rough play

Our 10 month golden plays rough especially with my wife. Has anyone tried a water spray bottle?

 

He is a larger dog so he will be rough .have to teach him what stop ,down ,no means .A class will help .I would go to class with him and get the training tips that you need .

 

We have a 2 year old Golden/Collie mix and she plays very rough. But not all the time. She knows when to stop because we say "be nice" when we are done playing rough. I think that it is ok if the human wants to play that way at that time.
She will also play fetch, sits when told and I can take and place her food bowl while she is eating so there is not a domination issue. She just likes to play that way when we want to. In fact she loves it... She play bites us durring rough time but not breaking the skin.
I think every dog should learn that the human controls the food. I have taught all 3 of ours that when they were very very young. One thing that is NOT permited is growling at any human during "food" time.

 

just to let you know labs love water.... try rolling up a news papper and lightly swating them to scare not to hurt

 

This is what I learned from a professional dog trainer. Don't punisish a dog for what it's done wrong, but reward it for what it's done right. Screaming and hitting a dog with any object only instills negative behavior. When actually seeing your dog doing something bad, a firm NO! should be applied. When your dog does something possitive, reward with praise and treats. Dogs love nothing more than to please their masters.

 

In what way does you dog play too rough? If it's a matter of being too mouthy (very common with Goldens) you might try this method of teaching bite inhibition, which ends with no contact at all: http://www.jersey.net/~mountaindog/berner1/bitestop.htm

An important thing to teach is a command for stopping play - people use "enough" or "all done" or something like that. The dog should know how to stop when told.

It can be a difficult thing to teach, but it's well worth it!


Jamiya

 

Harley used to play rough with her mouth a lot. She's a real chewer. Anyways, when things got too rough I would yelp like how a puppy would and turn my back on her, letting her know the "game" was over.

Now she doesn't even open her mouth when we play.

What lovesdapits said is correct. Reward for positive, ignore negative. The reward has to be 3-5 second after she has done what you like, otherwise she will be confused and not know what she is being rewarded for. Keep lots of yummy treats close by at all times for this reason.

Most trainers have turned over to this method because you get results faster.

Please, never hit/smack your dog. This is not a good training tool and only instills fear in your dog.

 

I used almost the same method as you Bullylove. When Pinky was little she also played to rough so when she did I would say Owwww really loud and pretend to be hurt and turn my back from her or walk away and after several times she quit playing rough and now is so gentle it also taught her to be gentle when recieving treats.

 

That method did absolutely nothing with Nala, but it does work for a lot of people. It's definitely the first thing to try.


Jamiya

 

That worked once with a dog of mine ...Sebastion ,but did not work with Sheba .but then just a firm no with her worked .Each is different .What ever you do though ,don't hit .That causes negative responses from the dog .

 

My moms lab did not take to the yelp though. He's such a smart boy, but when I would yelp and turn my back, he would bark (pretending to sing) and think we were playing chase and jump up on me.

Go figure. :?

 

SOunds like Smokey. He's now taken up the jump up and grab mommies arm thing. Its like he's pulling my arm to take me somewhere..... I followed once just to make sure everything was ok, and he wasn't trying to tell me something.....found out he was showing me the pups (that had been there for weeks!!)

I tried the yelping thing, and firm no with my dogs....doesn't work, they think your playing.

What I do is when Smoke goes for my arm. I grab his muzzle, and firmly (but not too hard) put my thumb on the roof of his mouth, and fingers on top of his muzzle and firmly say BAD BOY! And the moment he stops and behaves, I praise him generously! Its working for me.
Granvel did wear Chars butt out once with his belt. She got out in the pasture without anyone, and proceeded to chase the horses....She didn't stop on command, after several attempts, and Daddy was ticked, he popped her twice on the rear and she's never done it again.....

 

Just wanted to add that we do use a squirt bottle with Cameron, and it does help, though it seems now that if she sees we don't have the bottle in hand, she will go right back to jumping up on us :?