New in the boards

Greetings I came accross your forums, while looking for some info on why my dog won't stop crying! It is driving me (us) crazy. It has been going for the last week or so. I'm about to take him to the vet and have him checked up. :roll:

He will sit there and stare at one of us, whinning.. so we take him outside to play, shortly after, begins to cry again. Might it be just boredom? He is a 18 months mixed fox terrier. I know they grow old of everything fast, making them get bored.. but it is making me lose it!!

Any info, comments, advice? Would be greatly appreciated

 

Hi, and welcome
My dog Rusty is part Jack Russell Terrier, and can sometimes be the same way... he is about 1 year old. But it does seem like it settled down some once we had him fixed, and now that we leave him at doggy daycare 3 days a week. He seems to get to run off all of his pent up energy there, I guess. Does your dog spend much time alone? Terriers seem to need to be active and entertained a lot more than some dogs!

 

Mine will whine just hearing things going on outside. Maybe a good game of toss the ball. He does not act like he's sick does he.
He may just be trying to rule the house and using his crying tatic to get attention. He needs to learn when to play and when to rest.

 

Hi and welcome to the Board.


Jasper cries for attention, so I'll go and spend some time with her throwing the ball or playing with, it might just be bordom.
:mrgreen:

 

Once you have made sure there is nothing wrong with him, you need to be careful that you are not rewarding the whining behavior. Assuming the little guy is healthy and his needs are being met (food, potty breaks, activity, attention), don't fuss over him for whining. Just pretend he is not doing it. If he stops, even for a few seconds at first, REWARD with something - food, attention, a game, etc. Gradually have him increase the amount of time he needs to stay quiet before rewarding him.

If you give in even once when he is whining, you are teaching him to be persistent and eventually it will pay off. This is a lesson dogs learn very well and very quickly. And believe me, they can outlast you every time - so don't give in!

Don't let him initiate play sessions, either. YOU should approach HIM (or call him over) for petting, playing, etc. Especially if he is not whining - even a short game or some loving would work - catch him being good! If he does solicit you to play, make him do something first - sit, down, a trick, etc.

Is he trained? Training can be a good way to bond with your dog and usually they don't whine while you are working with them. It tires them out, too!


Jamiya

 

Thank you...

...for your replies He doesn't look sick, puttin510. Today I've been playing with him a lot, and he hasn't bothered much really. Must be boredom, for sure.

I've been postponing his walks, because it has been rainning a lot for over a week Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be nicer out here, so we'll take him out hiking. We've been discussing also the option of getting him a gf :lol: But that would probably be more trouble than anything.. hehe.

 

Hello! I just wanted to Welcome you to the board! It sounds as if you have gotten some great advice.

 

I agree... welcome to the board, marksfamily!!

 

Marksfamily:
the reason why he is continuing to cry is probably because each time he does you are rewarding the behaviour by doing something for him. Terriers are very stubborn and VERY smart dogs. They learn really quickly how to "rule the home" in a way to get what they want.

The first thing you need to do is stop doing anything for him. Make him work for attention. Put him on a NILIF (Nothing in Life is Free) program. Most ppl only need to use this lightly, but I suggest you be firm with everything you do.

Your dog need to know that you are boss, and he can't just cry to get what he wants. He will most likely notcomply with what you want him to do for the first couple of days, this WILL change when he realizes he is not getting what he wants so be consistent with it.

Always make him perform a command before getting anything, even 1 or 2 things. Must sit, lay to be pet. Has to lay outside of the kitchen for you to put his food bowl down. ect. If he is in your way and you need to get past him, tell him to move. This reinforces you as "pack leader".
If he doesn't do what you ask, NEVER repeat it. Simply walk away and try again in a minute. Don't worry, if he misses one meal its not the end of the world, he will learn.

Now, for never repeating yourself. I had a great article, I will try to find it. Here is the jist of it. When you repeat a command to your dog, you are teaching him that "sit" is not the command you want. It is now "sit, sit". So, in turn he will begin to wait for the second sit, or the repeat command BEFORE he wil perform.
What we think is our dog beign stubborn is actually us not realizing the command we have implanted into them.

Always walk away and do not repeat the command for at least a minute each time. I also use hand signals with my commands, and find that they really help my dog to focus more on me and what I want from her.

 

You should have seen the first time I walked away from Nala and put her food bowl back on the countertop. Boy, that stopped her in her tracks! She is REALLY good at sitting for meals, now.

But now I am changing things on her. Since she is so good at sitting for meals, I changed it to "down." She is doing well with that, so yesterday I told her to "shake" - she looked confused, but she did it!

I am going to start chaining several commands now. I am hoping that soon she will be looking at me, just waiting to find out what I want so she can do it and get her food.

I was told even 10 seconds is long enough to wait before coming back to start over, but a minute certainly would make a point.


Jamiya

 

Well, you know me, I do like to make a point. hehe

Harley was pretty stunned the first time she had to skip a meal. I felt awful and almost snuck her a treat in the evening but I stuck to my guns. I make Harley perform 2 to 3 commands each time I ask for anything. Otherwise whe gets lazy. When I first started changing commands she didn't know what to do with herself. I would always ask for "5" (gimme 5, I taught her that instead of shake) anyways, when I changed it to "lay" she was still puttin' her paw out there. It took a few tries for her to realize things had changed. Mind you she was not mommies girl THAT night. heh

 

I was told even if they are confused and not being willfully disobedient, you still give them the command once, wait 3 seconds, and leave. I make the time shorter that I am away, though, if I am pretty sure she is just confused.

I cannot chain commands to let her go outside, yet. That is a HUGE issue with us now that Bonnie is in our lives. I think I need to change my words, but that will only help for so long. When I say, "Do you want to go outside?" Nala immediately jumps on Bonnie and starts wrestling around. She doesn't even HEAR me tell her to sit. I never knew what to do about it because if I walked away they wouldn't even notice, so I used to get the collar on her and MAKE her sit. I found out, however, that if I totally left the room, they would stand there in shock staring at me, so that is what I do now. It usually takes about a dozen times to get her to sit for this - but everything else is getting MUCH better!

Poor Bonnie must be totally confused, though. I have to go by Nala's responses for now. If Bonnie sits, I try to let her out alone, but it doesn't work. Bonnie won't walk through the door quickly, and Nala tries to barrel her way out so I finally gave up. I direct all my commands to Nala and Bonnie just goes along. Whenever Nala is finally reliable, I will have to work on adding Bonnie in.

Marksfamily, is that a rat terrier you have?


Jamiya

 

The vet told us he is a mixed fox terrier. We adopted him from the Humane Society last Nov, so not sure about his background. The original owners thought he was a Jack Russel, hence his name (Jack) :lol: Other than that, and that we needed a >5 ft fence, we didn't get much info about him.

 

Rusty is JRT and Dachshund (we believe). So the shorter legs help with the jumping a bit, although he can still get up a lot higher than your average dachshund :lol:
But his personality is SO JRT!!! He thinks he is a big dog, wants to be everywhere all at the same time, and really, truly believes with all his heart he was put on this earth to be in charge of ALL squirrels :mrgreen:

 

Welcome to the forum Marksfamily! Jack is a real cutie.

 

So has anyone thought maybe rat terrier. He does look it.

 

Yes, I originally asked Marksfamily if he is a rat terrier. He does have the coloring of a fox terrier as well.

I used to have two dogs that were rat terrier/scottie mixes. I had never heard of a rat terrier before I got them, and it was only in the past couple of years that I got to see a pure rat terrier. I never even knew what they looked like before.


Jamiya

 

I was thinking rat terrier also, but I'm no expert :wink: His nose is a bit short for a fox terrier.... the two look a lot alike, but it seems the fox terrier has a longer, slimmer snout. All of those type terriers have pretty much the same high energy personalities though.... sort of like all of these, all at the same time---
:0020: :0019: :0018: \/ :0009: :0016: :0008: :0020:

 

OK Pam so where did you get your Smileys? They are so cute!

 

Hey GinaH-- When you're posting a message, if you click on the "View More Emoticons" below the few already on the left side, it will open up a whole page of really cute ones!