Our Puppy: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

[koalathebear]

At four months, Elbie's making good progress although we are still struggling in a few areas. I thought I'd do a general recap of his progress, though Updated photos of him are over here.

The Good

1. Toilet-training. This is going very well. He's only had 3 accidents in the new house and these were because he still seemed to be confused about the layout and we weren't fast enough. He knows to go to the kitchen door to be let out. What I am loving is that we designated a section of the yard "Poo Corner" and Elbie is, for the most part, being very diligent about using Poo Corner. In our old place, he went wherever he felt like it and we stepped in so many stinky landmines it is not funny... Having everything restricted to Poo Corner makes clean-up a LOT easier.

2. Meals. We've successfully reduced Elbie to 2 meals a day. We put aside a section of each meal as treats during the day. This will make it easier for him when we go back to work full-time.

3. Unsupervised Yard Time. He's had a few instances of unsupervised yard time - a few hours at a time. He doesn't seem to have done any major damage. Elbie-Cam showed that he played, slept, ran around - although he visited the kitchen door quite frequently to see if we had come back. The only sign of destructive behaviour was that he murdered some straw covering on a brick wall and moved my sandals from one section of the yard to the mat at the backdoor. While Elbie-Cam showed that he was playing with my sandals while we were away, he placed them at the backdoor so neatly that my OH and I were asking one another in a baffled way: "Did you put those there???"

What is good as that he shows no signs of wanting to break out of the yard. When he sees us pulling up in the driveway, he doesn't try to throw himself at/through/over the fence - he just races over to the kitchen door to wait for us to go in the house and let him in. Similarly, we have practised driving away when he can see us to see how he responds and he seems to prefer to wait and hang out in the yard for us than to go looking for us.

4. Tricks/Games. He makes ridiculously short work of the muffin tin game these days - finished in a manner of seconds! He's also learned to walk backwards, stand and stay - the latter two took a strangely long time to teach him. We still can't get him to crawl yet - he crawls hilariously under stools and our legs but we can't seem to transition the crawl to a crawl without props.

We attended the first obedience class (no dogs for the first session) and despite having been sceptical of clickers, were very impressed with the clicker demonstration we saw and so will start clicker training Elbie when we get our clickers. It looks like the sort of thing he might enjoy. We kind of 'breach' the training rules of the club though because we do tell Elbie "no!" in a stern voice sometimes. I know that many people are against saying 'no' but we've found that it has stopped him chewing on electric wires and that sort of thing. He does seem to understand the word.

The Bad

1. Turbo Puppy. Although Elbie has the ability to sit/lie down/sleep quietly while my OH and I are doing our thing, he does get very hyperactive when people come to visit. We've been encouraging visitors to ignore him so that he calms down. Sometimes we have to crate him while they arrive and then let him out after he settles. He gets very, very excited and happy.

2. Sooky Puppy. I am treading a fine line with allergies so my OH is much more tactile in his play with Elbie than I am, so Elbie is naturally a lot closer to him. Elbie has a bad habit of crying for a little bit when my OH leaves the room/leaves the house. He cries about me as well but definitely not as long as he cries for my OH - hopefully he'll grow out of the sookiness?

The Ugly

1. Car travel. As mentioned here, we are still unable to settle Elbie for car trips. He gets very excited and leaps into the car - but once inside it, he's clawing, screaming, crying, barking and just being a complete maelstrom of madness. We've tried two harnesses and he's managed to get out of both because he's a squirmy, sleek little thing. We think that it might be related to the Leash Thing (discussed below).

2. Inexplicable Berserker Rage. A while back, I mentioned that Elbie had inexplicably started attacking our jeans and biting. It wasn't just nipping - one moment he'd be all placid and playing and then the next minute he'd have latched onto our jeans, was growling/snarling and shaking his head from side to side like a maniac. We were despairing of him ever stopping and while we felt so guilty at the time - we used the water spray on his face a couple of times and he totally stopped. He'll nip at my OH's chin now and then (maybe doesn't like his dimple?) but he no longer attacks us with his Berserker Rage.

Alas, a few days ago, his leash suddenly became the subject of his bizarre Berserker Rage. Seriously, one moment he'd be sitting there looking so cute and obedient - catch one glimpse of the leash and he'd go mad. It wasn't the elated excitement of a dog wanting to go for a walk - he would snarl and grip on it and then literally snap his way up the leash to where our hands were!!! We tried distracting him but nothing worked. He has the home alone ball which he has no interest in tugging, he has tug toys and other toys and he will play with them and play tug with us but he always lets go when we say: "let go". No matter how snarly and possessive he gets about his tug toys, he always releases them - not the leash. At one point, he leapt up and snapped at the leash so sharply he got my blouse and a bit of flesh Today, weirdly enough, we managed to overcome his Berserker Rage towards his leash with one squirt of the water bottle and low fat cheese as treats ... The treats really made the difference and we've been able to slowly desensitise him him to the leash - dangling it in front of his nose and giving him a treat when he ignores it, dropping it before him and giving him a treat, putting it on and taking it off etc. We've managed to lead him to the door as well without him going Berserker on us.

We are going to keep working on this and try to get him calm because once out the door he positively howls/yaps/barks/cries with excitement. We will try to use the cheese method to get him calm in the car as well. My worry is - what triggers the Berserker Rage in him and what will trigger it next????

[myzchev]

[We attended the first obedience class (no dogs for the first session) and despite having been sceptical of clickers, were very impressed with the clicker demonstration we saw and so will start clicker training Elbie when we get our clickers. It looks like the sort of thing he might enjoy. We kind of 'breach' the training rules of the club though because we do tell Elbie "no!" in a stern voice sometimes. I know that many people are against saying 'no' but we've found that it has stopped him chewing on electric wires and that sort of thing. He does seem to understand the word.

I use the word "no" on my puppies when needed, but then I am not really a clicker trainer and prefer to use a bridging word. I do believe that puppies need to know discipline and saying "no" and meaning it is a far better punishment then others I can think of[color="#0000FF"

The Ugly

1. Car travel. As mentioned here, we are still unable to settle Elbie for car trips. He gets very excited and leaps into the car - but once inside it, he's clawing, screaming, crying, barking and just being a complete maelstrom of madness. We've tried two harnesses and he's managed to get out of both because he's a squirmy, sleek little thing. We think that it might be related to the Leash Thing (discussed below).

Have you thought of crate training him both in and out of the car?

[Jason Cyr]

1. Turbo Puppy.

I don’t think the crate is the solution in this case; is problem when people are at the door or when they are in house or both?

2. Sooky Puppy.

Don’t make an issue when you leave and come back, otherwise you’ll create anxiety.

(I’ll be making a video this weekend on this topic, you can check out at TheToller.com)

3 Car travel

If he can get out of the harness, use a crate, and take short trips; gradually work your way to longer trip and eventually back to the harness. Most importantly ignore the bad behavior and give him a treat when he’s good. (This is another good topic for a video, I’ll see if I have time to make one)

3. Inexplicable Berserker Rage.

Do this only if you catch it as its happening, if the dog isn’t too big, and if it’s a bad behavior that isn’t allowed.

Grab him by the collar and flip him on his back with a sense of urgency and say no, hold him on his back until he fully submits. You’ll notice that the behavior will stop very quickly.

If you want to ask any spefic questions, post pictures or video sample of the issues you can also do it on TheToller.com , I’d be more than happy to help out. (just send me a msg, or post in the comments)

[wuffles]

The Bad

1. Turbo Puppy. Although Elbie has the ability to sit/lie down/sleep quietly while my OH and I are doing our thing, he does get very hyperactive when people come to visit. We've been encouraging visitors to ignore him so that he calms down. Sometimes we have to crate him while they arrive and then let him out after he settles. He gets very, very excited and happy.

We don't have this problem at all................

You met Ava, can you imagine her sitting still when visitors come? The dogs generally go outside when we get visitors until they have calmed down a bit (this generally takes at least 15 minutes) as Ava gets really excited then she gets Satchmo excited and all hell breaks loose I try not to worry too much as she is just young, I hope that she will calm down as she gets older.

[W Sibs]

Elbie sounds likes a normal and happy puppy

He is very very cute!!!

[persephone]

3. Inexplicable Berserker Rage.

Do this only if you catch it as its happening, if the dog isn’t too big, and if it’s a bad behavior that isn’t allowed.

Grab him by the collar and flip him on his back with a sense of urgency and say no, hold him on his back until he fully submits. You’ll notice that the behavior will stop very quickly.

The behaviour may indeed stop- however, there are other things which also may happen .

Please, for dealing with assumed aggression get a professional to ASSESS the situation, and then physically SHOW you how strategies suiting your dog/circumstance will be used.

Edited June 22, 2010 by persephone

[koalathebear]

The behaviour may indeed stop- however, there are other things which also may happen .

Hi jason & persephone: thanks for your comments. We've heard about/read the 'holding down dog till it calms' strategy before but it's not something that we think would work for Elbie. He can generally be reasoned with eventually - once he figures out what the good behaviour we want is, he'll generally drop the bad behaviour. So today, we can dangle the leash in front of his nose, drop it around his face and swish it on the ground and he'll ignore it. As mentioned, he no longer goes into a snarly rage and bites our jeans.

I guess I'm just puzzled about why he sometimes goes into major tug mode and you can see him 'transforming' and being quite serious about hanging on. It's not something we can really get anyone to observe because we're not sure when it might be triggered - like I mentioned, before it was the jeans, recently it was his leash but for all other things he'll "let go" on request.

I guess it's part of having a puppy - each time we solve each new problem a new one comes along

Edited June 23, 2010 by koalathebear

[cavvysavvy]

[Jason Cyr]

The behaviour may indeed stop- however, there are other things which also may happen .

Hi jason & persephone: thanks for your comments. We've heard about/read the 'holding down dog till it calms' strategy before but it's not something that we think would work for Elbie. He can generally be reasoned with eventually - once he figures out what the good behaviour we want is, he'll generally drop the bad behaviour. So today, we can dangle the leash in front of his nose, drop it around his face and swish it on the ground and he'll ignore it. As mentioned, he no longer goes into a snarly rage and bites our jeans.

I guess I'm just puzzled about why he sometimes goes into major tug mode and you can see him 'transforming' and being quite serious about hanging on. It's not something we can really get anyone to observe because we're not sure when it might be triggered - like I mentioned, before it was the jeans, recently it was his leash but for all other things he'll "let go" on request.

I guess it's part of having a puppy - each time we solve each new problem a new one comes along

This depends on the breed of dog but most have a big drive to hold and retrieve. We normally never say no or try to negate that drive it goes hand in hand with retrieving to hand. It’s sounds like you have a great dog, he just need to learn the out command; simply find something to trade with him and he’ll drop it and just say OUT and Good Boy!!!!

[Simply Grand]

I love your post koala, what a good story! Elbie sounds like such a character, I can just picture him doing all the things you described. I don't have any advice for you, to me it sounds like you're managing really well, and Elbie sounds like a normal, if confident, little puppy. And he is clearly very much loved

I think I will try and come to BDOC to watch the Sunday class so I can see him in action!

[nicolatu]

Hi, my puppy have the same problem of Turbo puppy. Anyone have a solution of that? I get my BC puppy to sit for the door to open and let my guests in. Then I tell them to ignore him until he settle down. He will then sit and wait for them to give him some cuddles. Usually, during the cuddles part, he will get very excited and start jumping and nipping.

[aussielover]

I think pretty much all puppies do that.

My pupy sits initially but then aslo starts jumping and play biting after receiving cuddles. I tell people to ignore her or get up and walk away when she does this. I have started to keep her on lead when introducing people so I can limit her excitement and pull her away if needed.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

koalathebear

I don't like the idea of rolling a dog over and pinning it till it "submits". It violates the "play gentle" rule. Ie the rougher you are with your puppy, the rougher it may be with you.

It seems like your dog would like a game of tug. The big excitement through to "beserker" are all levels of "drive", there's different kinds of drive but essentially the dog is excited and ready to go get whatever: food, prey, tug, play... and it can be great tool in training. I still haven't figured out exactly how to get there, but in theory, if you can get your dog excited before you start a training session and fire him up between steps with a game of tug, he learns better and he works harder.

I'd try for "sit" or "drop" at the front door. I then try to get whomever is out there to back off so I can bring the dog out in case she has an excitement accident. I won't let her say hello or the guest approach for a pat unless my dog is calm and sitting nicely. I can get a fairly reliable and very fast drop from my dog even when she is very excited. We're working on getting it at a distance, but she's good up close and I can get it from any positition, I don't have to be next to her, she doesn't have to be sitting.

Glad the cheese is working for the lead desensitization. You might try a horse rope lead instead of a webbing one. I find they make great tug toys as needed. But you need to train a solid give/out/thankyou/leggo and geddit to go with it. And favourite food treat helps here, but I also get dog to give by tickling under the chin or pushing a lip onto dog's own teeth (so pain is mutual if the dog clamps down on my finger). Usually the word is sufficient, because my dog knows she's likely to be rewarded with a fresh game of tug. Ie you train - geddit - tug tug - give - geddit - tug tug...

[koalathebear]

I use the word "no" on my puppies when needed, but then I am not really a clicker trainer and prefer to use a bridging word. I do believe that puppies need to know discipline and saying "no" and meaning it is a far better punishment then others I can think of

I agree and I really do believe that he understands the word 'no'. As to clicker training, we were very dubious about it at first because Elbie responds very well already to "good boy" but we got our clickers today and we can already see the advantages in terms of immediacy and motivation. On the weekend, the speaker made us laugh though because her new dog is clicker trained but her first dog was trained using a bridging word. She told us: "Don't use a word that you are likely to use too often in the day," then she turned to her dog, got her to do a trick and praised the dog with a high-pitched and elated: "YES!!!" We thought that it was rather hilarious that she used 'yes' as her word ...

Have you thought of crate training him both in and out of the car?

Elbie's crate-trained but unfortunately he grew out of his travel-crate ages ago and his current wire crate is massive and would not fit in the car. We could buy a larger travel crate for him but it would not be possible to sit it flat in our car ... We made some progress today with him... clicked him out the front door and into the car and got him to sit and drop in the back seat. All without the harness at this stage though ...

[koalathebear]

Hi Mrs Rusty Bucket: Thanks for such a detailed reply! My OH keeps rolling his eyes at how much time I am spending on DOL but I'm just learning so much! I wish I'd found the forum BEFORE we got our puppy

I don't like the idea of rolling a dog over and pinning it till it "submits". It violates the "play gentle" rule. Ie the rougher you are with your puppy, the rougher it may be with you.

Agreed ... the approach would not work with Elbie at all. When we first got him (before we started reading all the training stuff), people kept quoting Dog Whisperer at us and I think we might have tried the 'hold him till he settles' thing. From memory, he submitted and then as soon as we released him he bounced back up and went back to doing whatever he wasn't supposed to be doing The only way to extinguish Elbie's bad behaviours is to motivate him with good things - he's that kind of dog ... Fortunately while he's very food motivated, he can also be motivated by toys and praise.

It seems like your dog would like a game of tug. The big excitement through to "beserker" are all levels of "drive", there's different kinds of drive but essentially the dog is excited and ready to go get whatever: food, prey, tug, play... and it can be great tool in training. I still haven't figured out exactly how to get there, but in theory, if you can get your dog excited before you start a training session and fire him up between steps with a game of tug, he learns better and he works harder.

I find this quite fascinating. Is this the 'arousal' thing I keep reading about on other threads? To be honest, when Elbie goes into ramped up hyper mode - I really don't quite know how to handle him ... not sure if you watch "Legend of the Seeker" but he really seems to go into the "Con Dar" sometimes. We do have tug toys and he loves them but he releases them as soon as we say "let go" so it doesn't seem like it's a lack of tug play that makes him go berserker ...

I'd try for "sit" or "drop" at the front door. I then try to get whomever is out there to back off so I can bring the dog out in case she has an excitement accident. I won't let her say hello or the guest approach for a pat unless my dog is calm and sitting nicely. I can get a fairly reliable and very fast drop from my dog even when she is very excited. We're working on getting it at a distance, but she's good up close and I can get it from any positition, I don't have to be next to her, she doesn't have to be sitting.

Thanks, we will try this. At this point, what we do is:

1. crate him

2. let him out and then ask the visitor to ignore him for a bit. The problem with Elbie is that when people rile him up with: "Oh cute puppy!" etc it really makes him over-excited. My OH says that we can't expect everyone to listen to us and ignore him though because it's inevitable that we will meet people who greet dogs with: "Oh wooobbby woobby woobbby what a cute dog!"

Glad the cheese is working for the lead desensitization.

We are quite bemused that a tiny tiny bit of low fat cheese is such an incentive for our doggy When we led him out to the car today, he tried to bite the leash a few times but when we said: "let go" he immediately dropped the leash. The clicker is also helping to grab his attention as well.

saxonpup: You may want to give us a few weeks I fully expect that you will be able to identify us in the first week as the owners running around the field yelling: "Elbie! Come back with your mat! Come back!" he is very fast so impossible to catch

People warned us that the kelpie/bc combo might be mega-naughty and he really is ... he sits in his dog bed KNOWING that he's not allowed to chew the straps and so now he has two ploys:

- puts his chew toy on top of the strap and chews the strap, using the chew toy to hide his misdeeds!

- chews and when we look at him, he stops and looks mega-innocent. As soon as we turn away he chews again ... Then he will drop his head and pretend to be doing an obedient 'drop' but actually he is doing a very slow and subtle chew of the strap ;)

Edited June 23, 2010 by koalathebear

[wuffles]

I agree and I really do believe that he understands the word 'no'. As to clicker training, we were very dubious about it at first because Elbie responds very well already to "good boy" but we got our clickers today and we can already see the advantages in terms of immediacy and motivation. On the weekend, the speaker made us laugh though because her new dog is clicker trained but her first dog was trained using a bridging word. She told us: "Don't use a word that you are likely to use too often in the day," then she turned to her dog, got her to do a trick and praised the dog with a high-pitched and elated: "YES!!!" We thought that it was rather hilarious that she used 'yes' as her word ...

Most people use 'yes' as their marker word - I do I never say it during the day, it's always 'yeah' or 'yep' or 'uh huh'.

See you on Sunday

[aussielover]

Thanks, we will try this. At this point, what we do is:

1. crate him

2. let him out and then ask the visitor to ignore him for a bit. The problem with Elbie is that when people rile him up with: "Oh cute puppy!" etc it really makes him over-excited. My OH says that we can't expect everyone to listen to us and ignore him though because it's inevitable that we will meet people who greet dogs with: "Oh wooobbby woobby woobbby what a cute dog!"

Yes, I find the problem is not with the dog but with the people! My dog is fine with me but other people go on about how cute she is, and don't make a serious attempt at ignoring her even though i specifically ask them too. Which is why I have started with the lead (even in the house)...

I don't like the idea of rolling a dog over and pinning it till it "submits". It violates the "play gentle" rule. Ie the rougher you are with your puppy, the rougher it may be with you.

Agreed ... the approach would not work with Elbie at all. When we first got him (before we started reading all the training stuff), people kept quoting Dog Whisperer at us and I think we might have tried the 'hold him till he settles' thing. From memory, he submitted and then as soon as we released him he bounced back up and went back to doing whatever he wasn't supposed to be doing biggrin.gif The only way to extinguish Elbie's bad behaviours is to motivate him with good things - he's that kind of dog ... Fortunately while he's very food motivated, he can also be motivated by toys and praise.

I tried this once on my dog, NEVER did it again! She thought it was a game but when she finally settled down and was released she jumped up and growled at me. Elbie sounds like Mindy- positives generally work better for her and she is very food and play motivated!

Edited June 23, 2010 by aussielover

[Nekhbet]

your dog is a baby. Try and keep that in mind. You sound like first time dog owners so remember - your dog is a living creature that uses its teeth, tongue and nose to explore and express itself. His berzerk sessions are a working breed dog letting out its energy. Remain calm, give a little squirt with the water bottle then after a few seconds redirect to a toy.

I dont believe in a complete life of no consequences. It does most dogs more harm then good. There is nothing wrong at all with telling your dog no, or AHH, or BAHH, or any other manner of things. Trust me dogs do a lot worst to each other when reprimanding.

[corvus]

I guess I'm just puzzled about why he sometimes goes into major tug mode and you can see him 'transforming' and being quite serious about hanging on. It's not something we can really get anyone to observe because we're not sure when it might be triggered - like I mentioned, before it was the jeans, recently it was his leash but for all other things he'll "let go" on request.

Yeah, I remember that. Both my boys went through the "OMG, we're halfway 'round the block, I'M FREAKING OUT!" stage where their brains would break sometimes. Usually just when you were commenting how good your puppy was being. I always carried a tug toy when they were going through that stage. If they lost it I let them play tug until they had got it out of their system. When we got Erik he'd fling himself at Kivi whenever he got the crazies. He'd be determined he was going to do it, poor Kivi. Glad I had OH to walk Kivi away from us so Erik couldn't get him. Then I'd break out the treats or the tug and just reward for any glances in my direction. He came good. I wouldn't assume that because he does this he's got lots of tug drive. Kivi did it as a puppy and he's a mellow stoner these days. It's just over-arousal.

No consequences is not the same as using mostly rewards. I could count the number of times I've punished Erik with P+ on one hand. But he's had plenty of P- and extinction and there are always consequences to his actions. I just don't make them particularly aversive. I give him choices. You can act like an idiot and jump all over me and get ignored or you can lie down as instructed and get a treat. He likes the choices that get him rewards.

[Marley'z Mum]

how does clicker training work?