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littlen

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Please has anyone got a cure for the whining before my ears are permanently damaged.

My younger bitch although lovely And normally very obedient is very very excitable at the moment. To the point she’s actually ran off in excitement a few time’s which she has never done before. I think she’s become a little impulsive for some unknown reason as she’s never had any problems with behaviour in the past. Like I say, no aggression or deliberate naughtiness just excitement bubbling over.
When I take her anywhere there has always been a little bit of of whining in the first few minutes/pulling into the car parks etc but she’s taken it to a new level and it’s almost a scream at times now which can last a while.

It’s not at home, but when we somewhere exciting (woods, yard) or if she’s tied up for a moment while I turn out/bring in it starts and never stops until I go back to her.

I would like to shape up her general obedience levels so I can trust her a bit better but I’m not sure the best way to go about it. Her recall is spot on usually and she understands all basic commands when her head is screwed on. She’s not motivated by treats and toys are banned on walks because they cause her to loose her head and she won’t carry one anyway.

From the outside I would say lack of exercise but she’s ran a fair amount and has plenty of stimulation !!

Any thoughts on how to stop this and train her to wait with a little more patience?
 
What age is she? Nothing much is unknown in dogs, there will be a reason somewhere ;)

What do you do to try and stop her, now?

If she whines and acts like a prat and you still take her out and do all the things she gets excited about anyway, and it's happened over a prolonged period, then you've not taught her that she's doing anything wrong, you've reinforced the behaviour. Now it's annoying you, and you want to do something, so it will take a lot longer to fix. If she is very wound up, she won't be able to learn in that state. She needs to learn how to learn.
Screaming when left alone can be a pretty normal neuroses for GSDs, we often forget to train them how to be on their own without folding.

We can get into how to build food drive if you want, but I find the vast majority don't really want to make their dog 'work' for their food - this is why treats become unimportant, they're already too full and they know they're going to get fed anyway. What I read from your post is that you are not the source of fun, or good things, everything else is, and you might need to work on reworking your relationship and do a lot of focus training and engagement before you do anything else. I know you're probably worried about driving her loopy, even if you have banned toys, you can play with her, and a lot of the time chewing and holding a toy can help them decompress, it's a calming behaviour, and it can be taught.
If you truly want to stop it, I wouldn't do anything until she is quiet. Anywhere. When she starts the merest whisper, everything stops. It will be long and boring and it might or might not work, depending on how long it has taken to become reinforced. You will need clear markers and excellent timing. If you want her to have more patience, you will need to have more patience too, but if your priority is getting the horse sorted and getting her walked, then it might just be something you're going to have to live with. If everything, including you, slow down, then she might have more time to think.

I come at this from the point of view of having an extremely vocal dog, I didn't do the things I was told to do or put the work in with him when he was young, I just wanted to plough on, and have been suffering the noisy consequences ever since. I know a close relative of his, his owner spent a year working on noise alone, no other training, as it bled into absolutely everything else, it's not always just noise, it's also the state of mind that they are in.
 
Nothing better to add than what CC has said, only that you may want to get some expert help here. I find that (making sure you are rewarding the calm behaviour not rewarding the bad behaviour with a treat/toy) timing is really the key.
 
Thanks CC, very useful!

She’s almost 2 and already speyed so not hormones.

She’s a really lovely dog, quiet and settled at home and rarely barks. She can be left at home quite happily without making a sound. I take her to work and she is more vocal and stressed there so I try and avoid doing that much.

I have a second dog who she is obsessed with which I think has hindered her training as she finds it hard to concentrate without him being around. He is definitely number one in the priority list with me second which was good in terms of leaving her and also that she has learnt a lot of his good behaviour but also bad as she’s never been alone.

At the yard they are tied up together. He sits and waits while she screams the place down. I’ve tried just leaving her to it but I think it would go on a while. I’ve also tried putting her in the car and she was quieter there but it seems a shame to be stuck in the boot when she could be outside!

We banned toys outside and she grabs the other dog, nips him and chases him like a lion hunting a zebra. If I take 2 or even 3 toys she will only go for the one he has and no others. At home they have toys/antlers/bones and she isn’t bothered about them at all. The older dog was getting very frustrated about this and it caused a lot of tension. I can’t throw a ball as she would go for his ball (or nip him!) and he would not tell her off.

She has 0 interest in food. She often does not eat for 24 hours and is not interested at all unless it’s chicken or something like that! I’ve just been out and bought some to start the new plan.

So where do I start? Leaving her or basic obedience and then work up to that? Her recall is good, her heel is good and she knows what I want from her but life is too exciting and she can’t concentrate at all.

I thought about agility but I think her brain may explode. We have done basic obedience With a trainer which she’s fine with however applying it into the real world when she’s so easily distracted is a lot harder.
 
Not hormones now, just maturity. You have the dog you have, it is how she is.

Mine is also mute at home, as you have identified, it is nerves/stress/excitement and it leaks out in that way, through vocalisation.
The problem with leaving them to it, is it's a self-rewarding thing. It's comforting. And you always come back, or she always goes for a walk.

It certainly sounds like she needs more one-to-one time without your other dog. She may be totally reliant on him for confidence and when she is alone without him she is constantly looking for that back up - the confidence has to come from you. I see this a lot in dogs that live with others at home and then come to training, when they are out without their 'gang', they become very insecure.
The nipping and grabbing and wanting the other toy is again, fairly normal for a young GSD. But you can see she has prey drive and I would be manipulating that a lot more, as if you say she isn't interested in food (that might also be a stress thing, running off adrenaline).

I would slow everything down, everything, change how she looks at the world if you can, as at the moment it sounds like everything is a bit too crazy, teach her that it is ok to be out on her own without the other dog.
I am a very high energy person with a very high energy dog and it was a little too late before I realised how my behaviour and energy was affecting his. I can safely say he did not really 'learn' anything at all after the age of three. Everything that followed was square-bashing. As I said, I was advised by someone much more long in the tooth than I, to do no training, nothing, for a year, except for stopping the noise. I did not. I should have done!
As I said, the noise/leaking is often a symptom of something else. My other dog is noisy, but not in the same way, it's much more jocular bow-wow-wowing and 'come on, you boring tart, let's go and do something/where's me dinner?'.

I would not start any formal training, just go back and try and rewire things. Make everything slow and calm, give her space in her head before she can start learning. Nothing happens, at all, until she is quiet and calm. Don't rush, it takes thousands of repetitions for most dogs to learn a behaviour.

When I say stress, it's not an indictment on your ownership or a bad thing, it just is, and it's often genetic.

If you have a trainer already, then you might want eyes on you to make sure your timing is good, as Ranyhyn has said.
 
Thank you CC that makes a lot of sense.

If we do the ‘boring’ walk then things are a lot more controlled, we have the usual minute or so of leaping around and then she quiet happily bounces around the place by herself but the excitement shows itself if for example we pass a dog and I clip them on, once the dog has passed she starts whining as she knows she will be off lead again soon.

She is not used to being on the yard, this is a new thing as we have moved yards so I think it’s probably overwhelming for her at the moment. I would really like her to just be calmer in general around the farm, I don’t need her to go to crufts in obedience just sit still for 5mins while I turn out, easier said than done!

She has a very high prey drive and will chase anything that runs. I don’t let her off lead around strange dogs as apparently these are also for chasing and understandably owners aren’t happy about this 🙈 Luckily her recall is good enough that she always comes back well before we are near a dog except the odd time we have been surprised. Once she’s off that’s it she is deaf until she returns so I need to catch her before then.

My old boy would love me to walk her without him just for the peace I think but she is very worried and insecure without him. She does not enjoy walks an an only dog at all but I am planning on doing some training sessions without him.
It’s been good that she’s so obsessed with him in a way as I’ve been lazy and recalled him when she won’t come back as I know she won’t leave him for long but that hasn’t really taught her anything just made my life easier.

So when she is tied up it’s basically her whining, yapping and spinning until I go back to her when the excitement explodes out and she’s diving allover. So I should say with her while she’s calm then gradually move away?
 
It may be that she believes she is 'operating' you or the world with her actions and her noise. She may think she is doing entirely the right thing!
I scream: lead comes off.
I scream: Mum comes back.

How do you approach or act when you rejoin her?

With my own dog, one of the very few things I cured properly was the downstay with me out of sight.
I had a second person on a second line to reinforce the actual down.
Going back and rewarding over and over again made it worse, the separation then the rejoining over and over again drove him even more crazy. So I rejigged it in that, the minute he was quiet, I clicked and came back and he got all of his food, all of it, the whole allowance, not just one or two bits of kibble then disappear and send him crazy. Then if I was making my way back and he sparked up, I would leave again. So it turned out that noise - Mummy goes away.
In these ways, I created a behaviour where he stared at a point quietly for a long time, then I magically appeared and gave him a lot of food. His behaviour triggered the reward.
Having said all of that I had a marker system in place where he knew what promised a reward and what meant he wasn't doing the thing that brought the reward.

Also bear in mind that a lot of dogs these days can't cope with leash pressure/being restricted and that might be an additional thing you need to work on. They need to be taught that pulling away from the contact makes the discomfort, instead we inadvertently teach them the lead is the cause of the stress and to try and escape or evade it.
It's like pressure and release with horses, we never seem to apply it to our dogs.
 
Maybe I should start with a solid stay and work up to leaving her. She’s so impulsive she has found stay very hard in general.

She can just about manage a wait command, as in wait for a few seconds but that’s about it. Even sit is done hovering above the floor waiting for the next thing 😂

So for now I will work on the stay and also try and brush up recall so I can get her back when she’s off running riot!
 
If sit is done 'hovering above the floor' work on the sit before the stay but you need to work on calm before anything else.
I agree she need to learn to cope and be in such a place mentally that she can focus and work without the other dog present.
How would she cope if he needed to stay at the vets or when he goes? It's really not fair to allow dogs to be so reliant on each other.
It's not fair on him either, if he would enjoy time without her the spend the time with him.
 
Twiggy luckily I work at the vets but if she was to stay in she would have to be sedated.

I appreciate I need to split them to a point but I don’t know how to do it without distress to one of them.

He is happy to go for walks without her, but she can’t be left. If I leave her at home and walk him she would scream the place down.

I could walk her without him however he would be distressed at us walking without him. He would be okay if husband was home with him but he works away so he’s not always there. He’s an old boy and I don’t want him left alone upset but it makes things harder to do I agree!

They are okay split at home, one will happily sleep upstairs if one is down or whatever but they know when one has left the house.

I’ve always had multiple dogs and never had this issue before! I thought about number 3 to solve some of these problems but I need her training up to scratch before I commit to that.
 
littlen said:
Please has anyone got a cure for the whining before my ears are permanently damaged.

My younger bitch although lovely And normally very obedient is very very excitable at the moment. To the point she’s actually ran off in excitement a few time’s which she has never done before. I think she’s become a little impulsive for some unknown reason as she’s never had any problems with behaviour in the past. Like I say, no aggression or deliberate naughtiness just excitement bubbling over.
When I take her anywhere there has always been a little bit of of whining in the first few minutes/pulling into the car parks etc but she’s taken it to a new level and it’s almost a scream at times now which can last a while.

It’s not at home, but when we somewhere exciting (woods, yard) or if she’s tied up for a moment while I turn out/bring in it starts and never stops until I go back to her.

I would like to shape up her general obedience levels so I can trust her a bit better but I’m not sure the best way to go about it. Her recall is spot on usually and she understands all basic commands when her head is screwed on. She’s not motivated by treats and toys are banned on walks because they cause her to loose her head and she won’t carry one anyway.

From the outside I would say lack of exercise but she’s ran a fair amount and has plenty of stimulation !!

Any thoughts on how to stop this and train her to wait with a little more patience?
Click to expand...





MY ex husband was a GSD police trainer. A Form of humane punishment is to fill an empty tin ( washed out baked beans tin or SMA tin) with a handful of stones or pieces of slate. Make sure that there is either a lid on it or that the top of the tin is secured in some way. When your GSD misbehaves, you shake the tin, hard, 3-4 times and a very firm NO. You must do this consistently for a few days even if you have to take a small tin out with you wherever you go with your GSD or have one in your pocket at home so the that’ when she does whine or misbehave, you are not spending a couple of minutes looking for it and the moment is lost. You must only ever chastise in real time and not a few minutes later as your GSD will not understand what he/she has done wrong if you don’t do it straight away. As with most dogs, their learning period is generally over by 18 months old so if not corrected before then, you maybe wasting your time. The reason for this being so effective is because a dogs ears are 500 + more sensitive to sound than that of humans so the noise of the stones on the tins surface will actually cause them a little distress ,not enough to hurt or damage but certainly enough to fear it being used so consistency is key for the first week and by the second week you should have solved it. Good luck !
 
I'm no professional trainer but I wouldn't be using that training method listed above. The last thing you want to promote is a noise-shy dog.

The best lesson I learnt when teaching the sit-stay was the sit-stay was never followed by a recall - I always returned to pick him up to heel (until he could sit and stay without anticipation). He could happilly sit and stay at 12 weeks but around 4-6/7 months he started anticipating and his bum was coming up off the ground, when I spoke to the breeder she asked what my next move was and when I said I was recalling him she explained I was teaching him recall not a sit-stay and once I changed it he then stopped anticipating :)

Hope that helps!!

I get what you mean about the multiple dog issue, I have three and I took him on his own to training and always train alone as they put him off and he'll do the same with toys as yours so rest assured you're not alone!
 
Ranyhyn said:
I'm no professional trainer but I wouldn't be using that training method listed above. The last thing you want to promote is a noise-shy dog.

The best lesson I learnt when teaching the sit-stay was the sit-stay was never followed by a recall - I always returned to pick him up to heel (until he could sit and stay without anticipation). He could happilly sit and stay at 12 weeks but around 4-6/7 months he started anticipating and his bum was coming up off the ground, when I spoke to the breeder she asked what my next move was and when I said I was recalling him she explained I was teaching him recall not a sit-stay and once I changed it he then stopped anticipating :)

Hope that helps!!

I get what you mean about the multiple dog issue, I have three and I took him on his own to training and always train alone as they put him off and he'll do the same with toys as yours so rest assured you're not alone!
Click to expand...
IT doesn’t create a noise shy dog
Seriously have you ever heard a noise shy Police GSD ?
 
One of my trainers was a former training instructor, and not a fluffy one, and he never suggested using a rattle tin outside the home, for a pet or sport dog, in my experience. Police dogs are selected from good nerved stock and in their basic training get more thrown at them than the average dog does in a lifetime. It's also unfair on the other dog.
We know nothing of this dog's genetics or if she is noise sensitive.

Also a great point from Ranyhyn, we are often pulling our dogs out of position rather than going back and rewarding/reinforcing.
 
Jacksprat999 said:
IT doesn’t create a noise shy dog
Seriously have you ever heard a noise shy Police GSD ?
Click to expand...

I've known of dogs getting binned from the basic course for a variety of environmental sensitivities.

Also, the police need results fast. It's a totally different training ethos and a whiny/barky police dog in drive, isn't an unusual thing.
 
She’s a very fluffy pet type, soft as muck no drive at all. Not the brightest spark in the box either!
I don’t think noise would bother her in fairness, she’s the type to watch fireworks than be scared but old boy is the opposite and spends his life terrified of being in trouble.

I’m going to spend the next few months working on the stay!
 
Cc she knows go and lie down or go to the kitchen. Other than that she’s pretty much a free spirit at home. I know that’s bad but she’s never given me reason to crate her. Infact I’ve never really used a down command much as I’ve not needed it until now.

Hopefully she’s not too old to train now!
 
littlen said:
Maybe I should start with a solid stay and work up to leaving her. She’s so impulsive she has found stay very hard in general.

She can just about manage a wait command, as in wait for a few seconds but that’s about it. Even sit is done hovering above the floor waiting for the next thing 😂

So for now I will work on the stay and also try and brush up recall so I can get her back when she’s off running riot!
Click to expand...

Work on the sit command and make her sit (properly!)😀 Reward. Ask for sit, take a step back with the wait command & return to dog & praise. Build up the amount of steps you take back - only build it up once the dog waits. If she moves put her back in position & start again. Baby steps.
 
You need to take them out sepearately. You need to either leave her at home when you do the yard i.e. where she is settled or have your focus on her i.e. training her to sit quietly - many dogs find being tied up where they can see but not interact very frustrating.
I'm afraid you have made a bit of a rod for your own back letting them do everything together.Happily I find one to one attention often quicker than you think to solve issues.
You will need to find one to one time with her daily, pref several times a day to work on being calm. A trainer may be essential
 
Maybe the tin with stones idea is more appropriate for a police dog that must be highly trained (although it does seem a bit harsh). Have you tried brain games for the GSD to try and tire her out a bit before you take her out, I've read mental games can tire a dog out more than physical exercise at times. If you can get rid of some of her energy at home maybe she'll be calmer outside
 
Thanks to everyone who has offered advice!

It’s not a problem that’s the end of the world, it’s annoying as it means she may not be able to come to the yard with me which spoils her time outside. Also it means she spends more time on lead which she finds frustrating. Ultimately I just want to make life better for her by training her a bit better! She’s not a bad dog as such just a bit over excitable.

I am really really reluctant to leave her at home alone. She finds this extremely distressing and my trainer has said with separation anxiety then leaving them to stress is possibly the worst thing that I can do but really I’m no expert.
She’s not destructive but she really is a mess when she’s alone and I think it would be cruel to leave her in that state. She can just about cope without other dog if I am there but definitely not by herself.
This means I can’t really take him out for 1 to 1 work which is a shame for him but he really isn’t that bothered as long as he gets a walk- typical male 😄

I could do 1 to 1 work with her in other areas of the house and garden for now until she improves hopefully!

I think I could do more with them both in terms of brain work etc. A small child, horses and full time work has pushed them out a bit but now I am working nights and have moved the horse to somewhere else so much more time!

I will speak to a qualified behaviourist about what to do for the best. I really do want to make her more independent but with minimal stress to her if I can help it.
 
You could teach her to settle with something very tasty stuffed in a Kong (or something similar), have a staircase up and give him the same on the other side of the staircase, to start with stay on the same side of the gate as her and when she reliably settles when given the Kong then stand on the other side of the staircase with your back to her, it may take a long time to get to the point you can do some calm sit work with him on one side of the gate whilst she is on the other side with something to occupy her but it will be a start.
My comment about the vets was what would you do with her if he had to stay at the vets, sedation carries risk and it's avoidable in situations like this if you spend time getting them more independent of each other.
The tin with training is not appropriate for any dog and you definitely can't train a dog that is anxious with fear all you are doing is causing shut down as they fear showing their anxiety-what sort of person thinks that's ok? You need to change how a dog feels about situations not just stop the behaviour that is inconvenient to you. That's not aimed at you OP.
 
So this morning we started as we mean to go on.

Took about 30mins to get out of the front door calmly.
Managed to walk calmly to the field.
She sat and waited nicely until her lead was off.
Then bombed around for 5mins screaming and shouting until she calmed down 🤦‍♀️
After she settled we did lots of recall for a treat which did work well and by the end of the session she was coming back much sharper. I have also realised she can do ‘wait’ quite well, I counted up to 10 seconds with her sat in one position and me facing the other way about 5 paces away which isn’t a lot I know but it’s a start.

I’m planning on taking her on the driveway this afternoon and working on it a little more, she can work here without other dog and she often sits outside with me when he prefers to be inside so I think that could work as a starting point.

Also, old dog thinks this is the best thing ever as he keeps coming for a treat at the same time 🤦‍♀️

Hopefully she can learn something at her age, or at least enough to be a tiny bit more sensible!
 
Sounds good, don't rush it :)
Don't forget not to unwittingly reward calm behaviour with allowing her to exhibit hectic behaviour, if you see what I mean! Try and keep things clear and separate in the beginning.
 
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