Puppy occasionally growling at kids and occasionally jumping

[JaimieBurns]

Good afternoon!  
      Would love some guidance on this. We have a seven month old golden retriever with a very mild mannered and calm temperament who we would love to train to be a service dog when he’s old enough. He has been socialized with dogs and people since he was young and in general is calm when greeting others. Occasionally he jumps and would love to know how to manage that behavior as it is not always predictable and not super frequent but still want to nip it in the bud. He often jumps when people are too excited petting him or leaning down to pet him. If people ignore him initially or are calm with him he doesn’t jump on them. He doesn’t jump on family members. 

      Would also like guidance on growling. We have two children aged 9 and almost 7. Our youngest is a higher energy person and sometimes struggles not to be high energy and excitable with the dog. He has growled at our son a handful of times mostly if he tries to kiss or hug him or pets him too intensely. I have taken the approach to correct our son and try and train the dog to be more comfortable with those touches. But if we want him to be a therapy dog there may be times when people are excited around him or touching him with higher energy and wouldn’t want him to growl at them or for the dog to be uncomfortable either as I feel he is trying to tell our son to stop. The other day our daughter tried to move the dog onto his back from his side and he growled at her. Again I’ believe the dog was uncomfortable with how she moved him and I corrected her and started working with the dog on being moved in different ways for training. I would like guidance on whether the dog should also be corrected or just the children and how to continue to train him to be comfortable with different touches and energy levels of people.

     Thanks! We love the brain training for dogs program!

 

jaimie 

[Adrienne]

Hello and welcome to the forums,

How wonderful that your golden has a calm temperament and you are planning on training him to be a service dog! I will be tackling the two issues you are facing in two different posts. 

So let's start with the jumping. It sounds like he is doing pretty well greeting others but, sometimes he still manages to jump on occasion. It would be important being very observant and finding out why some specific people seem to evoke the jumping behavior. It seems like though you have already identified this, when you state that he struggles more with people who are too excited or lean down to pet him.  I have found that dealing with this type of problem requires management, low-level exposures and the collaboration of the people you are exposing him to. So here are some general tips/guidelines:

-Avoid Physical Methods

This is just a general note, since there are websites (and even some dog trainers) still advocating physical and outdated methods.  When dealing with dog behavior problems, it's important to avoid any physical or intimidation-based methods. Pushing a dog away, grabbing his paw to unbalance him or using the knee to block/move him away may increase a dog's arousal. Using the hands or legs can therefore make a dog more hyper as he perceives it as an interactive game and a form of attention (dogs find all kinds of attention reinforcing, even if it's of the negative type).

On top of this, correcting a dog physically risks potentially leading to a dog who bites defensively which is a much greater and labor-intensive problem than dealing with a dog who is simply jumping.

-Prevent Rehearsal of the Problem Behavior

Just as actors rehearsing a play get better and better in performing the more they practice, dogs get particularly good at acting overly excited the more they get to practice the hyper jumping when greeting behavior. The age-old saying "practice makes perfect" applies to dogs as well. Therefore, try your best to prevent your dog from rehearsing the overly excited jumping behavior as much as you can. Management is imperative and goes a long way in these cases.

For example, if you have guests who make him hyper when they enter the door, keep your dog on leash at a distance from your guests or behind a pet gate or baby gate. If your dog jumps on certain people he meets on walks, don't stop to talk to them or at least stay at distance from these people so that your dog doesn't feel compelled to jump.

In other words, avoid putting your dog into overwhelming situations that you know have caused jumping behaviors in the past. "When in doubt, leave it out," just simply avoid exposing your dog to overwhelming situations.

So the main goal of management is to prevent rehearsal of the problem behavior. It can be used for those times when you do not have time to train or when you are in the early stages of training.

-Create Systematic Set Ups

Dogs who get overly excited during greetings to the point of jumping benefit from a plan that involves desensitization. Desensitization is a behavior modification technique that entails presenting stimuli or situations to the dog in such a way that they don't evoke the problem behavior. You can read more about this behavior mod method here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/desensitization/

The dog is therefore carefully exposed to less intense situations, which increases the chance that the dog remains under threshold and in a better "learning state." Here is a read on dog thresholds: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/

The goal is therefore to use of baby steps, breaking down tasks into smaller, easier to assimilate ­components and then practicing in more ­manageable chunks as things get better.

In the case of a dog jumping when greeting, this would mean exposing the dog to people at a distance that doesn't evoke the overly excited behavior so that the dog remains in a calmer state and is more capable of learning how to better cope with his emotions.

Systematic set-ups can therefore be organized with a few volunteers. You can enlist the help of some friends to meet casually on walks at a distance. Friends should be instructed to not talk to your dog or look at him and to maintain a certain distance. They should only talk to you and make contact with you and keep the encounter short. Friends can be also invited over to do the same. No talking or making eye contact with the dog, while your dog is on leash at a distance or behind a baby gate.

Such setups are very important because here's the thing: just as rehearsing hyper behaviors makes them stronger, it’s equally true that rehearsing calmer, less hyper behavior makes these stronger too, which in this case, is exactly what we want!

-Train an Alternate Behavior to Focus On

Once your have found that sweet spot where your dog acts calmer while o leash at a distance, it's time to put his brain to use. Arm yourself with the tastiest high-value treats (keep them in a bowl by the door when receiving guests or in your pocket or treat bag when on walks) and offer these contingent upon the dog practicing a desirable behavior that your dog was previously trained to a fluent level (like a solid sit or down).

If he is too hyper on leash, keep him behind a pet gate for the first few minutes until your guests are seated and he is an a calmer state.  Then let him out on leash, ask him to perform a few behaviors, reward them and then place him back behind the pet gate with something to keep him busy and happy for some time.

If you are walking your dog, practice several steps of attention heeling (dog walking as he looks up at you as explained here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/heeling-attention-heeling/ 

Do this as you walk by them at a distance, and lavishly praise and reward him every few steps. When you stop to talk with these friends at a distance, you can ask your dog to sit at a distance, reinforce that and then ask him to do a couple of tricks and then drop a few treats every now as you chit-chat or let him tug with a toy for a bit and then leave explaining to your friend that your dog is in training and you need to resume your walk.

Keeping the encounters brief and fun will help your dog succeed and lower the chances that your dog may revert to his old jumping antics. Don't give a chance for a setback to blur a nice progress!

-Be a Splitter Not a Lumper

"Be a splitter, not a lumper," is a common saying among dog trainers. This simply means, breaking tasks into smaller steps rather than going for big chunks. Make things easy-peasy for your dog.

So start practicing by exposing to people at a distance who ignore your dog, then work at closer distances (those that don' evoke jumping), then start adding some slight challenges, like people who look at your dog, people who talk to your dog.

Remember this very important rule: if your dog jumps at any time, take it as a sign that you have progressed too fast and he wasn't ready for that level of distraction. You will therefore need to take a few steps back and expose to less overwhelming forms, and gradually build up from there.

For example, if your dog did well not jumping on people who ignored him, and also did well with people who looked at him, but now tried to jump on the first person who tried to talk to him saying "Hello!"in an excited, loud tone, go back a few steps and practice with this same person ignoring him, then looking at him, and then saying "hello" from a distance in a calmer, lower tone, then closer in a less calm voice, until you can build up gradually to your dog not jumping on the person saying "hello!" in the original excited, loud tone.

If your dog struggles with jumping when greetings guests, break the behavior in smaller components. For instance, with your dog on leash train you dog to sit by the door, then progress to sit with the door open, then with a volunteer taking one step through door, then with the volunteer entering, then entering with an excited voice etc etc. All the pieces need to be broken down and if your dog jumps, find out what triggered the jump, take a few steps back and add further intermediate steps as needed to reach that level of intensity with your dog sitting calmly.

Make sure to use high-value treats to reward calm, desirable behaviors such as not jumping, ignoring the person or even better sitting. If your dog isn't very fond of being touched, I would skip having people touch him/pet him for now. We need to thread with caution here because some dogs may jump to stop certain interactions or to deliver a muzzle punch which is meant to increase distance rather than decrease it. 

-Enroll in Canine Good Citizen Course

If you have the chance in the near future (COVID 19 permitting) enroll your dog in a canine good citizen course that prepares you and your dog for the canine good citizen test. This is a great first step for service dogs. In this course, your dog will learn many great impulse control skills such as to accept the presence of a friendly stranger (with whom you shake hands) without jumping. The training at subthreshold levels is very important. Your dog in a better thinking-state and therefore learns to stay calm.

-Avoid Uncollaborative People

You may find that training dogs not to jump involves training people as well. During training, you will want people to ignore your dog. If your tries to jump or your dog jumps, your helpers should stop approaching or even turn their back if the dog persists. 

If possible, stay away from people who won't follow your directions. Some people will want to give loads of fuss even when dogs jump up on them. They may tell you that it's OK for them if your dog jumps on them and some may even question your training. Avoid these people until your dog is better under control.

-Encourage Calm Activities

Dogs who are prone to getting overly excited by certain people benefit from learning how great it feels to feel calm. These dogs benefit from learning the perks of lying calmly on a mat. Here is a video demonstration on how to train it: how to train your dog to lie on a mat.

It also helps a lot to train dogs how to better cope with their frustration and learn to control their impulses. Here are some ways to improve a dog's impulse control: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/impulse-control-frustration-tolerance/

Brain games, clicker training, foraging opportunities, nose work are all great activities that help dogs stay practice calm behaviors.

-Think About it as Re-Wiring Your Dog's Brain

Think about the whole project as a way to "rewire your dog's brain." His brain is now on automatic mode "gotta start jumping when greeting excited people" and you want to rewire it into "gotta stay calm and engage in some other activity despite the distraction." You will need to therefore find ways to re-wire his brain to seek other forms of engagement that compete against the reward he is getting from jumping up on these people.

You can start with organizing some easy games and activities when meeting people on walks or when guests are over to defuse the initial excitement. Such games provide food without much thinking involved (dropping treats when you stop to talk to a friend on walks, giving a dog a cookie that takes a few minutes to eat while guests come in and sit down, playing a treasure hunt game https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/elementary/the-treasure-hunt/when guests come in or the bottle game -which  most pups can't resist this game. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/high-school/the-bottle-game/

Afterward, once the excitement is defused, one can then gradually move to obedience cues that require more thinking (hand targeting, going to the mat as guests come through the door, having the dog hold a sit-stay) https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/stay/

Finally, a word of caution. As mentioned before, not all dogs jump because they are happy greeters. In some circumstances, dogs may jump to put distance with certain people. These are classified as anxiety-related behaviors that are distance-increasing. In other words, the dog jumps to put more distance rather than decrease it. They are saying to people 'go away"  rather than 'come closer and pet me" and since jumping makes some people really move away, dogs may continue jumping since jumping has helped accomplish their goal. These dogs need more behavior modification than actual training to better control their excitement and eagerness to greet people. 

[Adrienne]

With growling upon being touched, especially in a household with children, it's important to really thread with caution. Hugging and kissing should be avoided for safety. This because dogs do not understand hugs and kisses in the same way us humans do. 

Dogs belong to a category of animals who unlike primates, do not use hugging among each other. Unlike humans, dogs do not carry their offspring in their arms. Actually, placing paws on faces, shoulders or backs is considered rude behavior that's sometimes somewhat tolerated from puppies (who haven't yet developed canine social etiquette) or during play following special meta-signals that emphasize that the pawing behavior is part of play and not to be taken seriously.

What does a hug feel to a dog? Let's put ourselves in their shoes. For starters, when a dog is being hugged, he is taken away the option to leave, so this may cause him to feel trapped and defensive. Add on top of that that the face is placed close to his, we place our arms around him and sometimes even squeeze, a whole stimulus package that can make dogs negatively react. Among dogs hugging is not a natural behavior.

How dogs react to human hugs may vary between one dog and another. Some dogs may have learned to associate being hugged with attention, treats and sweet talking, others may just benevolently tolerate them, and some others may actually dread them, turning into the canine version of ticking time bombs who may eventually explode at some time (that means they'll eventually bite).

Kisses are also not very well understood by dogs. When a dog is kissed, it means bringing our faces very close to theirs, something that not all dogs are comfortable with. Dogs don't kiss and bringing the mouth near them only resembles an intent to bite. 

Kids often feel tempted to hug and kiss dogs and this is a factor as to why children are also the most common victims of dog bites. Because children may not recognize early warning signs that a dog is about to bite, they are particularly vulnerable. 

A growl is an early warning sign, it's a dog 'using his words" and informing that he may next decide to bite. Important is to never suppress warning signs by scolding the dog. Here is why: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/growling-never-suppressed-dogs/

Here is a read about early signs of aggression and Kendal Shepherd's ladder of aggression: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dogs-dont-bite-blue/

I believe that since your dog is still very young, he would benefit from some behavior modification exercises using desensitization and counterconditioning done under the guidance of a  behavior professional using force-free behavior modification methods, however in the meanwhile, it's important to put everyone's safety first.

Ensure you children refrain from hugging and kissing or moving your dog in certain uncomfortable ways. Avoid people from petting your pup if he doesn't seem happy being handled. Watch your dog's body language and aim to keep your dog under threshold. The more your dog feels uncomfortable around children/people, the more he'll tense up when around them when instead we want to pave the path towards creating lots of positive associations to the point of obtaining a conditioned emotional response. The behavior professional will also likely be able to conduct an assessment to determine whether your dog is a good candidate for becoming a service dog.  

I hope this helps!

Best,

Adrienne 

Disclaimer: behavior modification comes with risks. If your puppy or dog shows signs of potential aggression (lunging, barking, growling, snapping, biting) for safety, please consult with a dog behavior professional (DACVB, CAAB or dog trainer specializing in aggression) who uses force-free behavior modification techniques for direct in-person guidance. Articles, videos and general info found in the forums or course (or any online source) are not meant to replace in-person training/instruction. By using this course and forum, you are waiving any liability claims or other type of claims related to any dogs' behavior against you or others.

[JaimieBurns]

Adrienne

   Thank you so very much for your comprehensive and helpful advice! You are amazing at what you do and we feel lucky to have found this great community! Thank you!
 

jaimie 

[Adrienne]

You are very welcome, keep me posted on your pup's progress!

Happy training!

Best,

Adrienne