In Part 1 I wrote about how we started out, in Part 2 I wrote about how we had found out Luke was reactive, and in Part 3 I wrote about shaping and how we used that to train Luke to go to his bed. I’m trying to be optimistic by calling this post “A Bump in the Road” instead of “Epic Fail” which was my first thought!
A Bump in the Road
Our plan of training Luke to go to his bed when people come to the house was suggested and taught to us by his trainer, but not put into real practice until our formal training sessions had ended. We invited my oldest sister and her husband over, as well as my other sister. The plan was for them to knock at the door, and not come in until we had Luke settled in his bed.
I’m not sure it could have gone much worse. First of all, Luke gets pretty wound up when he just hears a car pull into the driveway. He was already barking at the door long before my sister got to it (we asked them to come one at a time so we could have more than one practice). He just would not listen to us when we tried to get him to his bed, and once we did get him settled, her knocking at the door just started it all over again. Same thing when we actually let her in. Now, keep in mind, Luke has met my sister before, but she hasn’t been over here for a while. It simply wasn’t working, but I wasn’t smart enough to just abort the whole thing and take him upstairs. Instead, we brought her husband in which set Luke off again. We instructed him to ignore Luke completely and just come in. Luke was settled on his bed at that point, but when my brother-in-law walked by he reached his hand out, Luke went off, and honestly, I thought he was going to bite him (he didn’t).
I held on to Luke while they went upstairs. I followed with Luke after they were sitting down and at that point I was able to get him to go to his bed up there and pretty much stay in it. They could quietly reach their hand down with a treat only if Luke approached them nicely. Those two parts went well, and as long as they stayed seated Luke was fine. I continued to feed him treats as he stayed in his bed.
When my other sister arrived I went outside to get her, and Luke did bark but was much better. He’s seen this sister more and he greeted her normally (she has been our pet sitter and stayed overnight with Luke at least once). However, I was feeling pretty discouraged by the end of the evening. I tried to focus on the things that went right:
- Luke did NOT bite my brother-in-law. I worked hard to teach Luke good bite inhibition (using Dr. Ian Dunbar’s instructions) when he was a puppy, and I feel like that may be what helped.
- When we were in the dining room eating, someone went in the kitchen and Luke started barking at them. I called him to me and he immediately came in and sat next to me. I felt good that he had listened to me at that point when he was starting to get agitated again.
- Luke did well most of the time at staying in his bed. We got some good reinforcement of that with lots of treats.
So where might we have gone wrong?
- We let him get too wound up initially, and there was no pulling him back at a certain point.
- The room we had him greeting in was narrow, so when my brother-in-law walked by, I don’t think Luke felt like he had a place to retreat to. He is fearful and I think he needs to know he can get away. He is not aggressive, he is only defensive.
- Maybe we should have just stuck with one person for the first trial.
- My brother-in-law didn’t follow instructions completely: don’t look at him, don’t talk to him, don’t engage him. Honestly, Luke is almost always completely fine when people ignore him.
- Are we just giving up on this method too soon? Or should we call this a fail and move onto something else?
I feel like we just need to regroup and come up with another plan. Even though I’m disappointed the clicker training couldn’t solve this issue, it has helped in many other ways (that is how we have trained him to go to his bed at all). We have more than one other thing to try. I was hoping to have things better by Christmas, but I just need to resign myself to the fact that Luke will probably have to be confined to the office with a gate when there are a lot of people here. But we’ll use the first couple of arrivals to work with him. We will not give up!
Do you have any suggestions or experience with this issue? Please feel free to share in the comments!
I’ll fill you in on our other ideas in future installments of this series. I also plan to cover bad habits we’ve had to break and loose leash walking, the most challenging aspect of clicker training (for the humans)!
We are hosting the trivia question for today’s #Advent4Dogs giveaway!
We are happy to be joining the Thursday Barks and Bytes blog hop. Many thanks to our hosts 2 Brown Dawgs Blog and Heart Like a Dog.
Barley also gets pretty worked up when people come over. She watches them get out of the car from the window and then starts kangaroo hopping until they get in the door and then she smothers them with snuggles. Since I only really have people come over who love her and are just as ready to smother her with snuggles as she is, I kind of gave up on the training her to be calm when people came in–it’s hard when you don’t have someone coming over consistently enough to practice it often! On the rare occasion that we have somebody more unfamiliar come over, I put her on her leash because that’s her signal that we’re “working” and then she sits near the door while I let people in–usually that keeps her calm and if they are dog people, I let them pet her and give her a treat, but if they’re not, then I just keep her on leash and have her do different focus exercises until she’s worn out. Good luck with Luke! Even if the clicker and sending him to his bed don’t work, I’m sure you’ll find something that helps him!
It sounds like you’ve done great with Barley and have a good plan in place. Sheba was our over-exuberant one, but we finally got her to settle down and not jump on people. But we had more company back in those days, so more chances to practice!
I think if we just don’t give up, we’ll get this figured out in time.
Oh Luke….I am so glad you taught him bite inhibition it is a great thing to teach puppies and so few people do it. I really commend you for all that you are doing. Don’t give up you will get there.
Thank you so much!! Bite inhibition is something I didn’t even know anything about until we got Luke, and it’s something I really wish we had taught the other dogs, especially Cricket.
Definitely a work in progress but Luke is improving some. Glad you all are committed to working with him. Love Dolly
Thank you, Dolly!
Remember that Luke is still a youngster and mentally he may not be mature yet so I would not write the whole thing off. He may just be too young for what you are asking of him. But at the same token you cannot have him snapping at people.
I know you want to do everything with a clicker and positive, but it may be that Luke does not understand that the humans are the boss and he does not need to protect you or himself. IMO you need to start teaching him that right now while he is still young.
I am not talking about beating him into submission or anything like that, but I would get him on a leash and make his leash manners as solid as possible and if it means a leash correction (correctly done) then that is what it means. He needs to understand you are boss. And lots of praise when he follows direction and I mean a lot. Over praise. You need to build his confidence and that means putting solid rules on him.
Once his leash manners are solid, I would do the next meeting while he was on lead and work that obedience. Person comes, sit Luke, good, stay Luke, good…etc. Short visit…go away person…good dog Luke, you are the best dog ever. You need to find a way for Luke to understand that he just doesn’t need to worry about people coming over because you have it covered. Then transition to your bed training. I think the idea of training him to be on his bed is great, but what happens if he doesn’t follow your direction or leaves the bed? See what I mean? Get that close in obedience strong strong strong and then work on the obedience when you are not right next to him. Then add the people and distractions.
You may also want to incorporate the Nothing In Life Is For Free training with Luke. It is an excellent way to teach a dog that you are the one in charge. We had to use it on Freighter who was trying to throw his weight around a bit over the summer. You can google it, but it is pretty straight forward. Dog does not get random affection (pets) or treats or on the bed, etc. Dog must do something to get them. So for example, if dog want to be petted it is on your terms, dog must sit, or give paw…something and the pet is a reward but on your terms. It may take a few months but it really is helpful training.
Well that is my suggestion for what it is worth based on working with Chessies. Good luck.
Thanks so much for sharing in the hop. 🙂
Thank you for your advice! It is greatly appreciated. Luke did not do well with leash corrections, however, but I think I can still find a way to integrate some of this into what we are doing. I have thought that some of his behavior is being protective of me (or the house) so he probably does need to understand that we are the bosses, and we can handle people coming to the house. I think it should be easy to work in that training because Luke is great about sitting or lying down if he thinks that’s what we want. We may just need to use it a bit more in the every day situations, and not just for treats.
Thanks for the reminder about Luke being young as well. We probably do expect too much of him sometimes!
I also wonder about his knees. If they hurt him, that may be causing some of the snapping as strange people reach for him. I would not discount that.
That is a good thought, and something that hadn’t occurred to me. We don’t really think the knees are giving him a lot of pain, but we can’t really know with animals, can we?
Thank you SO much for this post! I have similar challenges and the feedback is really, really helpful!
Oh, I’m so glad that our experiences can help!! Hopefully we can get things right so I can help even more! 🙂
Being the older sister and wife of the brother-in-law, seriously Jan, do you think we can walk by him and just ignore him totally? Not an easy thing to do, he’s too cute!
I know, I know, it’s easier said than done!
Well good try Luke. I have to keep Shiner in another room when I have guests now. When she was a young adult, she didn’t have much of an issue with visitors and she was always out when people came over. I’m not sure at what point she started to get very defensive of her territory…
It seemed to happen very suddenly with Luke. I’m at least glad to know we’re not the only ones. And really, it’s not the end of the world if they have to stay in another room sometimes. We’re just so used to our other dogs being social (though Cricket has barked at people too, but she settles down more quickly than Luke), that it’s a big adjustment for us.
I’m sometimes helpless too, specially when it comes to strangers in our house. I sadly have no idea what you could do, but that you said, you will not give up is fabulous, that’s for sure .
We’ve gotten some good advice here, so I think we’ll figure it out! One of our problems is that we are just homebodies and most of our friends/family are as well, so we just don’t get enough traffic around here.
Thank you so much for sharing your work with Luke. It’s so important for all of us to share our successes and not yet successes (no, it wasn’t a failure) with each other. It helps us all become smarter dog people.
I agree with Emma. I believe the clicker training is working. But you’re moving a little too fast for Luke.
Our trainer, while working with an extremely fearful foster dog (whose behavior with visitors sounds much like Luke’s), told us that if we think we’re going slow enough, go slower.
The clue was in your post. You said that Luke got aroused when a car pulled into the driveway. That’s your first goal–having Luke go to his bed and settle down even with a car pulling into the drive way.
Once he does that, see if he can remain calm while someone stands in front of the porch. Break it down into smaller steps.
I know it’s hard to go so freaking slow. And it’s a challenge to find people who can help with the training who will do what you say (I’m sorry I don’t live closer). And it’s hard to live a normal life while you’re training Luke.
But you just need to go slower.
You are definitely doing the right thing. You’re on the right track. And you’re already successful. 🙂
Pamela, this was really helpful! I have similar issues! I am actually pretty good about calming down and going to bed at the sound of cars and people outside, but folks in and around the door (i.e. the next step) are still a challenge. Hearing the door opening always sets me off.
It sounds like you’ve got a good start on it though, and just need to keep at it one step at a time as Pamela suggested!
Thank you so much, Pamela, both for saying we’re on the right track and for your sound advice about moving more slowly. My hubby drove his Mustang to work all summer, and now has switched to his truck. The dogs don’t really recognize his truck yet, so I am going to start working with Luke when my hubby gets home each day.
It is hard to go slow….but hopefully this process will help us all learn to have more patience (trust me, both my hubby and I need to work on that!).
It sounds to me as though a lot did go right. It was an improvement on previous behaviour. I would keep trying and hope to keep improving.
Thank you for the encouragement, Clowie!
Have you tried this? Put Luke on leash. Have either you or your husband have Luke in another room of the house. Keep his attention of you by giving him treats, if/when he turns to bark, redirect with a command and continue with the treats. In this way he begins to think that people coming in the house means good things for him.
Once everyone is in the house, you can introduce Luke in whatever way works best for him and if you need to hand the guests treats, well….no Lab is going to complain about that. 🙂
We have been giving him lots of treats when people come to the house, so he does associate that with good things, but we haven’t tried that particular method yet. Thanks for the idea!
I totally feel for you here Jan.
I go through this with Koda as well. He is not fearful, he is just TOO friendly! Any time someone comes in the door he jumps all over them! And he is a big husky, so it’s not very pleasant. I am using the Thundershirt now when I know someone is coming over, which does help, but not as much as I would like. All I do is hold his collar until everyone is in and settled, and I tell everyone to ignore him, sometimes it works, other times, not so much. It is a hard situation for sure 🙁
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
Thank you, Jenna! A friend of ours also suggested a thundershirt, and I figure it can’t hurt to try that with Luke. Even if it only helps a bit, it might get us closer.
Sheba used to be over-exuberant with people….jumping on them. That’s the worse thing to train the people with….I always get those that say “I don’t mind if she jumps!”. But we wanted to train her not to jump, because some people do mind! We did actually get somewhere with her, she rarely jumps now, but I don’t remember exactly what we did to deter it! Plus, she may just be better now because she’s older. 🙂
Jack can be iffy with strangers. Our trainer recommended the same approach – give him a place to sit and only release him when he’s calm. Jack is older and pretty eager to please, so it’s worked fairly well. You do have to be consistent and your ‘subjects’ have to follow the rules. I would not give up on it yet, but reduce the stressors – one person only, and practice it multiple times until he gets it. Then increase the stressor by adding another person. Don’t get discouraged – it takes time. Do you reward him when he’s sitting quietly?
Yes, I have been rewarding him when he’s sitting quietly. That’s one of the things I was thinking…that we did too much too soon and we should start out slower, with just one person as you said. I thought starting out with my sister who he’s more comfortable with might be better, and work from there.
Grand things don’t happen overnight. If you are happy with the clicker training and bed solution, I would stick with it. Practice makes perfect. If you can find several “test” people to come over and work with you a few times Luke may start to get it. If you don’t regularly have people coming over it is a special event and hard for him to not want to be in their face. We all love people and have a hard time not attacking them by jumping all over them when they arrive. It is hard not to, but if you keep trying and practicing I think he will get it.
Thank you, Emma, I think you are right. We need to be more patient. Part of the problem is that we have so little company that comes over. When our porch was being worked on, we had lots of men in and out, and Luke did pretty well with them, but they didn’t really come into the house that much.
Oh, i know how You feel. I will follow up Your trainings because i have the same issue. Dog gets too agitated, i loose my mind and people aint just listening how or what to do! They all know better! Grh
I will definitely keep you posted on things we try. It’s hard enough to get people over to help, so it’s very disappointing when it doesn’t go well!