Doing Zoomies When Being Told Off - What Do I Do?

[Snowball]

Hi

Our 8 month old goldie has discovered the yummy taste of garden irrigation and the joys of digging. when we catch her in the act we say a firm "no" and by the collar walk her in a circle and then redirect her to something else in the yard...... well, that is the theory

What happens is that she hears the "no" then as we walk to her to stop her digging or get the irrigation pipe out of her mouth, she will then do zoomies in our backyard, evading us catching her. We then have to try for about 5 minutes until we get her and get pipe out of her mouth etc......

So any suggestions, what could we do better to 1. stop the behaviour of ripping up our irrigation, digging holes, chewing what is not appropriate and 2. stop the zoomie when we want to grab her ( the other day it was scary as she was doing zoomies while we trying to get some sharp metal stuff out of her mouth, no idea where she ransacked that from

Any advice really really appreciated.

Snowball

[Diva]

Hi

Our 8 month old goldie has discovered the yummy taste of garden irrigation and the joys of digging. when we catch her in the act we say a firm "no" and by the collar walk her in a circle and then redirect her to something else in the yard...... well, that is the theory

What happens is that she hears the "no" then as we walk to her to stop her digging or get the irrigation pipe out of her mouth, she will then do zoomies in our backyard, evading us catching her. We then have to try for about 5 minutes until we get her and get pipe out of her mouth etc.....

If that was happening to me, I'd stop saying no before I got to her. Just quietly walk up and take it from her mouth?

To improve the behaviour generally I'd try giving her more mental stimulation, if she isn't already going to an obedience class it would be a good start.

[Tilly]

I never caught my boy in the act but he ripped up tonnes of irrigation system ... and then pulled all the wiring out that hooked up to the automatic watering system. Even at almost 8 years old ... he is still finding the odd bit of irrigation piping in the year and chewing on it.

Hope someone can offer some suggestions as my boys found it irresistible … even with chilli, Tabasco sauce and various other sprays etc.

[nicolatu]

Snowball: Maybe your goldie was trying to attract your attention? After she got your attention, you chased after her so it turned into a game. Usually I just play with my boy's toys making happy sounds and ignoring him totally. When he comes to me, I will offer him his toy I was playing and maybe a treat for letting go of the thing I don't want him to chew on.

Tilly: How about Eucalyptus Oil Spray? The rest did not work but this worked wonder on my boy. Or give him some alternative to chew.

[VJB]

My dog use to do this with sticks and other bits I didn't want her having in her mouth. As soon as she knew that she was not suppose to have it, it was a massive game for her, and we had zoomies galore. I got myself a small squeaky toy, small enough to fit in my pocket. I would hide myself out of her sight, and squeak the toy, which had her coming to me. I would then treat her with a small bit of kibble, or play a quick game, praising her for coming to me. Eventually I got myself a whistle, which replaced the toy and I had this around my neck. I can now use this whistle when we are at beaches, ovals etc, and she will come. It worked because it distracted her from what she was doing, but she never connected the whistle/squeak with the sticks she was carrying around. (If she did, I'm sure she would be teasing me with garden stuff hanging out of her mouth daily, just for the fun of it).

She is terrible with stuff around the home though, kids toys, shoes etc. She doesn't necessarily chew them up anymore, but will come and show me 101 things a day, just for the attention she gets out of it. This is a habit that we caused, because kids use to give her biscuits to get things off of her.

She touches nothing in the yard though, thankfully, but redirecting for months probably had more to do with it (I'm home a lot though). I was always paranoid of sticks etc, and the damage they can do.

Edited June 1, 2010 by VJB

[fiveplusone]

My first GSP loved irrigation piping....I don't know how much of the stuff we went through. Never did stop him from chewing it though, just too irrisistable I guess!

Like VJB our new pup doesn't chew the things he steals but loves to stand quietly behind me until I notice he's got something he shouldn't and then the game begins. We used fritz (he'll do absolutely anything for fritz!) to "trade" for the stolen item but I think he also started to realise that he would get something yummy when he stole stuff.

Now I find that if I just ignore him when he goes to his "I've got something I should have" spot (which is under the dining table) he loses interest and goes on to something else and then I can retrieve the stolen item. If its something that could hurt him though (he had a battery the other day!) then we still use the fritz as a quick way to get the item away from him.

Like others have said it sounds like its turned into a game for her, and she's enjoying you chasing after her.

As for the digging I have heard that putting their poo in the holes stops them digging. While we haven't had to do this with our pup (he has a digging patch in another part of the garden that he is allowed to dig in) we have found that he has never pulled up plants in the garden bed as thats where we bury his poo and even when a favorite ball has gone into the garden bed he refuses to retrieve it he just stands at the edge of the garden bed and looks at the ball! Maybe you could try that if your irrigation piping is somewhere like that?

Edited June 2, 2010 by fiveplusone

[GoldenGirl85]

She is playing with you, if I was you Id stop saying no and try and get the pipe off her, but if she starts the zoomies before you get a chance to take it off her Id either turn your back on her and ignore her, or go inside and come out again when she is calm and offer her something she can have

I hope my goldie doesnt start destroying my yard! although thankfully with this being a rental there isnt much out there for her to get hold of lol

[Snowball]

hmm, things to ponder.

She has lots of chew toys and she goes to obedience training most weekends. We walk her and she is usually inside with us, so has lots of company and atention.

I guess I want her to learn some items are out of boudns so to speak, how do we do that? Ignoring her wont work, she wil l happily chew the irrigation in front of you for as long as she desires ( and it can be a long time- we tried that )

oh dear, as I say, lucky she is soooo cute

snowball

Edited June 2, 2010 by Snowball

[Stitch]

One of mine is totally hyperactive and it was driving me crazy. All my others were so well behaved but not this one.

Everything naughty she did, everything fast and zoomy, she did!!!

I embarked on a total revision of how I treated this dog and I can report back that after approx. 1 month she is greatly improved.

How did I do it??

Obedience classes and 10 minutes practice every day plus daily walking of over 30 minutes.

It helped my frustration levels and it greatly improved the communication between this dog and myself.

My conclusion is that some dogs, like humans just need more training than others and actually look for 'rules & limitations'.

You can't communicate with a dog successfully if it just doesn't understand exactly what you want and obedience training helps with that.

You don't have to turn your dog into an obedience champion if you don't want to but you do need to communicate your rules, boundaries and limitations.

Give it a go - you have nothing to lose except your dogs unwanted bad behaviour!!

Edited June 2, 2010 by STITCH

[becks]

From the dogs point of view 'no' means whoppee I've got mums attention, then when you give chase, you have just taught the dog that there is a big game and lots of fun to be had.

I suggest first off, work on your 'leave it' command - you can practise with a treat on the floor and keep covering it when pup tries to take it but once they back off tell her 'ok' and let her have it.

find something your dog really likes and use that only for times you want to take 'bad' things from her. Use it to get her attention, then offer the reward (toy/treat) so she can see what she can have instead. get her to 'drop' the item and then ask her for some sits/downs/paw etc first, so she is having to work for the reward and you have distracted her from what she had. Just don't make a grab for the item as that just makes it more special to her and will go back into the old habits again.

[Snowball]

hmm, becks the leave it command makes sense, will try that. She has an undestanding of leave it, but we need to reenforce it, being a retriever, there has been plenty of chances to say leave it

thanks everyone for your replies, it all is useful for a first time dog owner.

snowball

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

When my dog digs where I don't want, I bury a bit of her dog poo in the hole. Won't work on dogs that like to eat their own dog poo.

If I catch her in the act of being naughty, I don't yell at her, well I might tell her "bah" in a fairly neutral tone, but for barking - yelling is useless so I get out the pump action water pistol. She likes playing with water but she knows the pistol means stop what you're doing and do something else.

I'm thinking you might want to get some electric fence like for temporary horse fencing, and wrap some irrigation pipe in that. Will teach dog not to chew it. Even if you don't switch it on, the metal in the tape will react weirdly with dog's teeth, like when we chew on tin foil.

But ideally you stop the dog from going near the irrigation pipe at all. That's how I stopped mine from pulling washing off the line (touch wood), when she looked at the clothes line like it was fun - I stopped her.

And she thinks "leave it" means come get a treat - so it works very well.