Jumping On Glass Doors

[poochiemama]

I would appreciate some advice:

I have two young dogs, a chocolate labrador and a golden retriever, who are around 1 year old.

They stay inside with us, and get daily walks and are generally well-behaved inside the house.

When we are not at home, they are outside in the yard, which is a decent size. When we return home, even after an hour, they get so excited at the glass doors - they both jump on the glass doors a number of times. We are worried as they are growing, they will break the glass one day.

They have already smashed a small window in the house because they were playing with each other and put their body weights onto the window.

Any ideas to get them to settle down?

We have been told before to ignore them for 10 minutes when we walk in, but the problem is still ongoing.

Another issue we have is that our retriever , when she is in the yard, jumps on tree branches and bites them off. Our guarden used to have lots of beautiful landscaping/trees/branches, but they are becoming quite sparse! I understand this is a hazard of having puppies, and prepared to live with it, but any advice on how to reduce this would be wonderful. I also worry she might hurt herself one day jumping on the branches.

[Aidan3]

So what, specifically, would you like them to do instead of that and how might you train that?

[poochiemama]

So what, specifically, would you like them to do instead of that and how might you train that?

I would like them to be sat in front of the door rather than jumping on it. I don't mind if they jump , but not ONTO the glass. But i'm not sure how to train that..

[traveler]

This is a hard thing to eliminate from a dogs reputaur as they are excited to see you. if they know the word NO then maybe you may be able to stop it however a lab will not settle down until about 2 years old. I have had a couple of them and one destroyed the back verandah wall by chewing the villaboard. Eventually they grow out of it. Other training methods could be used which include bark collar which used correctly can be a distance training device. the most important thing to do is not to reinforce bad behaviour but reinforce good behaviour.

an example is the digging that has probable gone on in the past as most gun dog breeds are good excavatours you told them no and ignored them when they did this behaviour the jumping is it only at the glass or do they jump on you as well. if they jump on you as well then this is where you start to enforce the NO and make the NO a very gruff sounding as though you are growling at them.

hope this helps!

[poochiemama]

Thank you for that, that's very helpful.

They are still jumping on us but not as much as before; they definitely still jump on guests and get excited to see people at the door.

They have calmed down a lot since they were smaller puppies, so maybe we need to give them more time.

[Snoopy21]

We trained Willow to sit at the glass door when she wants to come in (she was jumping up on the door) by just giving her a hand signal to sit each time she approached the door or looked like she was going to jump on it. We never let her in until she was sitting nicely and then made her wait until she was invited. It just helped her to be calm at the door. She will still jump if she has been sitting there for a bit and noone has let her in, but more often she politely knocks with her claws. It's cute!

I might get a bell that she can tap......

[Nekhbet]

destruction is a hint there is unchanneled excitement and drive in the dog. It is not necessarily something that just comes with having a dog.

http://aussiedog.com.au/index.php?main_pag...x&cPath=1_7

try the aussie dog home alone toy for the golden if jumping and tugging is her thing. I'd be starting to worry about boredome, and they sound like obedience training would do them both a lot of good. If they are not going to obedience start asap, agility wouldn't be a bad idea either.

[corvus]

My little excitable guy is asked to down whenever I come home. I don't even get the key out until he's in a down. I cue it if he's jumping around like an idiot, but otherwise I don't need to cue it because if I just wait he'll remember and go into a down on his own. If he breaks it I freeze until he corrects himself and goes back into a down. We are working on strengthening this. At the moment he can hold his down when I open the door wide enough for him to go through, but it's not especially reliable.

He still jumps on the door once or twice most of the time, but I've never tried to address it. He gets himself under control pretty quickly. If you want your guys to sit at the door instead of jumping around manically then cue them to sit at the door and don't open it unless they are sitting. I like the release word because then they learn to hold the position regardless of what the door is doing until you release them. Of course, don't just leap in and ask for a sit in the most outrageously arousing scenario possible (owner coming home or something) but build them up to it by cueing sits in less exciting situations and then ask for it in more and more situations until they are likely to be able to do it when they are extremely excited.

[poochiemama]

Thank you guys for all the really useful comments, I will definitely try some of these suggestions, especially cueing 'sit' or 'down' before opening the door.

I don't think there is that much unchannnelled energy because they go for long walks everyday and romps in the

park every second day.

[Nekhbet]

walks build fitness, they do not stimulate the brain to use that energy in a productive manner (hence destruction) You are better off doing half an hour obedience with the dog then a half an hour walk.

[Jaxx'sBuddy]

walks also dont tend to tire out a dog but 10 minutes of teaching them obedience or a new trick tires them out really well.

what do they have in the yard to amuse them when they are out there on their own?

maybe get them some toys as has been suggested or scatter food around so they can find it (supervised to start with). if they have been bored in the yard then when you come home it becomes the most exciting thing in their day.

my dog did this when she was a puppy and i paid her no attention and turned away from her until she controlled herself.

[Aidan]

So what, specifically, would you like them to do instead of that and how might you train that?

I would like them to be sat in front of the door rather than jumping on it. I don't mind if they jump , but not ONTO the glass. But i'm not sure how to train that..

I ask the question for several reasons, not the least of which is because it helps if you have identified what it is you would like them to do specifically, rather than just being told what to do. Snoopy21 has shared what she has done in a similar situation and those are good principles. I would probably work on it with each dog separately in the early stages. This makes it a bit easier for you and also for your dogs.

If they know how to sit already, get them used to sitting on the other side of the door. The door can be open at first, then work on it with the door closed. Start off with food in these early stages, small treats. The reward later on will be getting to greet you when you open the door.

Build up the length of time that you expect them to remain sitting before you reward. Think about how long it will take you to come in, put your keys down, have a glass of water, put the groceries down and that sort of thing. Aim to train them to remain sitting for that length of time. Start off with a very short duration and work up to that, so you might start asking them to sit for just one second. If they will sit for one second in 4/5 trials, increase the time to two seconds, and so on. If they fail more than 1/5 trials, reduce the time a little and try again.

Next have them remain sitting while you walk off and do things. Start off with just a step away from the door, make it really easy for them. Work up to being able to put bags away, take shoes off, and things you might typically do before you let them in.

Keep setting them up for success every step of the way, make it easy for them. At some point it will seem like a good idea to try and work with both dogs together, go back to basics when you do this, you should be able to increase the difficulty very quickly from there but just remember to keep setting them up for success.

I hope that helps.

[poochiemama]

wow, i'm so glad i asked the question, because there are so many helpful replies here. Nekhbet, I never thought of it that way, that walks make them fit but don't necessarily tire them out, unless you do some obedience exercises with them.

I think I'm definitely going to try the sit at the door, and gradually building up the time that they can do this.

Also the hand signals would help ...

Maybe we were expecting too much of them, they sit at the door when we ask them, but we haven't really built that up to more prolonged periods of time. What do people think of the advice of 'ignoring them' when we come in for 10 minutes? We tried that, but we weren't very consistent; it's really hard and i'm not sure if that worked.

[Lucy's mama]

i was advised to ignore our dog on arriving home, and it was really hard at first, but now I come home and he is excited to see me but not over the top and silly. It is so much easier carrying in shopping when he is laying down watching and waiting rather than getting under my feet and sticking his nose in bags. When I have carried everything in, had a drink, checked my messages I will say hello to him. I would definately say it worked for us, we were very consistant with it though and everyone had to do it.

[Nekhbet]

We tried that, but we weren't very consistent; it's really hard and i'm not sure if that worked.

there is where your problem lies. Your dogs are active gun dog breed with brains and after being bored all day you, the light of their lives, come home and they have learned if they try hard enough they will get attention in one way or another. If you have curtains over the glass door keep them shut until you are ready to go out, that can help too.

a lot more obedience and brain puzzles required in general from the sounds of it.

[corvus]

If you let your dogs sniff things on walks, I think they can be quite mentally stimulating. And if you do training as you go. Erik thinks he could train all day. I've seen him manically clicker training for an hour and still up for more, and clicker training is about as hard as it gets. He loves free shaping. I invariably get tired before he does. But let him play off leash with Kivi for an hour and he's happy to sleep for the rest of the day. I could take him somewhere new and keep him on leash and do no training and the sheer effort of processing all the information will wear him out.

Personally, I think it's natural for dogs to want to greet their owners when they get home. It's a pretty strong compulsion. My boys are given the opportunity to give greeting kisses and cuddles once they have downed/sat nicely at the door. That's what they are working so hard for, after all. I should probably deliver! It doesn't have to be crazy, though. We have, like, 20 seconds of loving on each other and then they will go outside to toilet or whatever and I don't engage with them much for the next half an hour or so. Sometimes they are feeling particularly lovey dovey and come back for seconds and thirds of cuddles. I'm fine with that as long as they ask nicely (sit quietly, or down). Erik gives some pretty fun cuddles. Think weak at the knees, throwing his head back, flopping out of my arms backwards onto his back on the ground so I can give him tummy rubs. I have to be careful to catch him or he will land on his head! I wouldn't give those up for the world. It's not a big deal to indulge greeting rituals as long as they are taught calm greeting rituals.

[beagie]

I would appreciate some advice:

I have two young dogs, a chocolate labrador and a golden retriever, who are around 1 year old.

They stay inside with us, and get daily walks and are generally well-behaved inside the house.

When we are not at home, they are outside in the yard, which is a decent size. When we return home, even after an hour, they get so excited at the glass doors - they both jump on the glass doors a number of times. We are worried as they are growing, they will break the glass one day.

They have already smashed a small window in the house because they were playing with each other and put their body weights onto the window.

Any ideas to get them to settle down?

We have been told before to ignore them for 10 minutes when we walk in, but the problem is still ongoing.

Another issue we have is that our retriever , when she is in the yard, jumps on tree branches and bites them off. Our guarden used to have lots of beautiful landscaping/trees/branches, but they are becoming quite sparse! I understand this is a hazard of having puppies, and prepared to live with it, but any advice on how to reduce this would be wonderful. I also worry she might hurt herself one day jumping on the branches.

when your dogs jump up on you try letting out a scream as if they have hurt you. The reason I say this is my puppy was jumping up. My DH is very sick,

pup Jumped up one day when DH was it his worst he let out a gosh awful scream, pup has never jumped up at him again in fact he goes and gets in his

crate when he sees DH, or lays down beside me. This is a method often used for dogs who mouth. Beagie