My pup who is 9 months wants to sit on the sofa all the time we only allow him on our lap but the minute our backs are turned he jumps up and lies down as if we don't notice him.  If he hears you coming down stairs you hear him jumping down so he does know I crate him or leave him in the kitchen when i go out but would like to leave him wandering around downstairs (don't let him upstairs either too many small toys for chewing) if there is a way of keeping him off the sofa as its a new leather one and he likes to claw it when hes up there.

I did read in one of John Fishers books (Dogwise, great book by a great man) that laying tin foil on the seats will stop them, but I must warn you that we did try it with our Akita pup, who is a fair bit younger at 4 months, and she just used to bite it and drag it off, perhaps tucking it in more would work.

We have a small settee in the kitchen she keeps trying to jump on and we've put another object on there (in this case a folded garden chair) which does of course stop her but I'm not sure it would discourage the general behaviour and is a bit of a pain to have to do.

Good Luck

CJG

Hi Guest

If you mean you only allow him on your lap when you are sitting on the sofa then it is not surprising he gets on at other times - you are confusing him.

Either NEVER let him on the sofa and if you want to cuddle him and sit on the floor or let him on - he just won't understand the varying rules.

You may need to be firmer with him and when you say OFF, really mean it.  Either shut the door to your sitting room when you are not there or place something over the furniture so he can't get on.

I have two bitches who occasionally sit on my lap but only when I am at training classes, sitting on hard (dining room) chairs or when they get fed up with me being on the computer.

None of my five have ever been allowed to sit on the suite and they don't attempt to get on whether we are there or not.  My first bitch we allowed to have two legs up, either her rear legs with front feet on floor or front legs across my lap - she would climb on at every opportunity, as like you we were giving her conflicting signals.  Once we changed the rules to "never" she stopped climbing up.

HTH

Christine

Kerioak is right, if you don't want your dog on the furniture he must never be allowed on it - you have to be consistent. As he's already doing it, you'll have to be persistent at well!! I would never leave an unsupervised puppy with a leather suite either, can't you shut him out of the room when you're not there?