Zoey's excitement and looking for behaviorist in GTA

R

Raya

Forums Enthusiast
Hi guys,
Haven't posted in a while, but I need advise. Particularly from Shelties owners in the GTA region.

My boyfriend and I are looking for a trainer/behaviorist for Zoey and we need some recommendations. I know about the advertising policies so if you know anyone that could help for issues stated in this post, send me a private message.

Overall, Zoey's not too bad, but we need help from someone that could (if possible) visit us in our home environment to help us with Zoey.

The most problematic behavioral problem we have with Zoey is when we have people over. It's just out of control. She is SO excited, she'll jump and jump and harass the visitors. She will cling on their clothes and lick their hands. And it never ends. She seems like an endless source of excitement.

I've visited people with dogs and I've seen dogs being excited with visitors, but for Zoey, it's over the top. She is SO happy someone comes over that she can't help herself. She won't stop. Food won't stop her. Disciplining won't stop her. I can get her to sit maybe 10 seconds. If I turn my head away to address the guest, she will (and I'm not kidding), storm at the guest and hop she jumps again. The only way we can have people over is to either crate Zoey, or put a fence in a section of the house where guests won't go. When she's crated or fenced, she will be extremely calm, no barking, no excitement, nothing. People often ask: "why do you gate your dog, it looks so peaceful!"... and the second they put their hand on the gate, she goes in 1000% excitement, jumping and licking and whatnot, and it always surprises our guests.

It's so overwhelming. We would love to "practice" desensitizing Zoey to guests, but asking our friends to be guinea pigs and dealing with a hyper dog seems to be unfair. That's why we need help.

Also, we have a small problem with seperation anxiety (or barrier frustration?). Zoey dislikes that we go certain places and close the doors behind us. Bathroom door, she's fine with it. Door to go outside: bad. Bedroom door: midly discontent. Sometimes she'll bark, sometimes she'll be ok.

And finally, I need help for issues with my neighbours 3 dogs. Zoey is very protective over her piece of land, and whenever the neighbour dogs are outside, she will run to the fence and bark at the dogs. Problem is, she barks, they barks, and it never ends. She gets so excited by the neighbour dogs that I can't grab her. I run pretty quick and I can't catch her. She's so fixated that food doesn't attract her, she won't respond to any command at all... but if it's her and me in the backyard, she will be 100% focused on me.

Anyways, if you know somebody that can help, GTA region, whisper me.

I'm not against some advise here either, but I'm at the point where the positive reinforcement solutions aren't cutting it at all.
 
Raya,
I really do not think you could find a trainer that will help you with those issues... there are no shortcuts there
you are absolutely right, you have to find guinea pigs and throw party after party just for that reason...:yes: put Zoey on a leash, step on the leash so she can not jump and instruct your friends what you want to do, ask her to sit, down, etc whatever behavior you want to work on, or just stay calm by your side. It is trainable behavior just like anything else. Go to the busy mall , do the same and ask people walking by do the same, tell them you are training your dog, go to your work if allowed, your health club, your beauty shop etc
My dogs have to supervise me in the bathroom too but they mostly want to keep their herd in check... throw some kibble on the floor right before you leave, come back in few minutes, reward for calm behavior, ignore what you do not like, repeat ad nauseatum... include all family members do the same, again it does not sound like a bad anxiety, just a desire to keep herd in check:lol:
neighbor dogs- can you introduce them? Are they friendly? What your neighbor does when dogs run and bark? Can you divide timeframe when their dogs out or yours? Sometimes pups need to spend their energy and run fence, sometimes they do not see each other clearly and get frustrated...
Biggest advice- do not concentrate on what you do not want your dog to do, concentrate on behavior you WANT your dog to perform and train, train, train for it.
And no, my dogs are not perfectly trained either:lol: Che jumps on people he knows and makes himself general nuisance when lots of people are present in our house for first few minutes, thus he gets on the leash and stays next to me until excitement is over, after first few minutes of greet and meet he is fine... Che is baby of 16 months and I expect it will pass as we all get older:eek2:
 
Zoey is 14 months as well. I know there's still some puppy excitement in there, but her excitement is under control when we're outside the house. At the park, she is midly excited and will meet people, then will leave them alone. The "leave alone" never happens inside the house, which is our problem.

I've tried the leash and keep her on my side with guests. It won't work for me. After 10 minutes, I'm more tired than she is; both my arms hurts because she keeps pulling on the leash, and I'm mentally exhausted because I have to keep the guest entertained and the dog to not jump on people. If the guest is at the door, it's fine, she understand the invisible barrier, but as soon as the person comes insides, it's over, she'll run past me without a second of hesitation.

The neighbour's dogs... well I don't know if they're friendly or not. I have no desire to meet my neighbours and they do not have any desire to meet me either. When his dogs barks, he's nowhere to be found. Sometimes I'll hear a loud "SHUT UP" from outside the window... basically he leaves his dogs unsupervised outside for hours... I always go outside with Zoey to surpervise her, because I never know when his dogs will be outside. Most of the time I will go with Zoey leashed so that she can do her business, otherwise she wouldn't do anything.

I live in a city where dogs are not allowed in public places unless it's a therapy / working dog. The only place that I know that I can bring my dog is my local petsmart and the dog park. And she does wonderful in both places... so it's really at home that I need help.
 
I know of a trainer that may be willing to come and help you in your home. I'll PM you her name and #. I train with her on a regular basis and think she's great.

For that kind of behavior I'd definitely suggest getting a gentle leader. The gentle leader works with pressure points that are calming, plus will give you control over her pulling.

You're going to have to get people to come over as guinea pigs in order to get her used to being calm when people are over, as you've been doing. Put the gentle leader on her and have her leashed. When she starts acting over the top you need to make her lie down. You do this by gently pulling the leash toward the ground until she lies down, then praise her (You can rest your hand on the ground until she gives to the pressure. The first few times it may take a while but eventually she'll give to it right away. I can make a video for you if this sounds confusing.)

No one touches her while she's excited. If someone approaches her and she becomes excited, they back off and everyone ignores her till she's calm. Keep repeating this. She'll eventually realize that acting over the top means she gets ignored, while acting calm means attention, but it may take a while. Also, before your guest touches her, Zoey has to sit. After she sits she should get some sort of treat as a reward. If she starts to jump up, the guest turns his or her back and ignores her.

Have you ever done basic obedience with her, beyond a puppy class? I'd highly recommend this if you haven't. The trainer I'm going to recommend teaches this at the beginning of her basic obedience class. I've worked on this recently with Toby and see it work on other hyper excited dogs.
 
Yeah, Zoey is diplomed basic, intermediate and advanced as well.

As I said, in training she did excellent outside our house. It was frustrating and embarassing to explain our problem to the trainer and her behaving quite well with the trainer @ petsmart.

I was considering a gentle leader because the harness is not working for her any more. Your comment just reinforces the decision on getting one, because it's difficult to walk her with a harness. I'm concerned by a martingale collar; she's too sneaky and would get out of it in a way or another.
 
Wow, I can understand how frustrating that must be for you!

I've done some training at Petsmart in the past and found them ok for puppy class and basic training but not the greatest for specific issues. At this point you're definitely better off going to a training center somewhere.

I did PM you and the trainer I mention is the 4th one I've used (2 at petsmart and one at another training place) and she is by far the best. I've learned much more about training and dog behavior with her than anywhere else, even in just a basic obedience class. She covers so many more common issues than other trainers I've seen and she's helped tremendously with my rescue sheltie Toby. I've taken her basic and advanced classes with all 3 of my dogs and learn something new every class.

Toby doesn't have the same issues that Zoey has but was never really leash trained and has anxiety. I bought him gentle leader immediately and its made a world of difference. He walks on it beautifully and it calms him down when he's feeling anxious. He used to lunge uncontrollably at cars and is MUCH better off now. I highly recommend it for any out of control behavior and know that this trainer would recommend it also.
 
The trainer we had a petsmart was incredibly good and understanding. The problem is that by his work contract, there's things he can't do, which are home visits for example. Ideally, I would've asked him to pay us a visit and work on her issues, but that's not possible.

Zoey, in a controlled environment, responds extremely well to training. She's a smart dog, she gets everything very fast. I'm guessing that being in her natural environment empowers her quite a bit; that's why someone, an external observer, would be very beneficial at home. There are things that we probably do without even knowing about it, that someone that is well-versed into dog training, would be able to point out and help us improve @ home.
 
Raya said:
There are things that we probably do without even knowing about it, that someone that is well-versed into dog training, would be able to point out and help us improve @ home.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I hope you find someone who can help you soon! Keep us updated on Zoey's progress!
 
An update:
We did get a cheaper equivalent of gentle leader and give it a try.

She disliked it at first, always tried to remove it and whatnot. But quickly she accepted it.

We tried a few walks with her. It seems to do good. She will gently pull, but minimal force is required to get her back in line.

Instead of going from 1 to 10 in excitement, she'll go to 5. She will throw a quick fit then carry on. We ran into 2 big dogs on the walk yesterday and I was able to contain her in less than 2 seconds.

Although the gentle leader is not supposed to block dogs from eating and barking, it seems like she'll just ruff instead of a full bark with the gentle leader on. It's good.

The only setback I have with this head collar is that she won't do her business with it on yet - we're not sure if it's because there's too much snow outside or if she's annoyed by it - we'll see.

Also I've tried it yesterday because we had a guest over. I had the gentle leader on with leash and she understood that she was not allowed to be excited near guests. So I did an experiment and took the leash off and kept the collar on; she maintained the attitude. I finally took the head collar off and she remained somewhat calm for 30 minutes until she got all excited again.

Overall this was a good improvement inside, but with this harness there is hope.
 
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