Excitable dog behaviour – jumping up, mouthing & nipping!

Mrs Kirk   Name: Douglas   Breed: Briard    Age: 9 Months

Behaviour Problem – Jumping-up, Mouthing, nipping – Excitable behaviour

Mrs Kirk rang me at her wits’ end. Her 9 month old Briard was driving her and her family mad with its jumping up, mouthing and nipping – very excitable behaviour.

Mrs Kirk liked her gardening but it had been made a nightmare since getting Douglas. He was constantly bouncing around her and if she did not pay attention to him he would run in and nip her.

She was beginning to dread going out because returning to the house created a situation where Douglas would go mad, jumping all over her and almost knocking her flying on a couple of occasion.  She had tried everything to stop him, but nothing had worked.

When the behaviour started at around 4-5 months they were told that “it’s just puppy behaviour” and it would stop as the dog got older.

History

Douglas had been taken to puppy classes but his interaction with the other puppies was very boisterous and he would overpower them and knock them over. Mrs Kirk was told that it was fine, it was just puppy play and he would calm down as he got older.

Further training had not been carried out because of Douglas’s boisterous nature and Mrs Kirk being worried that he might injure or be attacked by another dog because of his style of interaction.

Thoughts

Puppy classes are a perfect way of teaching puppies social skills and how to interact with people and other dogs, but for some puppies it is a very exciting environment and if this excitement is not controlled during the puppy class, puppies can learn that this type of interaction is acceptable.

It became evident during my consultation that the style of correction attempted on Douglas during his excitable jumping up in the home and the nipping in the garden was actually reinforcing the behaviour. Trying to reason with the dog, interacting with the dog in any way during the jumping up, will reinforce the behaviour. Shouting at the dog during these episodes just raises the stress level for everyone and the dog can see it as attention, which is what he wants.

Any interaction when a dog is jumping up or being excitable, will not only reward the jumping up behaviour,  but it also rewards the excitable behaviour that is actually causing the jumping up. Both get stronger.

In an effort to stop Douglas from nipping her in the garden Mrs Kirk would throw the ball for him, but it was always Douglas that initiated the ball throwing behaviour by nipping her first. Only then did she try to distract him by throwing the ball, thus rewarding the nipping.

Advice

Having explained to the Kirk family why their efforts to control Douglas had failed, we started to put into place control exercises: ways to correct the jumping up behaviour towards them and visitors when entering the house.

To start to correct his jumping up we needed to teach Douglas different behaviour: to sit for food.

The exercise simply involved having a member of the family walk towards Douglas whilst on a lead. If he jumped up, the behaviour would be marked with a no reward, saying “Ah Ah” and then walking away from him without giving the treat. If he got it right (did not jump up) he was given a treat. This was to be repeated over and over until Douglas did not jump up at all even when encouraged.

Dogs do not waste time with behaviours that do not work for them!

This process was then repeated by going in and out of the front door and now involved friends as well as family. This increased the excitement level for Douglas, but the rules were the same, jump up – no treat, sit – treat.

Then we needed to make it more realistic by actually applying the technique when returning from shopping. On the first occasion, Douglas did get excited about their return but this time when the Kirk family stood as I had told them too, Douglas very quickly stopped his jumping up and went into a sit position, which was “Jackpot” rewarded and then he was ignored for about 5 minutes. Over the next few homecomings it was reported that Douglas was getting much quicker at going into the sit and the jumping up was getting less intense, if it happened at all.

Visitors to the house were to be told not to interact with Douglas should he jump up, if this was not possible Douglas was placed on a slip lead until visitors were in and settled and Douglas had calmed down, before he was allowed to interact with them.

To help calm him down in the garden I had Mrs Kirk and the family  train Douglas to lie down and stay when told.

When Mrs Kirk was in the garden she was to have a pocket full of treats. She was advised to put Douglas in the “down” position and after a few seconds of gardening she was to reward the dog by giving him a treat whilst still in the “down”. Over time Douglas was expected to stay in the down for longer before he was given his treat. This was eventually to be replaced by a Kong toy filled with food which would keep Douglas occupied for longer and break the nipping behaviour pattern.

The last report I had from the Kirk family was very encouraging, Douglas was much less excitable and would wait calmly for his treat when they came home. In the garden he would stay in the down whilst Mrs Kirk did the gardening without food for about 5 minutes, and when he was given his Kong he would take himself off and chew it.

The owners reported that they are now starting to enjoy having Douglas around again and to be able to have a more relaxed life.