Hi everyone,

Just a quickie!  If we've told Toby off for something and he runs upstairs, as he often does, if we try to reach for his collar to bring him downstairs he growls and often snaps at us.  I'm assuming he's doing this because he's frightened (which he's not need to be, we don't hit him - or no more than a tap anyway), but i'm worried that one day he might actually bite me.

When he does this I've just been speaking to him in deep tones, telling him no, and gently reaching for his collar.  Is there anything else I can do to help with this? 

When I say 'telling him off' I mean saying 'no' to him because he's grabbed a sock or whatever else he finds (my mobile phone usually!) and runs off upstairs with it.

Is there anything you can do to prevent this behaviour?

Yes, do not punish him. 

You say that you give your dog no more than a tap, the level of punishment is decided by the DOG not the owner, all dogs, like us, have differing pain and distress thresholds.

One of the consequences of physical punishment is teaching a dog to be hand shy, distrustful etc etc etc.  Show your dog that he never needs to fear your hand or voice and the problem will not occur.

Have you ever counted up the number of times you say "no" to your dog in a day?

What does it mean to the dog?

Why not ask the dog to DO something rather than give him a word that he has no way of understanding?

So what would you do with your dog if he grabbed your mobile phone from the side?  Obviously I know it's best to keep these things out of their reach and I do try, but it's not always possible :p

I've been wondering how to stop him chewing socks too, or is that again just a matter of keeping them out of reach? 

I'd say we say 'no' fairly often, cos he's always into something.  Sometimes we say leave, or try to distract him with his bones, toys etc, but if he grabs something as serious as the phone etc, you have to get it off him ASAP, so it's not always possible to be polite and nice to him!  Besides which it can become blo*dy annoying!!

Hi, well the first thing of course would be to manage my environment to minimise the risks to both the dog and your property, much like you would do with a baby/toddler.

At some point in the future you may well WANT your dog to pick up and bring things back to you by which time, if you continue your current approach, may be a little optimistic...

Why not try an approach that is successful both for you and the dog, and enjoyable too, offer him something better than what he has got, ie a treat; this way the dog will look at your hand as the source of "all good things" rather than possible trouble and you become more relaxed.

HTH

I see what you're saying, but if I offer him a treat when he's picked up a sock, aren't I just condoning/rewarding his behavour?  I understand that is the best way to do it to stop him from being frightened, and growling and snapping at my hand, so thanks for that, but do you see what I mean by rewarding him?

If at all possible I'd love him to stop picking things up and chewing them. I know that's a HUGE thing to ask, and may never be possible, but surely giving him a treat every time he does this won't help me achieve that - would it?

Thanks for your help with this.

No you will be rewarding him for his recall, as you will show him the treat/toy (whatever rocks his boat), you call him to you in a really excited happy voice.  He will more than likely drop what he has, if not you can get him to sit, and give you th item, for which he is rewarded, hey presto you ahve taught him a retrieve, sort of :D

No, you're not rewarding his 'stealing' behaviours Keeley, by offering a treat.

What does the dog have to do to take the treat?  He has to let go of the object.

So, what was the last thing he did, before eating the treat?  Dropping the object.

When you reward or punish you are always rewarding or punishing the last thing the dog did (for the purposes of this conversation).

So you are actually rewarding him DROPPING the object, which is what you want, isn't it?

My OH has just come back from a 5 day walking break and was emptying his bag of washing.  The dog was sooo excited as he was getting out his socks :D :D  She was terrible as a pup and generally leaves socks alone now but a couple of weeks ago OH put on a sock and his foot went straight through :D

LOL!  It's well annoying!  Thankfully he only goes for OH's socks, not very often mine!!

What can I say?  Must be the smell - smelly socks to dogs is same as Chanel No. 5 is to us :D

It used to be so frustrating I know.  Really the only thing to do is to make sure they can't get anything that you will really be upset about.  My dog used to go for my slippers all the time so in the end I gave them to her, but they were the only items of shoe wear she was allowed to have.  Everytime she went for another shoe I would tell her to get her own.  Not a problem now as she only likes carrying and sniffing them and not chewing them :D

>So what would you do with your dog if he grabbed your mobile phone from the side?  Obviously I know it's best to >keep these things out of their reach and I do try, but it's not always possible

To be honest, I keep EVERYTHING out of reach that I would not like any of the dogs to get hold of. It's a routine, like if I leave the front room the TV remotes go up on a shelf etc. No mobile ever sits close enough for any dog to get hold of. :) Same goes for socks -lovely smelly things, the dog isn't to know they're not allowed if they can be gotten hold of easily.  I am currenty training my Malinois pup to retrieve (NOT something that tends to come naturally to many of these dogs) and so I praise him for absolutely anything that he picks up.  It's had its drawbacks -he learned how to open the tumble dryer and got the clothes out, carried them off, chewed them etc. I couldn't tell him off as it was all my own fault. Even my husband said I only had myself to blame. Solution: new tumble dryer with dog proof door. :)

It's the same thing as having little kids -you don't leave anything laying about that you don't want them to get hold of.

And if and when your dog DOES grab something, by running after him you're making things worse, you need to try to turn it around so that he gets rewarded for bringing things TO you rather than being told off for going away with them. Teach him that bringing things to you always has a positive result.  Then if he does get hold of the mobile it should be natural to him to bring it to you at once. Dogs can be taught to retrieve even raw eggs without breaking them. :)

I do try sometimes to get him to fetch it, I'll say 'ooh, what you got' etc etc in a high pitched friendly, exciting voice, but he seems to know the difference between what he should have and what he shouldn't have!  If he's got something he shouldn't, he'll immediately go and lie underneath the sofa (is usually reclined back so he can get right underneath it and I can't get up cos it would mean squashing him!!!), otherwise he'll walk round in circles with his tail wagging, but most definitely won't bring it back to me!  He will, however, bring his ball back to be thrown once again for him :rolleyes: :D

No, the best thing to do would be to keep a jar of treats in the rooms which he nicks things.  If he takes something, ignore him and show no interest in the object.  Go to your jar of sweets and open them - touch them, make 'eating' noises even (!!) - this would be enough for most dogs to come to you, to see what the hell you've got.  If he comes, wave the treat under his nose.  He will drop the object to eat your treat.  When he drops the object, throw the treat AWAY from the dropped object, so that he runs to the treat and doesn't see you picking the object up.  Do this consistently and you'll have a dog that will bring you anything.

I would agree with you keeley ;)  I think that by offering a treat you are rewarding him for bad behaviour - just bribing him really instead of gaining control.  If you can try to teach Toby the fetch command (start of with ball then use things like cloths or toilet roll tubes etc - something you won't mind being chewed if he decides to do so) and also the drop it command - if you teach him this and reward with a real good rub over and excited voice I personally have found this to be the most effective way of training - my dogs very rarely get treat for doing things, if I have a treat they must earn it first but this is rarely. 

Bali used to chew everything so we did have to put all things out of the way and pop him in the crate etc but now that he is 18 mths he seems to have out grown it.  Yesterday however when I got home during his excitement he founds my bounded socks by the sofa that I left there the night before, he was so pleased with him self pacing around the kitchen showing me what he had, he did however 'leave' them when I asked him to in a nice voice, he then got loads of fuss.

I do agree that if you chase him it will make the situation worse, more like a game to him but in some instances it is not possible....whilst you are trying to train him the fetch command etc keep all expensive things out of reach, you will eventually be able to leave things about but it wont happen right away.

My old GSD used to love taking your car keys from you when you got in, we had been given an exercise to get our dogs to hold keys as they don't normally like metal in their mouth, she soon caught on and 'had' to take your keys to show off when she saw you........god I miss that dog :(

When he brings his ball back make sure you re enforce the command, try getting him to pick up random things - if you create a game he wont feel the need to ;)

My dog went crazy over socks when a youngster, and I used to do "swopsies" for a treat and also encourage LOTS of retrieving with no punishment for picking up anything. I need her to be happy to pick stuff up because of trials so telling off wasn't an option.

She's a very high maintenance girl anyway (breed thing LOL) but I now have a dog who will bring me anything including an old bone she found once that was very dodgy and could have  meant an operation if she'd eaten it. Instead, she brought it to me to show me when i asked her to "bring" and then she got huge rewards and a game :)

Yesterday she brought me a choccie wrapper (Terry's choccie orange) :D

You can try saying "ah!" and then redirecting the dog onto something else, always remember to praise goodchoices and provide chews and stuffed kongs and toys :) so he gets to knowhis own things.

Lindsay
x

Thanks guys, will continue with the 'praising' when he fetches something to me, hopefully he'll catch on pretty quickly.  Just one quick last question, if he has a sock and we've not noticed and he's chewing it, what do we do then?  Do I just take it off him with no comments at all, or do I again ask him to fetch it to me?  It's unlikely that he'd fetch it back to me cos he enjoys chewing them so god damn much!

I learned from my mistakles and when my sedond eldes finds dead things i praise ehr up and recall ehr and swp dead, bird/rat/ whatever for a treat, works like acharm, though I then have to find somewhere to dispose of the corpse. :D

Sometimes you do need to start with a bit of bribery, enfielrotts.  Like waving the treat under the dog's nose.  When the dog has got the idea about what the game is, then don't produce the treat until the dog has dropped the object.  Then you are _rewarding_, not _bribing_.

Bribing is when you show the dog the treat BEFORE it has done the behaviour, as if to say "look at what you will get if you obey me".

Rewarding is when you wait for the behaviour first, and then produce the treat.

But sometimes you do need to start with a bit of bribery (waving treat under nose), especially with possessive dogs, until they get the idea of what the 'game' is.

Keeley, try giving your dog things and trying to get them off him using this method.  Things he doesn't usually have.

And no, by offering a treat you are not rewarding him for bad behaviour - see my post above.

Hi,

Sounds just like my old girl Jessie! Tohme comes up with some excellent advice with regards to how to treat your dog.  And I think if you follow those you will see a change in your dogs behaviour.

I have always been naughty and allowed my dogs to sit on the sofa, but when I want to sit the dogs have to move somewhere else.  Well Jessie will always push her luck she will growl like mad at my husband and if he goes to touch her she will become quite threatening, including baring her teeth. The trick is as I keep telling me husband show no fear whatsoever assert yourself as the head dog, and make sure you give a command. "No!" as said by others means nothing. However "move over" in a I'm not messing about voice, makes Jessie move over for me without so much as a single squeak. I believe you should never need to even give a dog a small smack, if you treat your dog with love and respect, when you raise your voice or give a command, they will do as you ask, because they want more than anything to please you.

Also learn to move your things where your dog can't reach them they will always be like a toddler a phone is a chew toy, a cushion or sock a play thing. Some dogs quite enjoy eating socks too, so watch out for that! You just have to learn avoidance.

Thanks everyone for the fab advice, will be following it as best I can and hopefully will see an improvement.  Can see everyones point of view with regards to giving treats, he will of course think that I'm treating him for 'dropping' the item, I never looked at it that way before :rolleyes:

Thanks again.