How to keep an over excited dog calm?

[Sunday]

I could use some advice. My dog gets way over excited when he is around people. If someone ignores him then he is fine and will either ignore them as well or will try to greet the person, but then run back to me when he realizes he will get no attention. The problem is, if the person does so much as give him eye contact, he goes absolutely nuts. He jumps around, sometimes jumps on the person, races back and forth, and just acts like a wild idiot.

 

Pulling him away takes care of the situation, but is not teaching him how to behave. He just doesn't listen to me at all if a new person in in the picture. Sometimes a stranger will just say something to me quickly, and that flips on his psycho switch too. None of this is aggressive, he wants the whole world to love him and play with him. But his excitement level is so high all manners and training go out the window.

 

Even if I can get his attention for a second to give him a command, it doesn't register much in his mind. A "sit" only works for a matter of seconds before the energy builds up too much again.

At best, I can put him in a down until the person walks away, but he remains fixated and whines loudly. That is also not teaching him to be calm.

 

What to do?

[Gloria Atwater]

How old is your dog? What is your living situation? (Urban, rural, etc.) Have you done any training with him? Have you had him since he was a wee pup?

Just a few questions for folks to work from.

~ Gloria

[Sunday]

He is two years old. I've had him since he was a baby, and he's had tons of training. We train just about every day or work on things. He's a champion trick dog, does agility, disc, musical freestyle. We live in a big city so the people are quite unavoidable. He can walk through crowds and stuff and keep his composure. It's just if someone pays any attention to him that he suddenly goes nuts and nothing else exists.

 

I just checked out the Protocol for Relaxation, and I wonder if that would be something to try.

A conditioned relaxation technique?

 

Is there a way to make a dog be uninterested in strangers? Hahaha. I can't believe I would ever want an aloof dog, but it's sounding quite nice.

[gcv-border]

My dog is quite a bit like your dog, but now that he is almost 7 and I have been working on reducing that annoying behavior for many years, he is better - not great, but better.

 

Use the fact that the highest reinforcer in this situation is greeting, or being pet by, the person he is focused on. I have used 2 exercises when I am in training mode:

 

One: Put the dog in a sit or down next to you. Have your training buddy stand a distance away. [The distance is determined by the dog's threshold. Can he sit or down calmly?] Let the training partner start walking towards you. If the dog gets up and is excited, your training buddy will turn around immediately. They keep coming towards you ONLY if the dog remains sitting or down. Eventually, they should be able to come to you, shake your hand, and walk away, without the dog moving.[Of course, you can mix it up by reinforcing with treats.]

 

Use the same principle when working with your dog to stay calm when the person wants to pet them.

 

You can also work on approaching a person with your dog calmly at your side. If he erupts, turn around and walk away. Again, eventually, he should walk up to the person calmly.

 

Good Luck.

[Camden's Mom]

We are pretty much in the same boat, Sunday. Every time you post a question I think "wait... does this person have my dog!?".

 

The advice given is spot on. Having said that, the biggest hurdle for me in implementing these strategies is that random people we encounter almost never help. In fact, they usually do harm by allowing and encouraging the excited behavior.

 

I could just never let my dog greet anyone unless it's arranged ahead of time (completely unrealistic for my situation). I could ask every person who wants to say "hi" to my dog if they could spare ten minutes of their day, listen to my instructions and then do an impromptu training session with them (pretty unrealistic for most people who just want to give you dog a quick pet). Or I can physically hold my dog in a sit, rewarding heavily if he does it on his own but physically restraining him if he loses control and tries to jump on the person. Truthfully, the last scenario is the situation I find myself in most often... and I'm more then willing to admit that it's not ideal.

 

Obviously I don't want my dog excited and trying to jump on everyone he meets but I also don't want to restrict him from ever meeting a stranger out in public. I do have a few people in my life who are totally on board with the training protocol that gcv-border described. I find that every time he interacts with them he gets a little bit better at his greetings, but he's also 2 years old (this week!) and has a loooong way to go.

 

I wish I had a tried and true answer for your problem because then I'd have a solution for my own situation as well. This one is a tough issue to tackle but I won't lie... I'd MUCH rather be dealing with over excitement when greeting strangers then fear or aggression, yanno?

 

Oh, and if you DO find the magic bullet for this behavior can you PM me and let me in on the secret?

[Sekah]

I'd do a lot of Premack and Its Yer Choice type exercises where the reward is interaction with people but it's contingent on him exerting self control without excessive input from you. Once he's proficient at making good choices before meeting, start incorporating recall into the exercises and release back to be social. The Relaxation Protocol is also a good idea.

[Sunday]

One of my main problems is I live alone with no one to help me and I have really bad anxiety so asking strangers for help is out of the question. Even then, Like Camden's Mom said, who wants to stand around helping me train my dog when all they wanted to do was quickly pet him?

I had a trainer once who was so incompetent it honestly seemed like the behaviors I went to him to fix were made worse. And I don't have the money to hire another one right now, especially another cluess one.

[chene]

Hmm. Do you go to school, or have any extra-curriculars, or a workplace where you could bring the dog in? Even acquaintances might be willing to help out if they're hanging around anyways.

[Sekah]

There's loads of self control building exercises you can do solo, thankfully. I like the idea of desensitizing him to the presence of others while engaging heavily with him.

 

I'm so thankful for my ambivalent, not-a-social-butterfly-at-all dogs.

[JohnC]

I feel your pain. I had a Lab from field trial lines who was like that. I used to refer to it as his brain overheating. Any new person who seemed friendly or kids or anyone coming to the house that he didn't already know would push him over the top. I read every book and tried every technique for a couple of years. Ultimately I realized that those training techniques were for normal dogs. Things finally got better when I accepted that it wasn't under his control and it was just something I had to manage. He was a great dog in a lot of other ways, so I saw this as a kind of mental defect and stopped being frustrated by it. The worst part was all the smug people giving me looks and thinking to themselves what a terrible dog owner I must be. They never seemed to notice that my other dog, a German Shepherd, was the most polite and well behaved dog you'd ever meet.

 

On the other hand, maybe you're on to something when you mentioned teaching him to be more aloof. I know my Lab as a puppy got tons of attention and playtime. Maybe this conditioned him to think that all people were just exciting, walking toys for him. He was actually quite serious in his dealings with other dogs. Hmmm...maybe all you need to do is find someone who's going to be mean to your dog...

[Sunday]

Sekah, Do you have any suggestions for good self control exercises that would help?