Puppy snaps when given 'in your bed' command

[Newmum]

Hi,

firstly thanks all who helped with my first post here about my bitey pup, for a while now she has learnt biting is not cool through positive training and only tries to softly mouth when she rolls over for a belly rub, dunno why she needs to chew something when she gets a belly rub but I usually just give her a toy when she wants belly rubs.

Puppy is now 5 months old. I am only training her through positive training, she is crate trained and hasn't had an accident in the house since her first week home, she's also pretty good at not chewing things she shouldn't so I was thinking about trying to teach her to settle on a dog bed instead of crating her for things like when I'm home but doing something but can still keep an eye on her, such as being on the computer! I still want to use the crate until after adolescence while I'm out or cant give her enough attention to redirect her when she's getting in trouble. I also thought teaching her to settle on a bed would be good as she's not very good at admitting when she's tired but will zonk out if I put her in her crate for a nap. We've had no problems with her accepting her crate, she doesn't whine in there or protest about going in her crate.

So I went and bought a dog bed. The first day to build a positive association with the bed I gave her a stuffed kong and later a pizzle on the dog bed, she stayed on the bed and ate them, she has a kong everyday and she's been getting it on the bed since then. I also put her favourite toy in there. The next day I started to throw treats on the bed and point, telling her good girl when she went to get them, if she stayed there she got another treat. I then started to add a cue 'in your bed' and point, treat when she went there. The last 2 days during training I've told her 'in your bed' and she snapped at me. She wasn't going to bite me, just a warning snap in the air. I thought the 1st time might be a one off due to tiredness or something but after she has done this today I decided to not ask her to do it again in case she thinks she's not getting her point across with the snapping and escalates it to a bite. I did not react when she snapped, just stood still and didn't look at her and didn't ask her to do it again, I then asked for a sit and she did and I treated her and we carried on with our normal training commands just fine.

For some reason she does not like this command or sees it as a threat in some way but I cant figure out why as I'm pretty sure I've tried to teach this command in the right way? Also if I give her a kong on the bed she will mostly stay on the bed to eat it so I don't think she doesn't like it. When I crate her I walk to her crate point inside and she goes in, then she gets a treat, she is fine with this, I did try to add a cue word to her crate but she wasn't or didn't want to get it and the walking to and pointing in works so I dropped trying to word cue her in. I'm not sure what I've done wrong so any help is very much appreciated. For the meantime I'm just taking that command off the training list.

[emmabeth]

I would think something about the way you give the cue is to her, coming across confrontational/aggressive.

I'd suggest you do it in a mirror if you have a full length mirror, or have someone film you give that cue, without your dog there, and then watch and see if you can pinpoint some body language - possibly its raising your hand and pointing if you are doing that?

Well done for listening to her though and stopping and assessing whats going on - sometimes these things can be a bit baffling!

[Newmum]

thanks for the reply. It is abit baffling but I'll maybe kneel or sit beside the bed and try to pat the bed like I do when I invite her on the sofa. Should I also now change the cue word as she maybe has already built some kind of negative association with that phrase? If my laps available for a nap she'll always choose that but its not possible with the computer desk no matter how much she insists there's room there really isn't! Weird thing is this morning when she was on my lap and I stood up she went and laid down in the bed and looked at me for a treat. I have moved the bed, maybe she prefers it there. If she has the same issue when I change my body language should I just leave this command? Ideally I would like her to have a settle command but maybe I should wait till she's got use to the bed more?

[OnceInAWeil]

Yes, I would try luring her onto the bed or otherwise changing your posture and using a less imposing gesture.

Could also be that this is an excited, playful snap? Some dogs, when excited, will snap in the air but it's not aggressive at all.

[Newmum]

It is possible that its a playful snap but she doesn't do this for anything else and I cant tell the difference I guess so I thought it best to not continue. Even if it is a playful snap I'd think that's something I'd want to encourage her not to do anyway?

[JudyN]

It is possible that its a playful snap but she doesn't do this for anything else and I cant tell the difference I guess so I thought it best to not continue. Even if it is a playful snap I'd think that's something I'd want to encourage her not to do anyway?

I agree - if it's a playful snap, it still suggests some level of anxiety which she's having to release, so you want to avoid that. I'd drop the cue for now. Maybe, rather than kneeling by the bed and patting it you could throw a treat on it from a distance and, if she seems OK with it, say 'bed' (or some other word) when she goes on the bed. Once she's used to the bed as a 'good' place to be and a little more mature and settled generally, you'll probably get better results with teaching a settle.

I had thought of doing agility with my dog but even though he was fine if I asked for the regular commands in the garden, if I asked him to go over even a very low jump, he would then grab my arm. Ask him a couple more times and he'd be jumping all over me I don't know why that was different for him, whether there was something different about my body language, but I just decided he wasn't cut out for agility after all

[Newmum]

Thanks for the reply Judy. I have been tossing treats on the bed and she goes over happily and even stays in the bed as she knows she'll then get another treat. Twice today while I've been doing something near her bed she's gone in it of her own accord and sat or laid down and I quickly got a few treat both times. She seems to get that its a good place, I think it must just have been my body language or something. I haven't tried actually adding a command to it yet and I'm probably going to wait on that for a while until she has a very strong positive association with it. I think I'll just have a cue word and no signal then I'll know its not something I'm doing with my body if she reacts the same way again. In the meantime I'll just enjoy being her snuggle buddy on the sofa and continue using her crate for other times.