walk! don't run...

[rushdoggie]

My idiot Border Collie is a dear but his insistence on high speed and direct path movement to outdoors makes me kind of nuts.

He cannot walk the 20" or so around the chair in the front room when someone opens the back door, he will instead fly over it and leap off of the back. I cannot convince him he is capable of walking through the door, he must instead rush like mad.

He will hold a stay even with an open door, but as soon as he is given permission to travel through the door, he must rush through. As a result he frequently runs over my body parts or knocks over a Papillon (I have started making them wait until after he goes through because his little buddy Jasper wants to stand near the door and wait for his Border Collie friend to come out and he has been nearly creamed a few times).

He will also slam through so hard he literally ricochets through the door frame with his shoulders hitting one side and his rear end swinging through and hitting the other.

I have tried asking for a sit as soon as he gets outside with the outcome being he screams through the door and flips quickly back. Insisting on a leash involves hitting the end of the leash hard and turning around. Its also not a realistic solution as not all humans are going to be willing to leash him to get into the yard.

Yesterday, he seemed to have a small issue with his right front leg, and his "wrist" seemed a little off. OK, so I decided to wait and see and today he seemed fine.

Until 10 minutes ago when he decided to jump over the coffee table off of the couch, and try to clear the chair leaping off of the back because the door got left open. Of course now he is limping again with the power leap off the back of the chair.

Anyone with any bright ideas? He is actually pretty calm and mannerly most of the time, its only the door behavior thats really an issue around the house. but some day he is going to get hurt or hurt me at the back door.

[gcv-border]

These guys really do have some interesting behaviors at times.

 

I have no experience with this type of behavior, but I was wondering what he would do at the door if you put a trail of food out the door. Would this slow him down? [Of course, this won't have any effect if he is not food motivated.] Maybe you could pair the trail of food with clicking for being slow.

 

It may not work, but his response to a food trail may suggest another option.

 

Good Luck.

[Sue R]

Move the chair.

 

Put him on a leash and hold it very short so he can't build up any sort of momentum.

 

We had a similar issue with one of our dogs (rushing the door) and had to use a short leash for reinforcement along with the commands. It took some time but it worked. Of course, I have to refresh his memory at intervals but at this point, usually a stern "wait" gets results.

 

Eager beavers...

[Maralynn]

Actively teach him to be calm around the door? First with it closed, then on the outside with it open, then on the inside?

[CMP]

I agree - move the chair.

 

As to the rushing thing - I think I might be tempted to put him in a down-stay inside, near the door, then position myself (crouched) square in front on the outside, two strides away - then release him with a come command. Make a little rough-ish segue (you know, channel some of his excitement and send him on his way) - when he answers the recall, give him a good body scratch or do some other energetic thing, maybe even do a little spin around, and release him.

 

Then you can start adding a "go easy" command as you let him go (and I would use my hands on his sides to send him off at the speed you want him to go, holding him back a little as he heads out). Then he will learn the "go easy" and you can stop parking in front.

 

Good luck, whatever you do.

[medic09]

Sounds like he and Golan must be of the same litter.

 

When something is happening outside the front window. Golan has to get up on the back of the couch (under the window) where Runt the terrier mutt usually already is barking. Could he go up on the couch and then the back? 'Course not. He has to launch himself over the ottoman, bouncing off it with his hind legs as he passes over (sending the ottoman across the wood floor) onto the couch back. If something is outside the side window, he launches himself across my wife's chair (sending it into recline position) to land on the cat's 'tower' under that window; where he stands like a huge cat wagging his tail out the window.

 

Heading out the back door he would practically knock over our poor 13 yo BCX. So I've enforced his waiting for her to get out the door and down the steps before he's allowed out. Initially I had to block him or grab his scruff or collar. Now that he's getting the idea, I've coupled it to a 'wait' command. (Okay, it's חכה; but same intent.) Now we're transferring it to the front door, even without the old girl. I also have him sit with the door open for a moment before releasing him. As for launching out the front door, he's begun to realize that he hits the end of the leash and doesn't like that. So he's self-correcting, a bit. I'm also beginning to give him a 'slow' command that is the same I use when he starts to pull ahead.

 

I don't let him out the front door without a leash as long as I can't predict what he'll do, other than launch out at top speed. 0-60 in zero seconds.

 

It's hard. When off leash, Golan looks for reasons to be an acrobat. I don't want to entirely suppress that, just slow down his behavior when heading out the doors. Same when he comes out of the car door. Our previous generation (the Lab, sled dog/Aussie, and the BCX) all learned to do a 'sit' as soon as they got out the car door. So far, Golan is having a hard time with that lesson.

 

We have to be persistent and consistent in communicating what we expect.

 

I agree about moving the chair. If you really want to suppress the behavior altogether, you have to tell him it's a 'NO' in no uncertain terms. When we first got Golan, I found him up on the dining table a few times. We decided the table is 'NO', even though we allow the dogs on the couch and comfy chairs. He got the message, though it was hard to control my amusement and admiration when I saw one day how he practically levitated up onto it.

 

It's hard sometimes not to let him see how impressed I am by his spirited acrobatics.

[rushdoggie]

Maybe you could pair the trail of food with clicking for being slow.

 

It may not work, but his response to a food trail may suggest another option.

 

He is not super food motivated, but the idea might bring me somewhere else. I think part of it is the outside is just so intrinsically interesting he has a pent up excitement over it.

 

Move the chair.

 

Put him on a leash and hold it very short so he can't build up any sort of momentum.

 

We had a similar issue with one of our dogs (rushing the door) and had to use a short leash for reinforcement along with the commands. It took some time but it worked. Of course, I have to refresh his memory at intervals but at this point, usually a stern "wait" gets results.

 

Eager beavers...

 

At the risk of being a "yeahbut" its not really moveable. I mean, its a very small house and theres just no way to avoid having some kind of something in that general area.

 

And to a degree, its not about the chair. Its about the need to go from desired point A to point B at the fastest rate possible.

 

Actively teach him to be calm around the door? First with it closed, then on the outside with it open, then on the inside?

 

I think this is really the key...I think the "wait and release" training has actually backfired creating an explosion of movement upon release.

 

It doesn't help he is a really odd duck and has a tendency to ramp up emotionally in certain situations very, very quickly.

 

 

As to the rushing thing - I think I might be tempted to put him in a down-stay inside, near the door, then position myself (crouched) square in front on the outside, two strides away - then release him with a come command. Make a little rough-ish segue (you know, channel some of his excitement and send him on his way) - when he answers the recall, give him a good body scratch or do some other energetic thing, maybe even do a little spin around, and release him.

He can hold any kind of stay at an open door....its just when he is allowed to come through he insists on slamming through as fast as he can go. Even when I insisted he go through the door and stop and sit he still managed to somehow go from the sit stay on the inside of the door to the sit outside the door at a full gallop.

 

 

 

Then you can start adding a "go easy" command as you let him go (and I would use my hands on his sides to send him off at the speed you want him to go, holding him back a little as he heads out). Then he will learn the "go easy" and you can stop parking in front.

 

This may be something that helps...my attempts to teach him to be easy as it relates to the door have had zero effect (having him on leash, waiting etc). Maybe just trying hands on will make a difference.

[B-and-B]

When it's time to go out for potty breaks, our 14mo Dusty has a habit bolting out the door, leaping off the 3' deck and racing to the nearest pine trees 20' away to try and flush any birds, whom she will then chase in a feeble attempt to catch them. What I have been doing is I will take her by the collar, and calmly walk her out the door and down the steps of the deck, then I will walker her the majority of the way to their deisgnated area for such activities. She's more bull headed than our 6yo, so I imagine this will take a little longer, but she doen't pull as hard when I have her by the collar as she used to when we started...

[Laurelin]

I have a dog- ironically a papillon since your other dogs are paps- who has some strange door behavior. The worst place is going out the back door but she displays it at other doors as well. Coming in the front door is probably #2 issue.

 

What she does is she will bolt out the door, screaming and hollering as loud as she can, usually will spin as well, and then will often redirect by biting the other household dogs, and she would end the behavior with biting a specific tree in the yard and pulling off tree bark. Yeah it was... interesting. It kept escalating and escalating and she actually started a dog fight several times because she would bowl over the older papillon.

 

She is pretty high strung in general and ritualizes things very fast. She anticipates a lot too and excites easily. I think that is the recipe for this kind of behavior. Having her wait at the door for a release actually worsened the behavior. Every release was just explosive and she'd go screaming even louder. She'd hold her stay like a good girl but would stay then do the behavior. The leash was a temp fix but not one I wanted permanently. And to top it off she has a collapsed trachea so hitting the end of the leash was something that could potentially really damage her. (And leashing her up would have involved putting a harness on in addition to the leash since she can't have pressure on her neck. Not really feasible long-term)

 

I used premack mostly... Take her out without the other dogs and let her do her thing and once she finished screaming, biting the tree, etc she would be completely calm. I would reward this when she came back to me on her own choice. I usually would ask for a sit then give her a treat. No release word from the sit just a pat and good girl then on her way. It took a while but slowly she would screech less and started realizing I was rewarding her when she was not being a doofus. We did a LOT of work on it for a long time and it was slow progress, definitely not a quick fix. Eventually she was looking to me for her reward right from the get-go and wouldn't even bother screaming or bolting, or at the least it was greatly minimized. Then we could work on calm around the door inside and outside and also opening and shutting the door. I never ask for a stay because as I mentioned it worsened things for us. I didn't really care what she did as long as it wasn't the whole screeching routine.

 

I have to maintain this behavior a lot. If I get lazy and just let her in and out for a while without rewarding her being sane walking out the door, she will start to escalate again. I think that is just pre-programmed into her so I expect I will always have to keep on top of it. But nowadays it doesn't take near as long to see improvement because she doesn't get as much time to practice it.

 

She too is an odd duck. Very smart dog but not the most stable all the time. Intrinsically she's a good girl, she's just impulsive and high strung. Yours sounds a bit different because with Mia I think the main issue was pent up energy at the door and desire to bite the tree (and scream around the yard). But for her she needs to make these decisions on her own and not be told to sit and stay.

 

I think you're right that the sit/stay is working against you. It did for us.

[mum24dog]

No suggestions but to wait it out. He sounds just like Kye as a youngster - always over or through rather than round. I feared brain damage the number of times he cracked his skull on doorways but it must have been pretty thick. I can't recall when it stopped but obviously it did because he doesn't do it now.

[medic09]

No suggestions but to wait it out. He sounds just like Kye as a youngster - always over or through rather than round. I feared brain damage the number of times he cracked his skull on doorways but it must have been pretty thick. I can't recall when it stopped but obviously it did because he doesn't do it now.

Sounds like he battered himself into submission!

[rushdoggie]

She is pretty high strung in general and ritualizes things very fast. She anticipates a lot too and excites easily.

Yeah, thats him in a nutshell.

 

I think this started with the #!%@!# squirrels who are flagrant in their disregard for the dogs until they get close at which point they race away creating a couple of dogs who are quite berserk about the idea that they might catch one some day. My yard had a line of trees stretching across and so it was the squirrel interstate as they could easily race up a tree and get anywhere they wanted to go via treetop. After we lost a couple of trees its not as bad but we still have squirrels, possums, stray cats and racoons that turn up and there is always the possibility that *something* could be out there so the whole door thing has become a ritual of anticipation.

 

used premack mostly... Take her out without the other dogs and let her do her thing and once she finished screaming, biting the tree, etc she would be completely calm. I would reward this when she came back to me on her own choice. I usually would ask for a sit then give her a treat. No release word from the sit just a pat and good girl then on her way. It took a while but slowly she would screech less and started realizing I was rewarding her when she was not being a doofus

 

I have to maintain this behavior a lot. If I get lazy and just let her in and out for a while without rewarding her being sane walking out the door, she will start to escalate again. I think that is just pre-programmed into her so I expect I will always have to keep on top of it. But nowadays it doesn't take near as long to see improvement because she doesn't get as much time to practice it.

 

Hmmm. Some else suggested I should block off outside the door with ex pens and then ask for and reward calm behavior right outside the door, essentially adding a link to the chain of behavior that would not be as rewarding as the rush into the yard and I might have a hope of getting a calmer behavior right outside of the door in a way that is Un-likley to happen inside the door.

 

It would also be something my DH could manage without too much issue or added time which is a real life factor because if it doesn't change every single time he goes out its not going to get fixed,

 

 

She too is an odd duck. Very smart dog but not the most stable all the time. Intrinsically she's a good girl, she's just impulsive and high strung. Yours sounds a bit different because with Mia I think the main issue was pent up energy at the door and desire to bite the tree (and scream around the yard).

.

His desire is to get out there and see if there's a critter to chase.

 

No suggestions but to wait it out. He sounds just like Kye as a youngster - always over or through rather than round. I feared brain damage the number of times he cracked his skull on doorways but it must have been pretty thick. I can't recall when it stopped but obviously it did because he doesn't do it now.

 

I so wish....except he's 4. Almost 5. And its getting worse.

 

[Laurelin]

Mia is 5 1/2 and sickly to top it off. I feel your pain. I don't think Mia's behavior is going to mellow out ever. But it did improve with work.

With Mia I think it started with squirrels too. Even when I move she picks a tree to take her frustration out on. And there are squirrels often enough that it really reinforces things. It does sound pretty similar to me in a lot of ways- his behavior and hers. Mia also has turned seeing a mouse one time into a ritual of screaming through the house then trying to bark for hours at a specific spot in the house. She is a great hunter and has very high prey drive. Once she actually got her first kills under her belt she amped things up even more. When I kept rodents as pets we also had to do a lot of work with her not obsessing at the doors to the rooms the rodents were in.

A lot of premac. I am really bad at explaining the process but watched a lot of videos about using the premack principle to call dogs off squirrels. That's also how she is able to walk off leash and call off squirrels and bunnies. There was just no way to compete with how exciting the prey was to Mia so I used that/getting to bark and run after it as the reward. I actually encourage it and let her go at it- just on my terms and not every time we have to go outside.

I think starting outside the door sounds like a good plan. That sounds similar to what we did as far as ignoring the initial obnoxiousness she displayed. Her brain was gone at that point so you wouldn't get anywhere anyways.

[Gideon's girl]

My nutjob would hit the door with all his might the moment I opened it a crack, and throw it into the wall, knocking a hole into the wall. It took about a month of me getting a really firm grip on the door before opening it, opening just a crack, letting him thunk the door but not throw it open, then me closing the door, and repeating 6 or 8 times before I actually let him out, before he realized that he had to actually settle down and watch what I was doing to know when he should head out, but remain ready to stop at anytime.

 

I've got no answers on the chair launching, other than not allowing him on the furniture, I don't know how you would get your point across. Gideon did/does that too, but not quite that intensity, so I just started catching him in the act and telling him to "Go around," but I wouldn't expect that to work on Speedy Gonzalas.

 

No wonder your screen name is Rushdoggie! Very apt!

[rushdoggie]

No wonder your screen name is Rushdoggie! Very apt!

 

Hahaha! That has been my screen name for a long time, since many years before he came into my life. Its actually not dog related.

[Gideon's girl]

Hahaha! That has been my screen name for a long time, since many years before he came into my life. Its actually not dog related.

Maybe he's been reading your posts and getting ideas...

[d112358]

On a slightly ridiculous note, you could try teaching him to crawl and asking for that behavior through the door - it's pretty incompatible with extreme speed or bowling you over, but he's moving through it rather than explosively releasing.

[rushdoggie]

On a slightly ridiculous note, you could try teaching him to crawl and asking for that behavior through the door - it's pretty incompatible with extreme speed or bowling you over, but he's moving through it rather than explosively releasing.

 

Hey, ridiculous is OK...its a thought!

[Lizabeth]

I have Gidget sit or stand to wait for both myself and my elderly beagle to pass through doors and narrow areas, she has gotten pretty good about it actually. When we go out the door for a walk she is usually overly excited so before we even open the door I will have her do puppy push ups. I have her sit, lay, stand, again and again tell I have her Full attention. Then she is ready to allow me to go through the door. Outside the door I have her sit and wait for me to go down the steps, again if she is overly excited we do the puppy push ups tell she is ready to let me go down the stairs. Maybe this will help?

[rushdoggie]

I have Gidget sit or stand to wait for both myself and my elderly beagle to pass through doors and narrow areas, she has gotten pretty good about it actually. When we go out the door for a walk she is usually overly excited so before we even open the door I will have her do puppy push ups. I have her sit, lay, stand, again and again tell I have her Full attention. Then she is ready to allow me to go through the door. Outside the door I have her sit and wait for me to go down the steps, again if she is overly excited we do the puppy push ups tell she is ready to let me go down the stairs. Maybe this will help?

 

It might, asking for a series of attention behaviors prior to the door opening.

 

It might result in an even more amped up explosion through the door too.

 

But its worth experimenting with.

 

Thanks!

[d112358]

Other off-the-cuff ideas:

 

Teach a red light / green light behavior in front of something desirable but less crazy-making than the door. Make the times you're calling for a stop as unpredictable as possible, then transfer it to an interior door sometimes stopping in the threshold, before the threshold, after the threshold. Once that game is easy, transfer it to the exterior door.

 

Nose touch to hand: put him in a wait, step outside then stick your hand in the doorway and ask for a nose touch. Lead him by the nose touch to a safe launching spot outside.

 

Turn him around in front of the doorway and back him through it.

 

And what I think you may already be doing, ask for a group stay and release dogs individually by name in an order so that no one gets trampled.