[nagdu] Dogs over-greeting; WAS RE: Preventing escapes

Wed May 27 20:04:24 UTC 2009

Jordan,

Mitzi still backslides there, too, especially since Daisy can be allowed to
greet visitors without, you know, drawing blood.  She's actually turned
quite friendly and fond of people, unless they're wearing orange vests.  She
even zipped past my leg and sniffed a UPS guy without eating him.  Good
don't eat the guests, Daisy!

So now she's over friendly, especially once she takes to someone, and we
haven't really started teaching her not to overdo the greeting...  So Mitzi
is back to over greeting, in competition.  Sigh.  It's embarrassing,
especially since Mitzi is supposed to know better, but we don't want to
inhibit Daisy...

So that's the situation as it now stands.  We're starting to bring Daisy
back to a happy medium, where she can greet politely, also to reassure
herself about the new person in her environment, but without stressing her,
which is a trick because of the abuse in her background.  Light tone, all
smiles, everybody's happy here.  That's the only way to go with her.  She's
learned "off," which Mitzi theoretically knows, so we just gently say off
and encourage our regular guests to lightly say "off" and encourage her down
and then pet her.  Same with Mitzi.  Poodles are dreadful over-greeters,
even if they haven't seen you for 5 seconds, so I really don't want her
getting out of hand with the greetings!  She's allowed to super-greet me,
although I usually bend down to pet her and hug her until she calms.  I'm
hardly ever away from her long enough to need greeting, but she's a silly
girl.  Her dad, of course, she goes for the super-ultra-extremo-greet.  As
does Daisy.  /lol/  There is quite the song and dance every day when he
comes home.  It's hysterical.

Anyway, with both of them, I use clicker and food rewards to call them
gently to me and reward them for coming, and I use a gentle "off" command,
as does Wayne.  It helps when you can have your regular visitors go along
with the plan by not rewarding the jump up or whatever overgreeting the dog
does, then rewarding the correct behavior.  With Daisy, we have to remind
them to be careful of tone.  One day she was jumping on one of the neighbor
girls, who used a perfectly acceptable "stern" command tone, and Daisy had a
melt down.  Poor dog!  But now all of the girls know what to do with both
dogs, though sometimes I have to remind them to pet the dogs when they stay
down.  And I use food rewards to distract them and have them perform an
alternate behavior.  The work continues, since we're going really easy on
Ms. Daisy.  Of course, when Mitzi sins, I could just slap her, because the
little snot knows better.  /smile/  She, of course, will get "off" when I
ask her to, but she just looks at me with that "up yours" grin and wags her
tail.  /lol/  Good dog, but extremely snotty.

Good luck.  I have no idea if this helps because I got interrupted, but just
in case.  /smile/

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Jordan F. Ortiz
Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2009 10:50 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] Preventing escapes

Linda Gwizdak wrote:
> Hi,
> I also live in an apartment building where my apartment door opens 
> into a hallway. If people are coming in and out of my apartment, I put 
> Landon either in his crate and zip its door shut or put him on a tie 
> down.
>
> One of my friends had trouble with her dog bolting outside her mobile 
> home to run around the mobile home park. She just couldn't break the 
> dog from this habit.  Well, an instructor from her guide dog school 
> finally broke the dog of the habit of bolting.
>
> My friend has a washing machine right next to her back dooor - the one 
> the dog would bolt out of.  The instructor tied a long nylon line to 
> the heavy washing machine and clipped the other end on the dog's 
> collar.  There was enough line for the dog to clear the steps. The 
> door was opened and the dog bolted out... to administer to itself a 
> HUGE leash correction!  A couple of this treatment later, the dog no 
> longer bolts out the door.  So, that dog has lived to actually retire 
> this summer.
>
> Most of my dogs would go out my door to greet a friend and prompty 
> come back in like he was escorting my friend inside. I don't let him 
> do this much because I don't want door bolting to become a part of his 
> behavior.  Landon likes to hang around with me.
>
> Linda and Landon
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jenine Stanley" <jeninems at wowway.com>
> To: "'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'" 
> <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, May 23, 2009 5:21 PM
> Subject: [nagdu] Preventing escapes
>
>
>> The unfortunate situation in Indianapolis got me thinking and so I'll 
>> ask
>> folks here this question.
>>
>> What steps do you take to prevent your dog from escaping out an open 
>> door?
>>
>> If the dog has gotten out, what did you do to get him/her back?
>>
>> I really do try to enforce the policy that the dog only goes through 
>> a door
>> outside when I give it the command to do so, in or out of harness. If 
>> a dog
>> starts barging through doorways, even ones inside buildings, I'll go 
>> back to
>> the class method and have the dog sit once it's stopped for the 
>> doorway, or
>> bring it back to heel and then sit.
>>
>> This doesn't always make the dog door-proof, but it does help.
>>
>> After shutting one of my dogs outside because I'd removed his leash and
>> harness on the porch while I opened the door, and obviously didn't 
>> give him
>> enough time to get in, I keep them leashed until they get inside.
>>
>> Of course, most instructors will tell you that daily obedience is 
>> critical
>> for just these situations. Do we do it though? No comment. <grin>
>>
>> Jenine Stanley
>> jeninems at wowway.com
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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>
My dog doesn't bolt ut the doors, but she has a greeting problem.  I'm 
not sure if this is off topic, but I need some suggestions (smile).  
Viola has to greet every person that walks in the door.  she does not do 
this calmly or gracefully; she insists on jumping on people and acting 
completely obnoxiously.  She doesn't jump if I have her on leash, so 
unless I'm standing over I can correct her in time for it to count.  She 
will run from any room in the house to jump the people at the door.  I 
don't mind her greeting people if she could just wait to get in the door 
and stay on all four paws.
Jordan and Viola "to Friendly for anyone to handle"

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