Dog trainers: an overabundance of joy

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hey guys. I have a dog. Marge. Husky x German Shorthair. (Shortsky?) I got her at 8 weeks. She is 15 months old now. She’s very smart–permanently housebroken at 12 week! And responds to training well.

When she damn well feels like it that is. I have gone almost entirely positive enforcement with her, because she just doesn’t give a shit about negative feedback. She’s like a leaping, tumbling Tigger of weapons-grade, fuck-tha-police joy. Her favorite thing is to parkour off of people’s torsos. Because she damn well wants to that’s why.

I’ve made some progress. She knows not to parkour off me. But strangers are fair game. So I have to walk her like a vicious dog. I’ve taken her on long walks with friends, as reinforcement training, so that by the end of the walk she’ll run up to my friend and fake him out: jump up chest high and then flop earthward like a leaping salmon.

You know those youtube videos, that show servicepeople coming home, to be greeted by their bestest doggie who hasn’t seen them for a couple years? And the dogs go fugue state ape shit and practically split into pieces with the overwhelming joy of reunion? That’s Marge with strangers. It’s worse with people she knows: She has this yelp of joy that morphs into a bloodcurdling scream of horror. It sounds, without exaggeration, like she’s being stabbed. People stick their heads out of doors to see who’s being murdered.

One theory: she’s oversocialized. I live in a business district, above a book store. So our front door is a public sidewalk. When Marge was a puppy, she was the cutest floppiest lickiest squeakiest puppy in the world, so it could take us 20 minutes to get to the end of the block with every passerby crouching to be licked by the wiggly fuzz face. With literally almost zero exception: Not everyone is a dog person, but everyone IS a puppy person.

So maybe that influenced this behavior?

Anyway I checked with a trainer today, who offered to help me straighten this situation out for $2800. So I laughed maniacally while I stabbed him with his own Dalmatian spotted pen, and decided to try here instead. So help me please. I mean, as dog problems go, an overabundance of joy almost seems like a humble brag. But it’s exhausting, and my neighbors cross the street when they see me coming. So she’s sweet af, but I still need to stamp out that little flame of joy that burns within her heart for my own comfort and convenience.

2

Sign up for a group class that works on leash manners. You should get a lot of good pointers on how to handle all this without extinguishing her joy. Another thing to keep in mind is that she is still young. She will probably settle down a bit more.

A few questions: is she walked on a leash? Is it a fixed length leash, or one of those extendable jobs?
When she is rewarded for good behavior, how is she rewarded? Treat or quick play time? How much exercise does she get? How often?

I don’t think over-socialization is possible, so I wouldn’t worry about that. She does have some bad habits though. I will make some concrete suggestions after you have time to answer the questions. I do think a class wouldn’t hurt, and shouldn’t cost you several thousand either.

3

You have a common problem with big friendly dogs. You just have to keep him under control. Use a collar that will allow you to control him and use whatever force needed to accomplish this. You make the dog sit or stay and make sure he isn’t going anywhere before you go back to ad ease. I trained bird dogs for over 20 years. I never really relied on technique as much as consistency and making sure the dog knew what I wanted. Just take back control and don’t ease off of him until you know you have him under control. It is not that hard.

4

Keep in mind that at 15 months she’s still basically a puppy. She’ll calm down a lot of her own accord as she gets older. I second the suggestion of a group training class if you can do one.

5

I don’t understand how a dog, in training, is able to run up to people and bounce off of them. Is this dog not on a leash?

If she isn’t, she should be. You need to stop her before she gets to people, and people (that you know) need to turn their backs to her and ignore until she sits/lies down.

I really really like this harness for my dog, who is reactive (meaning he is a great walker except when he thinks he sees a bunny then he goes bananas) and was able to twist himself out of other harnesses. It’s got a front clip too so you can have control over the front of the dog meaning when she goes loping towards someone you can more easily redirect her to get her to friggin’ stop.

6

She is walked on a leash. I use a 6’ as standard, and a 25’ for running in circles and gamboling when we’re in a safe place to do that.

She is rewarded mostly with praise, often with treat. She gets a good long walk most days, as well as a running session were she will run around me in a 50’ circle for a nice little while. Also most days. And shorter bathroom jaunts probably 6 times a day.

I’m on disability right now, so any cost at all would be a problem. I can overcome any such challenge myself, if I educate myself on what is effective.

7

Letting everyone bend down and get exuberantly licked by the cute fluffball was a mistake.

You knew you were going to have a big dog. When she weighed 7 lbs, she should have been taught to sit before anyone would pet her. I have done this with all my dogs, and I had dogs that would walk around the dog park and sit at people’s feet waiting to be pet. People were so unfamiliar with well-trained pets, most people had to have it explained what the dogs were waiting for, but so what? One of my dogs was an 80 lb Pit Bull/GSD mix, and so she REALLY needed to be well-behaved. That dog never jumped on people except for the few putzes who set her training back by encouraging her to jump on them with an “I don’t mind dogs jumping on me.”

I trained her by completely ignoring her when she jumped, and making a fuss over her when she sat. You may need another approach. You may need to get a prong collar, and have several training sessions a day where you make her sit, and then pet her. If she jumps, she gets the collar, and has to sit again…and again, and again, until she sits nicely through a session of praise and petting, followed by a treat.

It will take a long time. It may take three ten minute sessions a day for a month before you see any real progress, and you may have to keep having a couple of sessions a week until she is two. But eventually it will stick.

8

I use a pinch collar, which I had to graduate when nylon-slide training collars became inadequate. On our walks we are constantly engaged: she is constantly responding to a command, mostly sit or heel, but other options come up. Unless I say “okay” and she hits the verge and sniffs the bushes. I maintain her attention at all times. Until a person approaches. Then she seems literally to enter a fugue state; clinical hysteria. I cannot reach her verbally, and must restrain her physically. We are getting better; I can keep these fugue states to a shorter and shorter duration. But so far I can’t make her just not do it.

9

I live in a business district. Our walks start out on traveled sidewalks. Not NYC-busy, but a couple passersby per block. Until we get to a more open area, we are passing within inches of other people. If people don’t know me, they don’t make a wide berth. I hold her taut-close, sometimes with 6 inches of slack or less. On the building side of me, not the open sidewalk side, if someone approaches. But people come up from behind, they approach 2 or 3 abreast, etc. I often have her sit and “chill” to let people pass. But even a purely vertical movement, plus the length of her forelegs, and her strength as compared to mine, means that occasionally she makes contact with someone’s hips. Also, I didn’t say she is able to do so; I said she likes to do so. Only once has she ever made full parkour contact with a stranger; otherwise I’m able to keep her down, or at worst yank her back in mid flight. But my goal is not to be able to physically restrain her from doing this. My record on that front is pretty close to 100%. My goal is to train her not to even thing about doing this. I have physical restraint covered; it’s verbal restraint I’m finding to be a challenge.

10

Second the group class! Our pups did K-323rd grade in group instruction, it was $125 a class for six weeks. Petco/Pet Smart may be even cheaper. Go to a place that offers 'positive reinforcement" training.

Don’t worry too much about exuberance at 15 months. She does need some training, but I don’t see this as so unusual (do take the advice above about a good walking harness).

11

I am in 100% agreement. I have followed all of these practices.

As a puppy, however, almost all of her interactions were with strangers. So I’m walking Marge, and a stranger approaches. “Can I pet your puppy?” My options: No. Or, “Yes but please wait until she settles before you pet her.” Thus enlisting a dozen strangers a day to participate, actively, in our training. I did this when I could, with “regulars” and people who seemed receptive. In every case, I usually managed to restrain her with feet on the ground while the petter petted. Inevitable exceptions of course.

We have an average of 6, 20 minute training sessions per day. When we’re outside, unless she’s pooping, or looking for a poop site, we’re training. One or two long walks per day, in a more remote zone, she gets some free time. But when in my neighborhood, all training all the time.

Prong, check. When she gets into this unreachable state, she doesn’t dgaf about the prong. My hope at this point is that, if we continue being consistent with this–we are aggressively, almost unfailingly consistent with this–she will have her Helen Keller moment when I can break through to her attention, and she will improve as she gets older. There is progress, but it’s slow, so I was looking for some fresh ideas, if they’re out there.

12

On deep background:

I have trained a lot of dogs. Both my own and others. I have been involved with dogs my whole life. I have probably met a few thousand of them in my life. I have never, ever, met a dog with this kind of sustained, unreachable, unbreakable, hysteria of joy. I have mentioned it to other people with a lot of dog experience, and they give a lot of the same advice. And then they meet her, and they see that I’m not exaggerating. And they, too, have never met such a high energy dog. More and more, I’m getting experienced dog people say things like, “Yeah, I see what you mean. Have you thought of medication?”

Yes. I’ve thought of medication. For both of us.

All her knobs are set to 11. We’re getting better an dialing down a knob or two, for a moment or two, but I guess we’re just not there yet.

Seeing that almost all of the advice here mostly confirms and validates what we are, in fact, doing, my takeaway may be to maintain high levels of consistency and patience. Lots and lots of patience.

13

I’ll second RivkahChaya on all of this.

You should use a prong collar NOT a choke. Make sure the prongs are long enough and the fit is appropriate.

Make sure Marge is sitting before she says hello to anyone. If she doesn’t yet sit on command, this is a great time to work on that too. Once she is sitting and waiting to be greeted, stand on her leash so that she gets a correction if she lunges. Give her CALM praise and reward when she does it right.

If she starts to get too excited, collect her to your side and turn and walk the other direction. She doesn’t get to say hello if she gets too excited and won’t sit. You can turn around and return and try it again once you’re walking along calmly together. You may feel like a spinning top for a day or too while you work on this, but it will get better quickly.

Find a friend or two and have them help you practice this in a quiet park or parking lot, away from strangers if you can. Then move up to strangers once she’s more solid.

Keep the routine steady. Someone wants to say hello. “Yes just a minute”, you say. “She’s in training”, you say. (don’t know why this helps - but a trainer passed it along to me years ago, and it helps). “Sit Marge. Good girl.” Stand on leash. Instruct stranger. “She’s learning to sit calmly for hello, please extend your hand and then pet her head” (or whatever you’d like them to do). Greeting done, Marge gets a good girl and possibly a treat. Then off you go.

You’re establishing a few things here. A solid routine, so Marge knows what is expected. A calm order, because Marge gets excited and loses control. Marge doesn’t get to do the thing she wants if she is not doing the thing you want (being calm and well behaved).

One other point, because Marge is excitable, when she does the right thing, she gets praise and recognition, but don’t take it so far that she vaults over into uncontainable excitement. Model the behavior for her. A heartfelt “good girl” and a treat is good, but keep things calm.

14

The German shorthair can be a tough breed and so can the husky. If it were my dog she would go ass over tea kettle the first time she jerked that lease hard. I bet if you get a little tougher she will respond.

15

If I had video of every midair flip we’ve performed . . .

16

Agree with the above. Set up some practice situations. You need to intervene **before **she loses her mind. The good thing is, you know her triggers. I would say a halti may work before a prong, but YMMV.

Have “high value”'treats. I used teeny pieces of hot dogs. My puppy was very dog reactive. Not aggressive, excited. So, we would walk where we knew other dogs would be and, when I knew one was coming, I would get him to sit, and then watch me. Keep treating. If he looked away, then looked back at me, treat. If he got too excited, we would walk away. Then we’d try again. Basically, you are training Marge that remaining calm is the behaviour you want.

17

She sounds like she’s on the very high end of the energy spectrum. (Sorry, I have a headache and I’m blanking on the word I want.)

She may be very trainable, but it may require different methods.

Does she have any interest in a toy or tug?

Have you tried training her to do other things at home? Doesn’t matter what, just anything. I had a dog who sounds very similar to this who was 100lb Rottweiler. She loved everyone, had the energy of the Tazmanian Devil, and people were scared to death of her, given the breed and her size. We worked with her extensively to give her a library of things she could do to interact acceptably with people. She learned to do all kinds of tricks from hand signals and voice: little barks, (What does the little dog say), big barks, sit, down, stay, over, shake, retrieve, balance food on her nose, look away, etc. The point is that she was always working, which she needed, and she did calm down when she got older. Some. :slight_smile:

Try training Marge to do some other little things at home, to see if she’s interested. Extending her repertoire of available commands may help you out a lot.

Is there a dog park anywhere near to you? I think even more exercise is probably in order as well.

18

Sounds like you have a tough one. Shock collar??

19

My irish setters have had the same issue. They are exuberance personified along with being strong, hefty animals. I rescue, so have not had the luxury of raising my dogs from pups. By the time they get to me, they are generally fraught with bad habits and have trained their human rather than the other way around. Like you, I am a proponent of positive reinforcement training, particularly with setters who are sensitive animals and suffer under negative training situations.

You have gotten good advice already on collars and leashes. In my opinion, your next order of business is to work on a strong sit reaction. Start working with no people or other distractions around. When the sit has become reliable, introduce distractions slowly, one thing at a time. When a distracted sit is strong, introduce people. Enlist a friend who understands his/her role and won’t unintentionally reinforce the dog’s exuberance, only it’s compliance.

My present Irish, who I received at 17 months, was fairly good with people, but still insisted on jumping on anyone who came near him. It took a good 6 months before he was 100% reliable on not jumping, but we got there. He is 3 years old now, and we still train several times a week. He has started calming down a bit, but like your pup, mine will always be high energy and training reinforcement will always be a part of our relationship.

And, of course, lots of good exercise and play will help channel some of the excess energy into acceptable avenues.

20

Is it possible to exercise the dog to exhaustion?

When we are training a dog, my gf takes our “pack” out for a run every day. Sometimes she is on horseback, other times on foot, but every time they come back exhausted. A tired dog is a good dog.