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Author Topic: Pets: Dog behavior help!  (Read 3071 times)

Sage

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Dog behavior help!
« on: April 02, 2014, 10:30:04 am »
Hey friends,

Abby, my year-and-a-half lab-mix adoptee, has a knack for getting into trouble. My mom treats Abby like our last dog, Sandy, who was overweight and spoiled rotten (and incredibly unhealthy). When Abby misbehaves, Mom yells at her and then gives her food, whether or not Abby is actually begging for food. And when Abby is begging, even for human food, Mom gives it to her despite my pleas not to. (Abby is a few pounds overweight and regularly has diarrhea issues because half her diet is paper products and people food!)

Anyway, I'm trying to be a good mom for Abby but I'm having my attempts thwarted when I'm not the one home alone with her. The biggest problem right now is getting Abby to drop things she shouldn't have. She'll hop up on the table and grab a stack of napkins and my choices are 1) chase after her to get the napkins back and reward bad behavior with playtime or 2) ignore her and let her eat a stack of napkins and get sick later.

Abby miraculously remembers "sit" "drop" and "stay" when there's food or a toy involved. Sadly when she gets a napkin or anything she knows she's not supposed to have, those commands go right out the window.

So, er, any advice?
« Last Edit: May 07, 2019, 10:22:15 am by RandallS »
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What you have created, no one can tear asunder.

-Canticle of Trials 1:10

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Finn

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Re: Dog behavior help!
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2014, 12:50:15 pm »
Quote from: Sage;144250

Abby miraculously remembers "sit" "drop" and "stay" when there's food or a toy involved. Sadly when she gets a napkin or anything she knows she's not supposed to have, those commands go right out the window.

So, er, any advice?

 
Ugh: nothing less helpful than other people undermining your training efforts. :(

As for the napkin thing, you might try, first, storing your napkins somewhere she can't get to them.

Once she does have something in her mouth, you might try offering her a treat to "replace" what she's got while taking what she has gently out of her mouth. It's basically bribing them with one thing to distract them from the other, saying "drop" while you do it. When she does let go of the object, she 1) gets a treat, and a 2) "good drop" or something like that. It's important that they don't start getting ideas that doing the "bad thing" = getting a treat/attention, so let her mouth the treat but don't give it to her until you have whatever you need to get out of her mouth and have said, "good drop".

I do this a lot with a dog who also likes to shred paper things, and with a dog who will pick up small chunks of sticks sometimes. It doesn't always work, but often for food-motivated dogs, the offer of a treat is way more interesting than having something you shouldn't.
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Re: Dog behavior help!
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2014, 01:08:12 pm »
Quote from: Finn;144257
It doesn't always work, but often for food-motivated dogs, the offer of a treat is way more interesting than having something you shouldn't.

 
The offer of a treat is what you need to be giving, but NOT the treat itself. You need to be redirecting the dog, not reinforcing the behavior. Dogs are scent oriented, so if you engage the nose with the smell of a desired food item it will become less interested in whatever naughtiness it's engaged in. If the dog makes another attempt to grab the paper, you administer a swift, assertive correction and/or a redirection. No treats, petting, or vocal reassurance.
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.  — Shirley Chisholm
No doubt the truth can be unpleasant, but I am not sure that unpleasantness is the same as the truth.  — Roger Ebert
It is difficult to get a person to understand something when their livelihood depends upon them not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair (adapted)
People cannot be reasoned out of an opinion that they have not reasoned themselves into. — Fisher Ames (adapted)

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