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Anybody else have a perpetually bad dog? A Marley type?
We have one and he constantly disobeys us. He's sweet, but he acts very stupid and stubborn. He's a basset hound on top of that. So his size can cause problems. He tears up the blinds, knocks people down, drags people across the yard. He whines by the door because he wants to go out right now. He grabs things off the counters and knocks over the garbage. He's so full of energy and he's so stubborn. Any idea of how to break him of this? Will he ever be a dog that behaves? He just does things and doesn't think about the consequences.
We love him, but it's very frustrating. Nothing seems to work. The other dogs don't do this as much. It's just him. Sometimes I tie him up outside for a while (he loves to be outside), but I can't do that late at night (because he will bark) or when it's very cold/wet.
Anybody else have a perpetually bad dog? A Marley type?
We have one and he constantly disobeys us. He's sweet, but he acts very stupid and stubborn. He's a basset hound on top of that. So his size can cause problems. He tears up the blinds, knocks people down, drags people across the yard. He whines by the door because he wants to go out right now. He grabs things off the counters and knocks over the garbage. He's so full of energy and he's so stubborn. Any idea of how to break him of this? Will he ever be a dog that behaves? He just does things and doesn't think about the consequences.
We love him, but it's very frustrating. Nothing seems to work. The other dogs don't do this as much. It's just him. Sometimes I tie him up outside for a while (he loves to be outside), but I can't do that late at night (because he will bark) or when it's very cold/wet.
Any advice on what to do with our "Marley?"
Thanks.
What type of training has he had? Also, how much exersize does he get. My Bella is bad when she hasn't been walked.
He hasn't had any professional training. But when he does something wrong, we pull him away from whatever he's doing and tell him he's a bad dog. Sometimes we tie him up outside.
We have a cage we used to put him in, but since the move, we haven't bothered to get the cage out yet. The thing is, there's usually someone home, so you wouldn't think we would need the cage. But you need eyes in the back of your head to watch him all the time. He's like a giant two-year-old kid. He's always tearing something up, crying about something, or eating something he shouldn't.
Believe it or not, he's improved a little bit since we first got him.
He's gentle and loving, and great with kids. But he's difficult to handle sometimes because he just doesn't listen to anything we say. If he does listen to you, you have to say it three times.
I'm just not sure what to do with him. Should I just wait for him to get old, fat, and lazy? Will he improve with age?
You should look into training classes. But POSITIVE training classes.
Pulling him aside and telling him 'bad dog' is useless. Your dog doesn't speak English.
You'll learn how to reward him for behavior you DO want and redirect him from behavior you DON'T want WITHOUT scolding or 'corrections.'
Look for a class that uses ONLY positive methods: NO SCOLDING, NO 'corrections,' No yanking on the leash, NO pushing him into position and NO alpha rolls.
Everything you want for him can be accomplished with positive methods. Take a look at Pat Miller's 'The Power of Positive Dog Training.' A GREAT book. But it would be best if you took him to a class. Interview several trainers. If they use 'corrections' or yanks on the leash or alpha rolls, find another one. Positive training is FUN!!! And it really works!
My pug has never heard the word 'no' and earned his Canine Good Citizen title at the age of 9 months using ONLY positive methods. Also look at the book, 'The Other End of the Leash.' Another GREAT book.
He's not bad, but his behavior is pretty consistently challenging and unpredictable. I attribute this to his history of being shuffled around in rescues and fostered, adopted out and returned more than once, and just generally having had a life filled with nothing consistent but inconsistency itself. Add to that the fact that he's coming up on two years old, and the fact that he's a mixed breed, and the breed that evidences the most visible and noticeable dominance (beagle) is one known for strong-willed temperament. He didn't get training from an early age, he didn't even have a consistent home from an early age, and he has a fair amount of anxiety, and just plain a lot of energy. We do make sure he has loads of exercise, but it doesn't seem to take the edge off.
I'm pretty familiar with the psychology behind what essentially amounts to positive training. I work with behaviorally disordered children as a career, and the positive training method is pretty interchangeable with the positive reinforcement system used in applied behavioral analysis, the method I use with the kids I work with. However, thus far, while I can clearly see from the data I take how reinforcing positive behavior while ignoring negative behavior works to improve child behavior, I've seen no such indication with my dog. "Catching them being good" and pouring on the positive attention/allowing them to access treats and other preferred things works awesomely with kids to increase the behavior you want and decrease the behavior you don't. However, with my dog, it's a crap shoot, thus far. No matter how much praise and stroking and how many stuffed Kongs and flavored Nylabones and cheese cubes and games of tug of war with rope chews he accesses through being a "good boy," He's just as likely to run to the next room and rip an appliance cord to shreds or work elaborately to get at items he wants that have been places out of his reach, causing mayhem in 0.03 seconds. He responds to only a few commands, and even then, only briefly. I'm very familiar with behavioral redirection, as opposed to saying "no" and as opposed to scolding. The problem is that it only works if it's one hundred percent consistent, and you will NOT always be there to catch your dog doing something you need to redirect unless you have your eyes on your dog 24-7 and he/she is crated, tied, or otherwise confined when your attention is not totally trained on your dog and nothing else. If you are sitting watching TV with your dog next to you on the couch, and the timer for the oven goes off a room away, and you get up momentarily and your dog gnaws the remote in the interim, you weren't there to redirect the behavior. And you've now inadvertently given your dog the idea that it's acceptable to do that, because no redirection was given while your attention was momentarily diverted.
I've also found that if one negative behavior does, by chance, taper off with him, it's generally replaced by a new negative behavior. Like, stopped clawing at the door, now chews holes in bedding, after months of sleeping at foot of bed without any instances of chewing, etc. It's emotionally hard and emotionally exhausting to think you've sufficiently addressed one behavior, only to have it replaced by some new behavior.
Animals act out for reasons, just like people do. I'm figuring it's just a matter of trial and error to find and respond to the potential reasons for the behavior, but it takes a TON of time and patience (just like it does for kids with severe behavioral issues), and most of the time, it feels like putting out one grassfire while another ignites. I do lots of reading, including from a lot of the sources mentioned on this thread, and am always researching...and I'll learn things and apply them adn be hopeful...but my hopes usually come crashing down when I look up from whatever I'm working on, and see that, although when I looked up five minutes ago, he was happily chewing appropriately on one of his toys, somewhere in the last five minutes, he's abandoned the toy next to him and started in on the furniture leg.
He is like your dog in that he needs to be constantly supervised with a hawk eye, or he will be destructive/get into trouble/get hurt. To this end, we crate him when we are not home. But because he's crated during the workday, it sucks to have to entertain the idea of crating him when we ARE home. But we learned the hard way that, if you lose him from eyeshot for a few seconds to, say, cook dinner (or check your e-mail, or take a phone call, or take a crap, or read a book), he'll do something he shouldn't. The only time we can ever be sure that he's not wrecking something is to be seated on the couch with him curled up next to us with his head resting on one of our laps (which is exactly where he wants to be, at all times), while we stroke his head and ears. If this is not occurring, he's either getting into something or looking for something to get into. As nice as it might seem, sometimes, for after-work life to consist of nothing but lounging on the couch stroking the dog, that's not realistic. It sucks to think that anytime that can't be occurring, he needs to be crated, though. Seems like he should be able to be trusted while we're home, without having to have all eyeballs on him at all times. Not reality, though, as we've sadly found out.
At this point, I don't know if he'll be able to be trained out of his misbehavior, and I don't know if he'll grow out of it. I'm just trying to be as patient as possible and hope for the best/ That's how it goes when you decide to rescue a dog with a history, I'm thinking. But besides rampant misbehavior, and presenting very frustrating and heartbreaking, at times, challenges, he's also loving, cuddly, affectionate, interesting and fun.
He's a papered basset hound. We're his third owner. His first got rid of him because he ate pills. The second loved him but couldn't have him inside the house all the time.
Our dog doesn't chew as much anymore. He's mostly grown out of that. But he breaks blinds. Since he's been fixed, he doesn't pee on potted plants anymore. But he is very frustrating. Fortunately, he is asleep on the couch right now, and he usually sleeps through the night. But it is difficult to correct the behavior. As soon as you notice it, he's already done it.
I do think they get nuts with the winter. Mine needs a lot of exercise and is luckier than most someone is home with her 24/7 and she gets many walks. But in the brutal cold you just can't say "I am going to walk the dog like I do in Spring or Summer or Fall." You just can't do it. Not up here anyhow.
All I can say is to repeat a tired dog is a good dog. However, getting a dog tired takes A LOT of time and effort if you have a high energy breed.
Also, the dogs need to know what you want from them. Often it is a communications problem. My dog has taken to sleeping on our beds (I only allow her on top of the bedspread). Well, I just went up to check on her and she had dug a nest on my side of the bed (of course) pulling down the spread and she was sleeping on my blanket. I shooed her off and remade the bed. She ran away into my son's room and went to sleep on his bed.
My hope is that he'll grow out of destructiveness/become secure enough in his home with us that some of his anxiety will dissipate. He's still young, and he's still adjusting to this adoption. But we just don't know. He could be this way for life.
I try to remind myself of all the GOOD things he does:
-He never poops in the house
-He stopped spraying pretty quickly when he settled in
-He routinely poops on his walks
-He acclimated to leash training pretty quickly (had not been leash trained when we got him, and pulled enormously)
-He rarely barks, bays, or howls (awesome for a predominantly beagle mix)
-He is good-natured and gentle, not a nipper or biter
-He is good around new people, so we don't have to worry when out in public with him, he's affable and friendly.
-He is not a picky eater and has no food allergies or intolerances that I've seen, yet, so we don't have to buy him or make him costly specialty food.
-He doesn't fight with other dogs, so we can travel with him to visit relatives who have dogs without stress
-He rides well in the car (a godsend, since our shortest drive when we visit family is 7 hours in the car)
-He's playful and loving
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