Reactive and fearful eight month old

[Jambuel]

I last wrote on here when Alfie was four and a half months old.   For some reason the original post showed hear instead of this so I have edited it.    Since my last post we had been on holdiay and had some very good house sitters who looked after him, at the time he was still sleeping outside and we said he would be OK being left for a few hours if they wanted to go out without him.   But they took him everywhere with him, to café etc which was good for socialising but they spent all their time with him so that made it difficult for me to leave him afterwards because he didn't like being on his own.   He moved into the house shortly after and sleeps well in his crate all night, we do keep it locked though.

The problems I'm having is his reaction when people arrive at the house, he runs to the door jumping up at the window going berserk and barking etc.   If they are friends he settles down quickly when they enter the house, he always tries to jump up at them wanting a cuddle though and we are doing our best to stop this.   We make him get down when he jumps up at us and only allowed a cuddle when invited but he gets so excited he doesn't seem capable of controlling himself.   We tell our friends not to encourage it but some don't listen so we have started to put him on a lead until he calms down.   Then he is great and everyone loves him and is impressed with how obedient he can be when given instructions.

The problem is mainly when strangers come to the house, he has jumped up aggressively at neighbours visiting or delivery people, it is difficult to explain to them what we are trying to do because of the language barrier, and living in the remote french countryside most of our neighbours are farmers who have a different outlook on training, eg beating them into submission.  One has already told other people that he bit her, which he didn't although he tried to and we stopped him.

We also have an old tom cat who has never been friendly to him,  from when he was a small puppy he has hissed and growled and tried to attack him to the point that Alfie is now afraid of cats, our cat mainly stays upstairs but does sit at the top tormenting him and now Alfie tries to get to him and I really think if he does he will actually kill him.   

I work from home but feel that I have to put this on hold until I can train Alfie not to react this way as I have clients coming to the house for complementary therapies and they would feel threatened by his behaviour rather than relaxed by treatments.

I also feel that I am now becoming more isolated because of my fear of him attacking strangers, even going out is difficult because I have to leave him outside in a fenced off area but he has started to find ways to get out and into the rest of the garden which leads onto fields, he always seems to stay in the garden but I can't be sure what he gets up to when I go out.   My husband is going to try and make the fence more secure but he works away during the week and doesn't have much time at the weekend.   Our garden is quite big and would be a huge and expensive job to fence the whole area properly.   His solution is that we will have to find a new home for him if he's causing me so many problems, but I think the only people who would take him would be farmers who do not treat their dogs like pets and beat them during training.

At the moment I am working through the book 'Fired Up, Frantic and Freaked Out' the training is in stages and so far over the last few days he is responding well to training. I've returned to training him on the lead in the garden again as my husband and children have just let him pull on the lead when they take him for walks.   I walk him around the garden at times when I expect the post or visitors so I can try to get him to stay calm, this isn't having much effect yet but I will persevere.  He is reacting to a lot of noises that didn't bother him before and I'm aware he is in his adolescent stage and the vet has advised castration but I don't think this will help.      I am just upset that he may never be able to calm himself and will always be reactive to people.   He is fine with other dogs, so far, he likes to get to know them and cries if he can't get to them.  I just feel like I've let him down and made a mistake taking him in, but I've made the commitment now and we all love him.   He is very intelligent and likes learning/training etc. not too hyperactive, he happily lies around when I'm busy in the house and after exercise and after a few minutes of meeting people, even strangers he calms down and is friendly and affectionate.  I worry though that the initial fear reactiveness may result in someone getting hurt eventually and because he has been like this since we got him at eight weeks old, he may never change.  Is there any hope?

[Mandy1961]

Our puppy Harry is also 8 months old too. He also barks at everything outside, but not at people inside. The only thing I can suggest is can you let your visitors hand feed him so they get to know each other and he will see that they are friendly. Definitely do not agree to hitting a dog, a telling off and and calling “time out” is usually enough for mine to behave. Maybe the barking will get better when you can have him in the house as he is probably thinking he has to protect you and your family.

[Jambuel]

Hi thanks for your reply, the problem is more with new visitors, post delivery men and clients etc.  When friends visit they are understanding and patient and he is fine after the initial contact but I need to address his fear so it won't happen at other times.   I can't leave him alone in the house because he would start chewing things up or go after the cat.    The only thing I can do is leave home outside, he has an access to an outhouse for shelter and olentynof space, I give him a new bone and a treat filled Kong but last week when I had a client he barked on and off through the whole treatment and even though my client didn't seem to mind I was conciliation of it and not everyone would be so tolerant.  Hence me thinking of giving up work for a while.  I'm hoping that my continuously trying to train him and with maturity it will settle down but because he's always been like this Im worried he will never get better.

[Flora & Molly]

We've had a dog in the past that was very fearful of people. We got her when she was about 2 years old. We had a routine for her when people came over. My mother worked from home as a therapist (I was a teenager when we had this dog) and we had a routine for her when people came over. Although her clients never met the dog, but the dog was in the house. She had her safe space, her basket in a quiet area in the living room and this was where she had to be when the doorbell rang and when people came in. She knew no one would bother her there. We instructed everyone to ignore the dog, which we made a little bit easier for people by sending her to her basket. 
We practiced ringing the doorbell and people coming in a couple of times, my sister and I would ring the doorbell and come in, making all the noises a client would make: taking of a coat, loudly talking, laughing, stuff like that.

I am doing something similar with my dog now, but for different reasons. My dog is such a flirt, up to the point that she only complies to my commands for 5 seconds and then it is back to flirting with my guests. I would be fine with her calmly greeting guests, but she becomes too excited and won't take no for an answer. She will go away when I ask her to, but will find another time to demand attention, climbing in my guests laps when they're not expecting it. 

So I have decided she is not allowed to great guests anymore. When the bell rings she has to stay in her basket and isn't allowed to greet my guests. I give her a chew to occupy her with. This has worked wonders. There is still excitement when the doorbell rings, but she now knows what is expected of her and she quickly falls asleep when she has finished her chew. This makes for much better visits from friends. 

I think it might help to have a routine for your dog outside as well. Give him a job to do. My dog loves to hand me things. I have bought a toy especially to stop her flirting with people in the elevator (it really is flirting, with her big brown eyes) and she has to hand me that toy while we are in there. This makes her focus on the task at hand and not so much on the people. 
 

If he is loose in the garden when someone approaches the fence it might be a good idea to train him that if that happens he should come to you. Make it into a job. He can give you a couple of barks to alert you to a stranger's pressence and then come to you. This is of course easier said than done, I realise that. Especially with a dog that is afraid. We didn't have a garden when we had the fearful dog, but this is something we do with all our dogs (especially my mum's dogs because she is a bit deaf and can't hear cars coming or voices calling out at the other side of her big garden). 

It is all about trying to find something that works for both you and the dog. Try training a different routine than what he has now so he can't rush up to strangers anymore. 
Good luck  I am sure someone with more experience with this behaviour than me will come along with some great advice.

 

[Jambuel]

Thank you for your advice, I really would like to be able to get him to stay in a safe place but at the moment he is so fixated on whatever he fears, i.e. the cat (who loves to wind him up) or visitors thati can't get his attention,mi will keep working in it though.

[D'Elle]

Put him in a crate or another room as soon as a visitor arrives and do not permit him to have access to them at all. Clearly from what you say he is continuing to jump on people and this is self-rewarding behavior, even if you correct him, because he still got in the jump. Remove him from the situation so he has no chance to do this.

Then work hard on training him into a calm position. "Go to your mat", "settle" a sit-stay, whatever you choose. Work and work on it. Proof it in all the different rooms of the house. Then, once you get it very solid and he will stay for at least one minute without moving, move on to having one friend who agrees to work with you come to the house. Put him into the stay. If he breaks it when the person comes in, he goes into the crate or other room and has no contact with that person. Repeat. If he stays on the mat for 5 seconds with the person at the door, then he gets praised big time, a treat, and he gets leashed up (so you can control him) and gets to meet the person. If all 4 feet don't stay on the ground, he goes into the crate again. Repeat.

Work very gradually on this and don't get ahead of yourself. He may have setbacks. If he does, go back a few steps and start over from there.  He will never learn to calm himself down on his own. It is up to you to train him in this.

A book that might help is called "Control Unleashed", specifically the "look at that game".

[GentleLake]

11 hours ago, Jambuel said:

...The only thing I can do is leave home outside...

That's just avoiding the problem, not doing anything to curb it.

Follow the training recommendations you've already received here.

Re: the cat, the first problem is that you allowed the cat to terrorize the puppy. You should have supervised their interactions from day one and not permitted the cat to be an ass to the puppy. You still shouldn't allow it from the cat.

[Jambuel]

Thank you for all your advice.    I had a client around today, she has been before so I texted her to say I would have him on a leash when she arrived and for her to ignore him which she did and went straight through to the therapy room.   I locked the cat in the bedroom because he sometimes runs around with clogs on which sets Alfie off.   Alfie barked a bit when my client arrived but was pulling on the lead lot so as it was raining so put him in the lounge with a nice new bone and I put some relaxing music on for him, I didn't take his crate in though so I suppose I did that wrong but although he is getting good at going to his crate when instructed by me, if I where to lock him in it makes him more anxious during the day, but I will work on it more.   

I have been training him towards going to the mat every day this week and the look at that training when we are outside.    I am committed to training him every day and will take onboard all of your advice.   As for training the cat, that's a different matter.   He does get chased back upstairs when he starts. He is a very old cat who should have died two years ago from heart failure but keeps on going, I really don't think he can change to an obedient cat at his age now and his food and litter tray are kept on the upstairs landing so he is confined to those areas which probably pisses him off.

[ShellyF]

I agree with comment above. Just pop him in the crate and for your therapy room visitors he could perhaps get used to the fact that when they come then this is his nap time. 

We have a willing friend who is happy to stand with arms folded looking straight ahead until our 9 month old lies down. He eventually will even though he ‘swims’ around on the floor in excitement. But for visitors we don’t know he goes in his crate. 

Although we are retired now when we want to get on with chores that involve moving about he goes into his crate to switch off. It’s exhausing for them having to be ‘on the go’ all the time and ours certainly thinks that any time we are moving it must mean he has to be alert (unless he’s in his crate).

[D'Elle]

2 hours ago, Jambuel said:

 Alfie barked a bit when my client arrived but was pulling on the lead lot so as it was raining so put him in the lounge with a nice new bone and I put some relaxing music on for him,

You are still allowing him to perform self-rewarding behaviors. Do you want him to bark? Do you want him to pull on the leash trying to get to a visitor? If that is not behavior you want, then don't give him the opportunity to do it. Every time you do, he gets reinforced that this is fun and allowable behavior. As I said before, remove him from the situation with new people entirely while you work on his training. If you don't, you are un-doing all the training work that you will hopefully be putting into changing his behavior.

[jami74]

@Jambuel our living environment is very different to yours but when I read your post I imagine that our boys default reactions would be very similar in the same circumstances. I know that's not very helpful to you but I find it reassuring to know our boy isn't the only dog who can't mooch around gently greeting strangers like long lost friends. Remote French countryside sounds like a lovely place to live.

One thing we've been doing is practicing the behaviour we want when we see strangers, but with someone we know. Like you did with the client, hopefully he'll learn that client = lounge with relaxing music and something to chew. Maybe with time he'll even volunteer to go to the lounge when he hears a client coming.

[Jambuel]

7 hours ago, D'Elle said:

You are still allowing him to perform self-rewarding behaviors. Do you want him to bark? Do you want him to pull on the leash trying to get to a visitor? If that is not behavior you want, then don't give him the opportunity to do it. Every time you do, he gets reinforced that this is fun and allowable behavior. As I said before, remove him from the situation with new people entirely while you work on his training. If you don't, you are un-doing all the training work that you will hopefully be putting into changing his behavior.

I had only seen your advice after my client left yesterday, at the time I was following the rule that I had been told to keep him restrained and tell people to ignore him so he settles without any attention.   You get different advice from different people and  I only saw your post about him self rewarding afterwards.

I am changing all my routines and following the advice here.   I've moved his crate into the quiet lounge and getting him to go in there every time he gets over excited, stressed or misbehaves etc.    

I just have to train the rest of my family to do the same too now which in some ways is a harder task, I think the children are more likely to stick to it now though as they don't want him to go to another home.

[D'Elle]

Jambuel, training other people is always much harder than training a dog. I sympathize with your situation.  I cannot advise on how to handle the kids because I have never had any but it is probably not much different from how to handle adults in that situation. What I have done is sit down with whoever was doing things that undid my training efforts and have a very serious talk with them. I explain that training my dog is a serious business to me, and is necessary in my life as well as being something I love to do. I explain the ways in which a well trained dog benefits from that training: less anxiety because the dog knows what is expected and has no doubts as to his or her place in the scheme of things, a well trained dog can go far more places, everyone loves a well trained dog so he or she will get positive experiences with people all the time instead of negative ones, how the training builds a stronger bond between me and my dog, and so on. 

Then I explain how what they are doing undermines my efforts to give this important gift to my dog and myself. How it works against what I need to do. I suggest it is the same as if they had a garden they were trying to grow and I came and stepped all over it regularly. I compare it to something I may know that other person feels is important, something the other person is working on, and how I could undermine it if I did not treat their efforts with respect.

Most of the time people get it. If they refuse, they simply don't get to be around my dog at all which usually means the end of that relationship, but I don't consider it a great loss, as that person has refused to respect my simple needs which would cost them nothing. I know you cannot do that with your own kid. But maybe this approach might help you with explaining to them why it is important and they need to follow your lead on this.

Best of luck!