saying this however, I have noticed with our friend's dog that yes an abandoned bone is a free for grabs bone and I do wonder if my washing smelt like dried kangaroo tail, if I would be having the success I am currently! So there are some things I think, well I wouldn't even ask a 2 year old human kid to ignore that if I left it on the table (i.e I don't leave my rubber thongs in the dog zone / wouldn't leave giant pile of cookies in front of toddler and tell them no) so I try to reason up what I'm asking my pup to ignore with how old she is and how much she knows/can learn. So we kind of do a bit od everything, we ask her to respect that the washing basket and clothes are ours, but we don't deliberately leave favorite books on the floor to "claim" them and try and prove a point - what is the point. I hope that might help you out, your puppy is very cute

[Scarlet_GSD]

Hi dar1stheory.........I've found the basic "rule of thumb" with my 13 month old GSD is not to put anything I value within reach. I have to watch her though, because I swear her second name should be "kitchen-bench-klepto". When she was 8 months old, she pinched my wallet (from the bench I think) and buried it in the backyard. I didn't realise that was what had happened to it until a week later - and after I'd reported my cards and drivers license missing to the Police! The little darling tore past me at greyhound pace with my wallet in her mouth, and covered in mud, sand and thoroughly chewed. :D It was actually too funny to get mad at her about.......but you get the picture.....

As far as the digging goes.....there are many good tips here. I've found what has worked brilliantly with my GSD is to buy a roll of wire mesh or dog fence from Bunnings/your local hardware store. Lay it flat and cut the wire slightly bigger than the hole in the ground, hammer it down with tent pegs (also available from Bunnings) and fill in the hole. Your dog will paw at it at first, but should then give up. With the tent pegs, you need to hammer them right into the ground so that they're not visible. I've found that even though mine dug right through well-established lawn and left a massive hole, the lawn has now re-grown and she doesn't bother to dig there anymore. Once the lawn has re-grown, you can pull up the tent pegs and wire mesh. Just a suggestion, good luck.

Edited November 9, 2009 by Scarlet_GSD

[Jed]

It's an age thing - with digging, try poo in the hole. Also say "uh" if you catch him. He needs guidance about what is acceptable and what is not. Unless you show him, he will never learn.

A pen, a knife, a book, a shoe or your $800 bag is just another toy to a pup.

Unless you teach him to read and label everything, he sees it, he likes it, he takes or chews it. YOU know which things are his toys, he doesn't.

charleswentworth has good advice - simply make him understand that some things are not to chew. Go "uh" and stand over it. If he takes something, don't chase him, go "uh" and if it's the TV remote, walk behind him, going "uh" until he drops it.

Reward him for dropping it, and maybe give him one of his own toys. When I take stuff back, I go "mine" and hold it against my body. And reward the dog again.

Remove from sight some of his toys on a regular basis, and replace them with "new" ones. Things boxers like include things which squeak when they squeeze them, so not too hard able to be easily compressed, furry snakes and stuff like that they can shake and kill, fluffy toys, balls with rattles in them. In other words, toys with will do something. Mine has a cat ball with a bell inside it, and a furry snake which rattles, so she shakes it to rattle it. By 8 months, she understood what was and what wasn't available to her to wreck.

Edited to add - and do try to put up stuff you don't want chewed, saves a lot of aggro all round. If the dog has a toy, I always say "oh, aren't you sooo clever"in an excited voice, so the dog can differentiate between "uh" when the remote it being chewed and "good dog" when it is a toy. It does help the dog know which are toys are which are forbidden fruits.

One of mine brings me something when I get home - whatever she happens to pick up. She was dragging 3m palm fronds around the yard to give me at one stage. I expressed slight displeasure, and great pleasure when she brought me a toy or a bone or a stick, and I have just realised she hasn't presented me with a palm frond for months!!

Training, patience and understanding!!

This fluffy duck, which made goood noises, has gone to fluffy duck heaven now, but they loved it.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Jed

[dee lee]

charleswentworth has good advice - simply make him understand that some things are not to chew. Go "uh" and stand over it. If he takes something, don't chase him, go "uh" and if it's the TV remote, walk behind him, going "uh" until he drops it.

Reward him for dropping it, and maybe give him one of his own toys. .... and do try to put up stuff you don't want chewed, saves a lot of aggro all round.

I agree with this.

My last dog (staffyx) was a big chewer as a pup, we spent about 6 months battling it in the above ways. By the time she was one we could let her have free run of the house (when we were home- never trusted her when we werent!) and she would lie down amongst the kids Barbies without so much as a lick!

In the rare event she did pick something up all we'd have to say was- NO and she would drop it.

Actually we taught her that she had to drop anything in her mouth if asked- even her toys and bones. I highly recommend doing that.

Putting things away became such a habit we still keep all our shoes in a basket on top of a stool even though we dont need to.

Digging though? Even with the poo we had no luck- she was a born gardener.