I don’t have any children right now. I plan to in the some-what near future… The next couple of years anyway.
My problem is my dog. My husband and I love the dog. She’s an inside pet, and she loves us dearly too!
Anyway, the problem is that she is so jealous of us that when our friends who already have children come over she won’t peacefully let me hold or play with the children.
If I hold the baby, she is constantly at my feet trying to sniff the baby. It’s like she can’t stand me giving someone more attention than I give her.
If I’m playing with a toddler, she’s constantly trying to sniff the child, or get in between me and the child.
She’s never bit a child, but the way she acts just makes me nervous. (She has bit one friend of my husband. I think he was teasing her, though. I caught him pinching her once, so I’m sure she snapped at him in self-defense).
So how do I break her of being like that? Obviously I’m going to give my future kids more attention than I give her.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Or similar experiences??
Is she obedience trained? If so, put her in a long “down-stay” when you have friends over and don’t let her get up. It seems your problem is either a lack of training or that she misunderstands her position within the family. I highly recommend the book Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson. I think it’s the best dog training book out there and will help you to understand why your dog behaves in the manner she does.
She’s not obedience trained. I could get her to lay down, but it would only last 30 seconds and she’d be up sniffing again.
I live in the country, and she just walked up to our house and we kept her as a pet (after trying to locate her owner). When we got her, she was about 9 months old. She already knew how to sit and play fetch.
BUT, that’s as far as her “training” has gone. She’s about a year and nine months old now. Is it too late to change her habits?
I don’t think it’s necessarily too late. My wife acquired jeevpup before we met when he was about two. Before she adopted him, he had lived on the street. It will be two years in February since she adopted him, and in that time, he has had to adjust his habits to:
living on the street to living in a home;
living with one human to living with one human who had a regular visitor (when we were dating);
living with one human who had a regular visitor to living with two humans (when we moved in together and were staying at her place); and
changing homes (when we moved into our new home).
In the process, he has learned new habits and dropped old ones. For instance, he used to want to chase joggers because they weren’t something he frequently saw at my wife’s old place. (People who ran in her neighborhood were generally running from something rather than for exercise - it was not a nice neighborhood.) It took time, but eventually he broke that habit, and now joggers don’t bother him.
So, it’s not impossible to teach an old dog new tricks, but it does take some time.
You can teach any dog if you use the methods outlined in that book I recommended. It’s all about operant conditioning and classical conditioning. All of my dogs are rescues and I acquired them at different ages and with differing backgrounds. Maverick was comletely unsocialized his entire first year of life and had virtually no human contact–at least not positive. It took me a year to get him to be willing to come inside my house. He will now sit, down, stay, and is learning to come when called.
Two of my other dogs are now certified Therapy dogs. Using operant conditioning, your dog can be trained. I really do recommend that book, or at least a class with a trainer who uses positive reinforcement.