Hi everyone,
I have two lovely Bishon Frises that are one year old. They are brothers so I know I've made a mistake there. They are pretty good but when we come in our house we ignore them for 5 minutes(dog whisperer). Leo jumps up continuously and tries to bite your clothes. I yelp and keep turning my back on them. They do settle down after a few minutes but don't seem to be getting any better. Secondly, Leo (again!!) Is fine on his lead when we see people, and is good with recall (only is he sees he is going to get a treat) but if it is something too tempting it doesn't matter if I have a treat he is gone. He will come back eventually and I always praise him but I would like him to come when I ask. Thirdly, if off the lead(Leo) will run up to people and bark at them. He only looks at people when on his lead and I don't want to have to start keeping him on the lead. I always tell the people to ignore him but they don't usually listen and I can't have him chasing and barking at people - the other weird thing is he won't bark at people as long as they have a dog. Thanks in advance for your comments, Tracy
Bishon Frises - welcoming and chasing
Moderators: emmabeth, BoardHost
Hiya
Okies.....
1/ Greeting people when they come in. You have the first part of this right, not rewarding the jumping up.
The reason that its continuing maybe because you havent taught him what he CAN do to get greeted quickly.
I dont hold with this rule that ignoring the dog for five minutes is necessary, but what IS necessary is that the dog understands what he has to do to get his reward, your greeting.
Currently id guess your dog isnt sure what that is, so he continues trying what has worked in the past, jumping around like a loony.
Teach him to do something else that means he CANT do that, so teach him to sit. Bottoms firmly on floors get greeted and rewarded for being good dogs. Jumpy uppy dogs get ignored.
2/ Improve recall.
He has a need to bark at people who dont have dogs. Who knows why, perhaps without dogs they are slightly intimidating, or perhaps he thinks barking will make them magically produce a dog. I know my dogs are rather suspicious of walkers who dont have a dog, they will often run past them and back and search the bushes looking for the persons dog!
You need to teach him to do something else so teach him that seeing dogless people == lovely game with a fun toy, or delicious special treat, whichever he prefers.
Do this ON the lead at first and dont allow him to practice the unwanted behaviour, so keep him on a long lead. When ever he sees people , get his attention on you and keep it with the toy or treats. Use a high pitched voice and make your game very interesting or walk briskly and offer tasty treats for walking along nicely with you.
Gradually make the lead longer and longer adn get nearer to the people.
Whilst you are diong this, get a whistle and teach him to recall to that instead of your voice. Whilstle always means 'i have good things' and if you can get him excited about a really great toy that only EVER comes out on walks. Start this in teh garden and house, then on lead on boring wakls where you dont see interesting distractions, then on a trailing lead, then with distractions,,,,, then off lead without distractions then off elad wiht boring distractions etc etc....
I would also spend time training them seperately with clickers. Get two clickers one for each dog, you can get clickers that sound different so each dog has his own, this means you can then introduce training them together as well.
Clicker training is VERY good especially for sharp clever little dogs like Bichons, you can google for more information about it and have a rummage through the posts on here too.
Em
Okies.....
1/ Greeting people when they come in. You have the first part of this right, not rewarding the jumping up.
The reason that its continuing maybe because you havent taught him what he CAN do to get greeted quickly.
I dont hold with this rule that ignoring the dog for five minutes is necessary, but what IS necessary is that the dog understands what he has to do to get his reward, your greeting.
Currently id guess your dog isnt sure what that is, so he continues trying what has worked in the past, jumping around like a loony.
Teach him to do something else that means he CANT do that, so teach him to sit. Bottoms firmly on floors get greeted and rewarded for being good dogs. Jumpy uppy dogs get ignored.
2/ Improve recall.
He has a need to bark at people who dont have dogs. Who knows why, perhaps without dogs they are slightly intimidating, or perhaps he thinks barking will make them magically produce a dog. I know my dogs are rather suspicious of walkers who dont have a dog, they will often run past them and back and search the bushes looking for the persons dog!
You need to teach him to do something else so teach him that seeing dogless people == lovely game with a fun toy, or delicious special treat, whichever he prefers.
Do this ON the lead at first and dont allow him to practice the unwanted behaviour, so keep him on a long lead. When ever he sees people , get his attention on you and keep it with the toy or treats. Use a high pitched voice and make your game very interesting or walk briskly and offer tasty treats for walking along nicely with you.
Gradually make the lead longer and longer adn get nearer to the people.
Whilst you are diong this, get a whistle and teach him to recall to that instead of your voice. Whilstle always means 'i have good things' and if you can get him excited about a really great toy that only EVER comes out on walks. Start this in teh garden and house, then on lead on boring wakls where you dont see interesting distractions, then on a trailing lead, then with distractions,,,,, then off lead without distractions then off elad wiht boring distractions etc etc....
I would also spend time training them seperately with clickers. Get two clickers one for each dog, you can get clickers that sound different so each dog has his own, this means you can then introduce training them together as well.
Clicker training is VERY good especially for sharp clever little dogs like Bichons, you can google for more information about it and have a rummage through the posts on here too.
Em
