I suppose I’m a lucky one. I had a wonderful golden retriever-chow mix named Mandy. I never trained her. Never had to. She seemed to instinctively know how to behave. She was the most laid-back dog in the world. When guests came to the house, she didn’t go to the door. She would lay on the floor a distance away and wait until the guests came in and got settled. Then she would wait until she was invited over and gently introduce herself. This would be accomplished by standing or sitting patiently in front of the person and waiting for a pat on the head. If the person didn’t want to pet her, it was enough if they merely said, “Hi, Doggie,” and acknowledged her presence. Once she received her pat, she would go back to wherever she was laying, or off into another room to lie down somewhere else. She was the greatest dog I had ever owned. God, I miss her.
I realize this isn’t true out of even one dog in a million, and I realize what an exceptional dog she was. I’ve never had another dog like her.
Of course I’m not interested in training for training’s sake. I’m interested in keeping rude dogs from clawing my legs. My method has been proven to work better for me than the individual rude dog’s owner’s methods. If there are any.
And because I adore them, I train mine. Why? Because I don’t want them to repel people. I want to have them around, so I want to be sure that they are not offending others.
Dogs shouldn’t jump on ANYONE, much less a child. And that goes for all sizes of dog.
Furthermore, people who observe their dog terrorizing a child, even if the child has no reason to be terrorized, in that the dog is genuinely harmless and loving and is just trying to play, are assholes.
Or they stand in Christ-on-the-cross pose with arms up, which also encourages the dog to jump up. :smack: Thank you for undermining the training. And then bitching at me because my dog did what you asked it to do and jumped up to you.
I also don’t have a lot of guests, so when my Boston was younger, it was really hard to train her not to jump on people. After I worked with her, she didn’t do it to me, but she didn’t have the chance really to generalize that to all two-legged dogs who come roaming around her pack. Now, she’s only 20 pounds but she has very sharp claws that will shred pantyhose in about 1.5 seconds.
While she was young, I just got in the habit of crating her until the guests had settled in a bit, and then I let her out, only with my guests’ permission. She would calmly greet everyone and then lay down somewhere in the middle of the pack, checking everything out. Anyone wants to play with her, she’s all for it, but if she starts getting out of control —> right back to her crate. She learned her limits.
Now she’s almost 15 and can’t even really hear or see when someone comes to the door. I had the baby gate up and the front door open for the trick or treaters. She stayed on the couch and half the time didn’t even get up to see who was on her porch. When she did, I was appalled at how many little kids marched right up to that gate and stuck their hands in her face. She was so good that night, all four feet never left the floor even with a pack of kids reaching in trying to pet her. She never even barked once! She loves sticky little kid hands, so she just licked 'em and off they went, but after a while I start to worry some kid might make her feel threatened and she might get aggressive, so I closed the door. She sleeps through most guest visits now.
I think she’s too old to jump so much anymore; her little springs are unsprung.
This is what confuses me. When people come to my house for the first time, I always tell them I have dogs and ask if that will be a problem. The last thing I want is someone who is allergic to or terrified of dogs trying to struggle through an evening at my house. I’m assuming the OP’s host didn’t bother to tell her they had a dog, so the conversation may have never came up.
I do train my dogs and they know not to jump on people. That said, I can’t guarantee they’ll never jump. They’re dogs. It’s not like I insert training codes A, B, and C with the result the dogs never jump. (And it doesn’t help that I have friends who encourage them to jump by slapping their thighs and inviting a jump.) However, the first time one of my dogs jumps on someone, the dog is removed from the room until he/she calms down. No way would I let my dog continue to terrify anyone: child or adult.
It really wouldn’t bother me if someone used a knee on my dog (though I never did in training them), but I doubt I’ll ever be in a situation to see that happen. For one thing, the dogs rarely jump on people (it’s happened only a couple of times). Secondly, the dogs are removed once they jump that first time. That works pretty well at teaching the dogs jumping=being taken away from fun guests.
I suppose Duh is about right for anyone that wants all writing to be spoon fed to them, but I don’t see how it is fighting ignorance to insist that common abbreviations not be used just because a few don’t know what they mean. And apparently cannot figure out how to ask. I just don’t see any need to type out German Shepherd Dog when GSD should do.
Incidentally, it’s really not necessary to knee a dog in the chest. it’s remarkably effective with 95% of dogs to simply turn your back on them. Very few dogs are much interested in jumping on your back. Which is why this is a good way to train dogs not to do this. Turn your back on them consistently when they jump and they’ll soon realize there is no payoff in it, and it actually removes what they want most, which is your attention. You aren’t even letting them see your face anymore, and they don’t care for that at all.
Of course, to be most effective you need to balance it with the reward of your attention when they sit quietly in front of you and wait for you to pay attention, or otherwise behave the way you would like…then you reward them with some attention.
Kids, dogs… all the same. Good behavior is rewarded, bad behavior leads to the loss of what you are trying to get with the bad behavior.
When someone’s loathsome child annoys me, I punch them in the face as hard as I can. It’s even more fun when the child is only 3 or 4 years old.
It’s best to do in someone else’s house. I like to pick random houses and knock on the door. When they answer, if their child is with them and I find it annoying, I kick the child as hard I can. Then I tell them they should have locked their child up when they heard the doorbell ring in case the person at the door didn’t like children.
Incidentally, the above is my charming way of saying that if you knock on my door, I am not going to lock my dog up. It’s his home.
If I’ve invited you AND I know you have a major issue with dogs (well, I doubt I’d have been so stupid as to invite you in that case, unless you’re a very close friend or family) I’ll arrange something for you. If you’re univited, that’s pretty much too bad. And if you’re uninvited and attack my dog, you’re dead meat. I like him more than I like you.
I don’t think you can make the comparison because dogs aren’t kids–kneeing a dog lightly in the chest isn’t the same as doing it to a kid. We’re a lot more careful with children than we are with dogs, and with good reason–something that hurts a child probably isn’t a big deal to most normal sized dogs.
Besides, no one here was even advocating kicking or punching dogs so not sure where that came from.
My acquaintances who are dog owners do what we do when company arrives. The dog(s) are placed in their area (crates in my situation) until things calm down and they can come out and meet/greet. My dogs are well trained and are not introduced to people who do not want to interact.
If your friends behave otherwise, maybe you just have assholes for friends. Because the behaviors you describe are things assholes would do; not dog owners but rather assholes who have dogs.
Exactly. I don’t understand the thinking that it is the “dogs house” and somehow they take priority over human visitors. I don’t ask if people like dogs before I invite them over. I ask after if they mind if I let them out once they are here. It is simply good manners.
If your dog is attacking me I’m no longer worried about whether or not the DOG gets hurt. I will do what it takes to get it the hell off me; and if the dog owner won’t help, well then, they’re leaving it entirely in my hands.
I was once attacked by a total stranger’s dog while out for a run. I was just running by, leaving them alone, when her very large spaniel mix jumped up on me. On its hind legs it was taller than I was, at least 6 feet tall. For the first second or so, I was just annoyed, as I was leaving them alone and wanted them to leave me alone, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to be accosted by a very large dog. So I gave the dog a shove, expecting some sort of assist from the lady on the other end of the leash. But she just sat there looking vaguely dismayed, and by this point the dog had its jaws around my wrist. A couple more, harder shoves didn’t help, and the lady was still standing limply at the other end of the leash doing absolutely nothing to help. Since I kind of like having my arm in one piece, I grabbed that dog’s ear with my free hand and twisted it as hard as I could. That finally got the dog off me.
Unsurprisingly, the lady ran while I was checking my wrist to see if the teeth had broken the skin, so in less than five seconds she and the dog had completely disappeared. I have no regrets about hurting the dog; I’m not about to sacrifice my welfare because some idiot won’t bother to control or train their dog. I fought back when I got mugged, too, and didn’t care if I hurt the mugger. The dog, btw, was not being “aggressive”; it was just over-exuberant and very badly trained. Note however that the dog’s attitude made no difference in my willingness to have my wrist bitten.
