First off - my Ripley is HUGE, well beyond the “breed standard” and he is only 7 months. I am having two issues with him and would love any and all advice -
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[li]Jumping, he still jumps up when people first get here. He has already terrified my nephew and I think a few people at the dog park (huge black dog flying at you even to be friendly isn’t cool)[/li][li]Eating socks. My God, he has thrown up five of them so far, not counting the baby sized one he pooped out. Will he outgrow this? Is there some way to get him to leave them alone?[/li][/list=1]
How experienced are you in training dogs? Don’t take that as an insult. . .I’m kind of a novice trainer, myself. My dog still jumps on people, and will try to steal socks, underwear, slippers, etc. My advice on the sock eating is first of all do whatever you need to do to keep socks away from your dog–it can be extermely dangerous as they can get “stuck” and require surgical removal. We’re making appointments now to get into some professional training classes, because even though I know some basic techniques, I guess I’m not doing it right That’s where the experience comes in.
I know the basic training technique for jumping is have your dog on a leash and have the new person come in. If your dog tries to jump, prevent him from doing so (or at least put him back on the ground) with the leash, and praise him highly for having all four paws on the ground. As soon as he starts jumping, ignore him. Praise him only when he’s on the ground. Again, that’s the basic idea, but it often proves difficult in practice. I’m seeking professional help for it.
As for the sock eating, again put the dog on a leash. Walk with him toward a sock, and when he lunges for it restrain him with the leash and correct him with a stern “NO!” Praise him for leaving it alone. Each time he lunges for it, do the same thing. Again, basic idea, sometimes difficult for stubborn or high-energy dogs.
My 6 month old Weimaraner, while incredibly smart, has a few behavior problems that seem hard to fix. I’ve trained him to go to certain places on command, sit, down, rollover, etc. Stay has proved difficult, as has not jumping or stealing “personal” items. I’m probably not a great trainer. . .so we’re going to lessons in a couple of weeks. They’re 1.5 hours a week (with lots of homework, I’m sure) for 10 weeks. They’re not that expensive, and the result (hearing from other people who have used this trainer) is supposed to be fantastic, even for “difficult” dogs.
I’ll let others throw out specific remedies, but just remember that for a punishment to be effective it must happen as the transgressions occurs. Once the dog has moved on, it will not associate the punishment with the crime.
You can teach your dog a “leave it” command, but that only helps if you see him with the sock - not if he sneaks them (like my dog). I taught my dog to leave it using treats - if I saw her with something I didn’t want her to have, I showed her a treat and said “leave it”. She would drop the item to get the treat and be praised. You have to give a treat immediately for a while until they learn that dropping something in their mouths for you is a good thing.
We also practiced how to leave it before it was in her mouth by walking her on a leash, and if she went for something (a wrapper or piece of trash) give a little tug on the leash and told her leave it. If she leaves it alone she gets praise and a treat. Basically you want him to learn that leave it means drop what you are doing and get a treat. It is a good command for lots of things, if you ever drop something dangerous you can stop him from eating it.
If he sneaks the socks, I would try getting some bitter apple (at any pet store) and dousing a few socks with it, then leave them in places you think he is getting them from. He won’t like the taste (usually - there are some dogs that don’t mind it) and spit it out. After a few times he might learn to leave them alone. I successfully got my dog to leave my plants alone this way.
Jumping up is hard - my dog still is working on this one. I got her to stop jumping on me by making her sit as soon as I came home, she would not be greeted or petted until she sat nicely. Now she sits for me, but not strangers. It sometimes helps if you can get visitors to help train, I got some people to hold her paws up when she jumps on them, hold them gently but firmly up just enough so he is stretched out, and hold them until he shows he doesn’t like it - he might be pleased at first, then start to struggle. My dog does not like having her paws help up like that and avoids jumping on people who do that to her.
You can also teach him to sit and stay, and wait for people to approach him. Make sure he gets extra attention and praise when he does not jump up.
Good luck with your puppy - they do calm down a lot after the first year, too.
I have your dogs evil twin Poys, minus the sock eating. He’s also a moose of a black lab and overly friendly.
I usually stand near him when people come over and give him two or three warnings. If he keeps jumping on them I’ll put him in his cage. He usually calms down within fifteen minutes and I let him out. After that he’s usually fine.
The trouble I have is people that say “no…he’s ok let him go” then proceed to encourage him to jump on them.
Step one with socks would be to keep ALL socks out of his reach. We have to keep them out of the reach of one of our dogs. We also have to keep Kleenex out of his way, because he LOVES to rip up a box of Kleenex. Then the other dog eats them! DOGS!
Rooves, I’d tell people to NOT encourage him to jump on them. Explain that you’re working on him NOT doing that, and even if THEY don’t mind, YOU do! It’s a house rule, not an individual visitor rule. If it’s not consistent, the dog’s just not going to learn.
As for how to do that, we really need to work with our golden/lab mix on that. He’s a great dog, but he jumps when he first meets you. After he calms down, he’s a big baby.
I will also add, if your dog just loves people and has to be acknowledged and that is why he jumps, it can be very effective to ignore him when he jumps up (I know - not easy to do when a huge lab is jumping on you!) Don’t look at him, turn your back and do not engage. He will get frustrated, but wait. If / when he finally does give up and sit down, immediately greet and pet him, give him lots of praise, etc. My dog hates being ignored so this is quite effective for her, hopefully he will learn that the best way to get attention is to sit and wait to be greeted. If he is getting attention (good or bad) from jumping he might keep doing it just to engage you.
I was going to mention clicker training too! My experience with it is that it is very effective at “training the trainer” that is, guiding a normal person to be as observant and consistent as they need to be for the animal to learn.
That’s where the experience comes in.