How do you train the I dont believe in personal space dog?

[Chachie]

Other than incorporating the use of a cattle prod?

Just kidding.

But seriously, our 8 month old BC/GSP puppy does not believe in personal space. If you pet her, she crawls in your lap. (We push her down and walk away or turn our backs.) If you call her, she jumps in your face and gets an elbow or knee in the chest. She walks on your heels and jumps at your side.
With the Dachshunds, she sleeps on TOP of them, gnaws on them as they walk, when they retaliate, she thinks they are playing.

She’s awful.

She is smart and knows settle down. She gets time outs when she becomes too overzealous. She wears a choker and knows heel. When she jumps, she gets pushed down or kneed.

She gets rewarded for being good and reprimanded and then ignored wgen she gets invasive. Time outs in her cage when its too much. She knows she’s been bad and will out herself in hecage. She gets to run the farm daiky and plays hard with Mr. Chachie and the Weanie dogs when shes good abd gets a time out when she takes it too far.
But the concept of personal space? Weeell… its not getting through as quickly as it should. Shes velcroedto you 90% of the time, always tripping someone or getting stepped on or getting her face bit because she just doesnt let an inch between her and anyone else.
Any suggestions?

[Chachie]

Other than getting a phone with working spellcheck! Jeez oh peats sorry for the typos!!

[hastyreply]

I thought you were talking about a Lab, my daughter’s lab is like that has no respect for personal space. He’s gotten better with age but there was a lot of “outing” and ignoring. My working dogs are good about personal space, they are so sensitive. Sounds like it will take time, your doing the right things.

[Chachie]

She’s both smart and submissive, which are good but she can be a bit hard headed too. She’s got the “you talkin to me?!” look down pat.

I’ve met lots of labs like her and most owners just ignore the stuck like glue dog but it never seems to help.

It doesn’t help that she is cute and smiley when she does it.

Sigh…puppies

[bits619]

Lol and I thought you were going to say you had a weimaraner
Our boy’s preferred spot would be inside our ribcages, but he’ll settle for our laps. All the time. Or his nose inches from our faces while we sit. Juuuuust watching.
What has helped us, because he was a horrible jumper/in your face puppy, is teaching self control in various forms. Stay (in sit, down, and standing… And omg is it difficult for him. But also ALWAYS giving him a release command when done, always), a Leave it command as well as a ‘take it’ command, and an ‘off’ command which is backing up four steps.
Also, especially when he was younger and more horrible we would only pet him when he was calm (ha!) and only spoke to him minimally during petting with a calm voice. Attention was a calming event, not an invitation for utter chaos and hooliganism
As far as jumping on you while you walk, ignoring the bad and praising the (rare) good moments did the most for fixing that. It was hard to praise/reward him at first because over-doing it would just revv him up, but we’d ignore that and only give a calm good boy.
Teaching self control, desired alternative actions, and making a point to reward the good (it can be hard because the bad behavior is so obvious but good behavior is how it should be, non-invasive and thus easy to not notice) will help lots.

But there’s a good chance your dog will never not be underfoot/velcro. Our weim WILL stand between our legs if we stand still, he WILL be leaning his butt on our knee if not allowed to cuddle, and he WILL jump up to be within petting distance if we walk from one room to another. If I allow him to climb up onto furniture uninvited one time, he will take that as an open invitation for the next few weeks, whether I have a plate of food on my lap, work clothes on (he doesn’t know!), piping hot coffee in my hand, whatever. All my others, if allowed uninvited once and denied the next time, are like, oh okay, guess that last time was a fluke! The weim needs consistency in a way I didn’t realize!

[Frivian]

1 thing… I was under the notion that when crate training you should never use the crate as a punishment because then the dog will think of the crate as a negative place rather than a happy, safe place. Just throwing that out there.

[S1969]

Sounds pretty normal for a sporting dog puppy. That’s what we like about them.

I’d train “off” and “down” and use them consistently, and then reward - with attention, not just food.

How much exercise is she getting? How much mental exercise? you’ve got a handful of active dog there…if you’re not giving her good hard physical and mental exercise, you’re fighting a losing battle.

[IdahoRider]

I have had good luck with teaching young, spazzy dogs replacement behaviors. If they get over stimulated on a recall and lose their mind, I teach a solid sit or down. They learn that coming means sitting/downing. Have a clear idea of what you do want the dog to do and then break that down into teachable chunks of behavior.

My Aussie knows to sit and offer her paw, because that was the only way we could keep her from flinging herself straight up in the air, to eye level, and squealing like a stuck pig.

I kind of like my dogs to climb into my lap, but only when I offer my lap. So teaching off, or out, has been helpful.

Anyway, teach solid behaviors that you do want and solid obedience skills for those times when they need help replacing one unwanted behavior with a behavior you do want. With some dogs it isn’t enough to teach what you don’t want (don’t jump, don’t bark, etc.). Some of them need to also be taught what you do want.
Sheilah

[Big_Grey_hunter]

Our hound/bc isn’t quite as bad as you describe, but close. The biggest things that have helped are:

1. Teach a reliable sit/stay or stand/stay(wait until she’s solid on the sit/stay, this one is much harder!), even while getting attention. It forces him to stay in one spot while we move to him for attention. If she moves, give a quick ‘ah ah’, ask her to sit and resume attention once her butts on the floor
2. Teach a reliable back/back off. If he starts getting in our bubble, he has to back up a few steps. DON’T push or she’ll push back by instinct. Teach the command in a non physical, non reactive situation, and expect her to back away without you touching her. Once she’s solid on this command, then introduce it to non-training situations Remove your hands, tell her to back, and continue attention.
3. Teach go lie down/go away (separate commands for my dog, but either would work). When my dog just can’t focus, he gets sent away. This works much better than removing yourself, because it forces the dog to think, listen, and learn that the attention resumes only when they CHOOSE to give you your space
4. Jumping wasn’t a problem with our dog, but for that problem, teach her to sit whenever she approaches someone. Don’t push her away or otherwise touch her until her butt is firmly on the ground.

In addition, don’t get in the habit of pushing, pulling, kneeing, shoving, blocking etc. This reinforces the need for physical contact and is actually rewarding the behavior. If she climbs on top of you, rely on voice, body language, and training to get her to choose to back off, instead of being forced to back off. You need to train with a hands off approach so she has to think instead of just reacting to pressure.

[Big_Grey_hunter]

Just to add- with submissive dogs, positive is ALWAYS better than negative. If I’m too negative my delicate little dog just shuts down and won’t learn anything. He’s so apologetic he just wants to crawl in my lap and wiggle his way to forgiveness. Especially when he was younger and super high strung, he’d get himself all worked up and shut down over stupid little stuff. If I ignored the bad, replace it with a good behavior and praise, he learns SO much faster.

[threedogpack]

@Chachie;7464259

Just kidding.

But seriously, our 8 month old BC/GSP puppy does not believe in personal space. If you pet her, she crawls in your lap. (We push her down and walk away or turn our backs.) If you call her, she jumps in your face and gets an elbow or knee in the chest. She walks on your heels and jumps at your side.

so, what exactly, does the perfect dog look like in your mind? Then pick one of those behaviors, train it-reinforce it-train it some more and when you have that solid move to the next one.

For example, if you pet the perfect dog and she sits quietly in front of you, train a sit-in-front, without petting first, then add the touch when you get a solid sit in front. Very often with insecure dogs, touching them is what amps them up, which is why I say get the sit in front first.

[Bicoastal]

[QUOTE=threedogpack;7465453]
first, then add the touch when you get a solid sit in front. Very often with insecure dogs, touching them is what amps them up, which is why I say get the sit in front first.[/QUOTE]

You hit on potential insecurity. OP, is the dog groveling? Then punishment may increase her desire to be on top of you, so she -in her mind- can properly apologize.

[Chachie]

Bear with me, I’m typing from my phone.
First, I encourage all of our dogs to use their crates as their own personal space. I do use he crates as time out and extreme punishment because it reinforces good dog behavior by allowing them to return to our space once they are settled. She is getting this idea.
I have taught her to sit in front and wait for my command. It’s the rest of the clan who needs to get on board with it too. That’s a hole I’m working on.
I’m the alpha in my house, and she recognizes this so she looks to me for encouragement and for permission. She is learning to “leave it” and it is 50/50 but thats better than nothing for now.
I reward her for being quiet and leave her when she is obnoxious. I am with her 90% of the day so again, getting Mr. C and Little C to follow through is challenging but they are getting it too.
She gets mental exercise with her treats, learning to do stuff like ring the bells to go out, shake, as well as just doggie fun for all when we wrestle or tug of war. She runs the yard and farm around the house but not at the barn or fields. She gets physical exercise a plenty.
Our only problem is the velcro dog and submissive piddling.

[wendy]

Our only problem is the velcro dog and submissive piddling.

getting rid of the constant punishments and your “alpha dog” mindset will probably correct the submissive piddling. The whole concept of “alpha dog” was discredited decades ago.

The most effective way to train a dog is to “catch the dog being good” and then reward the dog. Or teach the dog 'what to do" rather than punishing the dog for being bad.

Kneeing or knocking a dog down for jumping is totally ineffective, as I’m sure you’ve noticed- the dog keeps jumping up, right? plus your violent responses to what is a very submissive puppy greeting is almost certainly contributing to her submissive piddling. Teach the dog how to politely greet people- sit and wait. Teach the dog to do a “front” or a “heel” when called instead of jumping.

If you don’t want the dog in your lap, only reward the dog for being on the ground. If you don’t want the dog bumping into you, reward for doing something incompatible with bumping into you.

Might want to get rid of the choker, too- least effective method ever invented for teaching a dog to do anything, plus cause permanent neck damage. Should never be used on puppies regardless of your opinion about yanking adult dogs around by the neck.