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Checking in with a question about eliminating a behavior. We have a 2 year old 55lb rescue who is just learning his first commands and his name. Crate training is going well but isn't at a useful stage yet. The problem is that when he wants to play or have his belly rubbed, he mouths our feet and hands with extreme persistence. He was losing the habit, but I think the behavior was reinforced during a 2 week period we were away from him because it's back with a vengeance and a little rougher now. Our fixes whenever possible: - Giving him tons of love and attention often when he's relaxed and well behaved. Last night I rained treats from the sky for lying beside me at my computer, progressing to when he was relaxing with his head down - Catching the behavior when we suspect it's coming by asking for a Sit before he has a chance to touch us with his teeth, and then rewarding him with belly rubs and play, or continuing behavior training (clicker charging, or holding the sit/down). - Trying to completely ignore him when he does start. Unfortunately even with doubled up socks I can't handle it for more than like 15 seconds, so I slowly and calmly have been exiting the room through the basement door for 30 seconds. The behavior is getting worse, harder biting and more frequent, so I'm praying it's an extinction burst and we aren't doing something wrong. I'm fairly confident in our fixes in theory, but there are situations where we can't do them and I'm worrying those are providing some sort of positive enforcement. Our potential errors come when I can't get what I'm trying to do done, because I either have to keep a sharp eye on him ready to ask him to Sit every 15 seconds, or constantly go through the basement door once he starts. Even once I get him to sit and start giving him attention it only holds him off til I stop, then I can see the wheels turning as he gazes at my feet. We're having to grab his collar and we're highly unlikely to get him to succeed at a Sit at this point, so we're not positive what to do. My partner put him on a leash last night to keep him off me while I was busy, and if he got his teeth on me my partner would take him to the kitchen where it's boring until he lay down. I'm not sure if that's punishing, which isn't really our intention, or whether he's getting the attention he wants since he likes his leash? He's alone with my partner all day, and gets pretty mouthy with him, which I'm sure is more challenging when you don't have someone else to help. It's definitely not something he only does with one of us. More exercise might help push this out the door faster, but it appears he may have heartworm. We're waiting on confirmation from a lab since the results were iffy, but he's currently restricted from exercise and that will likely continue to be for the next 3 months  ETA: He's been back with us for 2 days. I'm just very concerned about doing something to make this last more than a second longer than it needs to, because it's making our life revolve around him and he's already predisposed to being clingy. Edit 2: Heartworm confirmed 
Curiosity fucked around with this message at 20:51 on May 29, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 18:10
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I have a whole new series of problems, how the hell are we going to survive 3 months of "cage" rest when he isn't trained yet oh my god
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May 29, 2018 21:14
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Lucid Nonsense posted:I have a 7 year old Black Mouth Cur who's very food motivated. He's also very sneaky. Last night, he jumped up on my neighbor's picnic table and chowed down about half of a medium pizza before he got chased off. I have no idea where to start curbing this behavior. Any advice? Half a pizza!!! Crazy! Kikopup has great videos on this, I linked one below but take a look through her stuff. Using this positive style training is obviously really important for when they're sneaky, otherwise they just learn to do things you don't like when you aren't close enough to stop them. https://youtu.be/xZCIeEUm_n8
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Aug 5, 2018 03:17
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