Pup attacking OHs bike boots!

V

Vicstress

Well-Known Member
Joined
5 August 2010
Messages
2,795
Visit site
So our little border girl is settling well but still seems to not be able to cope with OH when he has his black motorbike boots on...she barks and nips his jeans/boots! We've told her firmly 'no' and then ignored her.....worked for a few days but happened again today! She was very timid when she moved in a week ago and is like a different dog now....still shy but 9 times out of 10 she's much more outgoing and will say hello to people on walks.

Just wanted to hear other people's experiences....she's very bright so don't want to reinforce bad behaviour or have to buy OH a new pair of kevlar jeans :-)
 
Be firm with her, dont remove her from the situation just say ahah in a very firm voice, when she leaves it, praise and make a fuss of her. Our Lancashire Heeler puppy would nip our heels(its a breed trait) and we applied the above and she soon stopped it.
 
Exactly what we're doing so we shall keep going :-) tbf we thought she was over it today but I think she gets grumpier when she's overtired! !
 
I'd try the other approach- try giving her a treat before she attacks the boots.

So he comes in with them on, treat for her, then distract her with a toy.
 
Just do what you're already doing. The boundaries you give and consequences mean that she will be able to understand right from wrong, know what is and isn't expected of her and she will be better mentally satisfied with that approach.

Just positive reinforcement can give mixed signals. I will go out on a limb here and say this...

When I did canine behaviour therapy as a job, every dog I came across that had been trained only with positive reinforcement had issues that stemmed from confusion and stress. The moment dogs are made aware of what is unwanted, they will be stress free with that situation.

Obviously that is a generalisation and there must be many great balanced dogs around that are the result of positive reinforcement only training. I just haven't met them yet ;-)

Use it, but use consequence and boundaries too :-)
 
OP it sounds like you thought she had already learnt not to do it but as she gets older and bolder she will try it on, you are doing the right things, sometimes they take a bit longer but keep doing what you are doing and she will get it eventually.:)
 
I think it's the first time she's ever felt settled and not nervous so I've warned OH she's going to be a witch. Oddly she seems to be bonding strongly with him....just doesn't like his boots :-)
 
GG sounds like some of the kids I've worked with! Sometimes they just need a rollicking, other times ignored and other times given the benefit of the doubt!!
 
_GG_ said:
Just do what you're already doing. The boundaries you give and consequences mean that she will be able to understand right from wrong, know what is and isn't expected of her and she will be better mentally satisfied with that approach.

Just positive reinforcement can give mixed signals. I will go out on a limb here and say this...

When I did canine behaviour therapy as a job, every dog I came across that had been trained only with positive reinforcement had issues that stemmed from confusion and stress. The moment dogs are made aware of what is unwanted, they will be stress free with that situation.

Obviously that is a generalisation and there must be many great balanced dogs around that are the result of positive reinforcement only training. I just haven't met them yet ;-)

Use it, but use consequence and boundaries too :-)
Click to expand...

Exactly this ^^^ hear hear.
 
Have you tried a taste deterrent such as bitter apple or even Vicks vapour rub. Apply liberally to the apes being chewed and hopefully he will learn it tastes horrid and stop.
 
There is no reason why you cannot try a number of things:
- distraction: try a favourite toy, chew or start some incompatible with biting training (e.g. sits or downs) as soon as your OH starts to put on his chews. That way the behaviour is avoided.
- if the behaviour does start, reward any moments when she is not doing it, this should strengthen the 'not doing it', over the 'doing it' behaviour
- use a 'stop what you are doing now' command as you are already doing. Personally I prefer 'uh-ah' as 'no' is a word in very common usage and dogs can easily be desensitised to it. The key to this one is consistency, i.e. any time you use the word 'uh-ah' and the dog does not stop the behaviour you have to follow through. So everytime you have to get up and disengage the pup from biting your OH's shoes. IMO you have to do all this very calmly, without shouting or big body movements otherwise you turn the whole thing into more of a game.
- you can also try ignoring the behaviour completely but if it's fun for the dog it's self-rewarding and unlikely to stop.

Out of interest _GG_ could I ask how it's possible to have dogs that are trained with positive reinforcement that have not come across negative punishment? It doesn't even seem theoretically possible, so I can't quite picture what the owners did in practice (unless the owner was so confused they rewarded all behaviours regardless, which does explain the dog's confusion!).
 
Booboos said:
There is no reason why you cannot try a number of things:
- distraction: try a favourite toy, chew or start some incompatible with biting training (e.g. sits or downs) as soon as your OH starts to put on his chews. That way the behaviour is avoided.
- if the behaviour does start, reward any moments when she is not doing it, this should strengthen the 'not doing it', over the 'doing it' behaviour
- use a 'stop what you are doing now' command as you are already doing. Personally I prefer 'uh-ah' as 'no' is a word in very common usage and dogs can easily be desensitised to it. The key to this one is consistency, i.e. any time you use the word 'uh-ah' and the dog does not stop the behaviour you have to follow through. So everytime you have to get up and disengage the pup from biting your OH's shoes. IMO you have to do all this very calmly, without shouting or big body movements otherwise you turn the whole thing into more of a game.
- you can also try ignoring the behaviour completely but if it's fun for the dog it's self-rewarding and unlikely to stop.

Out of interest _GG_ could I ask how it's possible to have dogs that are trained with positive reinforcement that have not come across negative punishment? It doesn't even seem theoretically possible, so I can't quite picture what the owners did in practice (unless the owner was so confused they rewarded all behaviours regardless, which does explain the dog's confusion!).
Click to expand...

I tend to use uh uh as well - always have done. I think what GG means is when people train purely on the positive. ie dog nips, ignore and then when dog stops, give it a treat. Never really been a fan personally but each to his own!

Satinblaze - she's not chewing as such and not sure OH will put vicks on his motorbike boots :-)

She did it to him this morning when he had black work shoes on - it's definitely a black shoe thing as she tried to do it to a chap on a walk the other day....she's obviously a very special dog!!
 
Vicstress said:
I think what GG means is when people train purely on the positive. ie dog nips, ignore and then when dog stops, give it a treat.
Click to expand...

That's two behaviours and two reactions:
Behaviour 1: dog chews, Reaction 1: ignore and withhold reward - this is negative punishment
Behaviour 2: dog stops chewing, Reaction 2: reward with treat - this is positive reinforcement
Only the second of these is positive reinforcement.

The fundamental principle behind all instrumental learning (whether you opt for pos R/neg P or for neg R/pos P or a mix of both) is that the probability/frequence of behaviour is affected by the consequences that follow it.

I don't quite see why rewarding/withholding rewards is liable to confuse and stress the dog, while punishing/terminating punishment is not.

I am sure _GG_ will explain what he/she meant though!
 
Thanks GG for making that point.

There are dogs out there who self reward so if you ignore them, they will still get their reward. I cannot ignore running across a road after a cat, for example.
I would also never ignore a dog biting someone's feet.
Ignoring it is not enough of a consequence for some dogs and if the dog has not learned how to learn (I only get the things I want - food/ball - when I execute a certain behaviour or DO NOT exercise a certain behaviour) then it is definitely not enough.
How many of us give free play with balls and feed the dog at the same time every day regardless, then train over the top of that and expect the same toy or same food to have higher value? If they are going to get those things anyway, then they won't work *quite* so hard a lot of the time.

What does your OH do? Is it treated as a game? Does he laugh? Does he immediately leave the room when she does it? Both of these things will reinforce what she is doing.

I would get after my own dog for attacking boots, but that's me.

Having said all that, if I knew it was going to be an issue, I would not set the dog up to fail by allowing her to get in there and start attacking the boots before I tried to then start fixing it.
You have only had her five minutes, it takes thousands of correct repetitions and markers for the average dog to pick up a behaviour and you have assumed she has 'got it' and understood it was the wrong thing to do, after a very short space of time.
The simple answer is for him to take his boots off before he enters the house or put them on outside/in the hallway.
 
Last edited:
CaveC I'm not expecting an overnight cure ;-)

We've left boots in hallway and she's not bothered by them....it's definitely boots as she went to fly at some poor bloke today.

For now she's back on lead and I am now sitting with her and when someone with boots go past I'm stroking her and saying 'leave' before the grumbling turns into a bark and the cycle starts....I'm thinkigof it like my old tb....when I felt him tense I'd kick on amd reassure rather than let him get tothe point where he napped.

OH tells her firmly 'leave' but once she's in the frenzy it's difficult to stop. Ifound today that she responded quickly when I leant down and said 'leave' when she went to nip the guy on the walk so she was under no doubt who I was talking to.

She'll get there but I guess I was just concerned that I wasn't doing the right thing but seems we are.
 
Ps....to be fair how can anyone know that a dog they've had for 3 days is going to launch at someone's boots? There was no warning and we've been dealing with it consistently since..... we haven't ever let her do it!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top