Way too Friendly

[LeeMedic]

We have a 9 month old Golden Retriever and just loves meeting new people. When he does, he jumps all over them and mouths them. His mouthing is innocent but recently he caused a skin tear on my neighbor from jumping up on him and mouthing him. He has scared unsuspecting people from his lunges towards them. When he is around children, he wants so much to play with them but knocks them all down and begins licking them. He ends up scaring them. He now weighs about 70 lbs, and has enough weight to really hurt someone, also he is totally friendly.

We have tried the ignoring step during this behavior, but have not had much luck. We need some real help!!

Darnell

[LeeMedic]

Anyone have any advise for me? I really don't Sergeant to hurt anyone just because he is too friendly.

[Noobs]

Can you give a little more background info so that we can help you out?

Tell us what his daily routine is like. How much exercise (mental and physical) does he get? What kind of training do you do with him? What do you feed him, how much, how often?

Sounds like you're right, he's way too friendly and doesn't know how to control himself.

When he was a puppy, was he allowed to greet people by jumping and climbing up their legs? Cute when he's little, not so cute now that he's big.

So give a little more info and the folks on here can help you out.

[LeeMedic]

Can you give a little more background info so that we can help you out?

Tell us what his daily routine is like. How much exercise (mental and physical) does he get? What kind of training do you do with him? What do you feed him, how much, how often?

Sounds like you're right, he's way too friendly and doesn't know how to control himself.

When he was a puppy, was he allowed to greet people by jumping and climbing up their legs? Cute when he's little, not so cute now that he's big.

So give a little more info and the folks on here can help you out.

Sergeant has had formal behavior training the normal sit/recall/place/ect. Yes when he was little he was alway excited to meet new people and loves children to death.

He is well socialized as we take him to doggie-daycare several times a week where he is allowed to run with other dogs of different sizes and breeds for hours on end. When we pick him up from daycare, he is totally worn out and sleeps for hours.

We feed him high end/high protein foods such as EVO canned stew for breakfast and Orijen puppy chicken. We have a large yard, and he is allowed to run free when we are outdoors which is often since we live in Florida. We take him to to the dog parks and a dog beach often so that he may burn off energy.

Even our Vet has complained about his exuberance whenever we take him in for checkups. We are so afraid he is going to inadvertently seriously injure someone or a child. Sergeant is such a loving dog. At one time we had considered using him as a therapy dog because of the love he shows to others.

I am a paramedic and my wife a 911 dispatch supervisor, and I must say Sergeant is hardly ever alone. He mature quickly when he was a pup and has had run of the house since he was 4 months old with very few accidents. We have never had a problem with him chewing or damaging our home.

Even with wearing an Easy Leader collar he is difficult to control when greeting others.

[Leigha]

What seems like "a lot" of exercise for us, isn't always enough for dogs. I'm not saying that you're not giving him enough exercise, just that sometimes dogs require a lot more than we thought they did.

I'm sure there's a better way to teach the self control, but I can tell you how our trainer taught us to do it. First we mastered loose-leash walking so he wasn't pulling us to get to the person. Then when we got to the person we'd put him in a sit/stay. If he could greet without jumping he got a treat, if he jumped it was "uh oh" and walk away.

We also had to explain to the person that he didn't like to be touched on his head, to pet him on his chest or shoulder. If someone reaches over his head he ducks and jumps back, so if your dog is uncomfortable about those things you need to say so otherwise it's not fair to your dog to be forced to do something he didn't want to do. What ended up working better for us is when we got to a person we put him in a sit and when he was comfortable, he'd get up and sniff at them.

[Noobs]

What seems like "a lot" of exercise for us, isn't always enough for dogs. I'm not saying that you're not giving him enough exercise, just that sometimes dogs require a lot more than we thought they did.

That actually does seem like a lot of exercise, but that it's possibly the wrong kind. Goldens are so full of energy and from what I have heard from owners of Goldens a total nightmare during their teenage months because they're so friendly and exuberant (out of control). I am acquainted with someone who owns a lab who is similar. She can't seem to get her dog to quit jumping on people as a greeting. Even when I turn my back on her, and then turn to reward her after she sits, she'll jump back up. Her owner doesn't have the patience to let me continue to turn my back, so her response is always a hard yank and "NO JUMPING!" which of course we all know doesn't help. The lab used to go to doggy daycare every day but she was a bully and got manhandled by one of the caretakers so the owner took her out. She plays off leash at our local park every morning. Her latest trainer told the owner that she got plenty of physical exercise but not enough mental exercise. I don't know if the owner has the discipline herself to do clicker training (she seemed disinterested when I tried to tell her how great it was for my dog).

Think of the human equivalent of someone who's always at the gym and building up muscle but never reading any books. Strong body, weak mind.

So for you I think the solution may be similar. Start doing more obedience training, more clicker training, teach Sargeant things like carrying his toys, putting them away, things like that, especially impulse control games (games that require him to sit still and wait for his rewards). If you don't want to decrease the physical exercise, then just add mental exercise on top of it. I highly recommend www.clickertraining.com (free membership sign-up gives you access to tons of great articles teaching how to clicker train). He'll be more focused, more controlled, he'll pay more attention to you, and hopefully it'll translate to you having more control on greetings.

Good luck, there will probably be more responses coming but if you give some of the above a try, do let us know how it goes.

[LeeMedic]

I thank you for your replies and recommendations. The "Turning their backs" and "ignoring" don't seem to work. Yes he will stop jumping for a moment, or sometimes just follow that person as they turn. My huge concern are the children. He is so loving of them being a child himself just wants to run and play with them.

Yesterday we took him to our Dog Beach and let him swim for 1.5 hours. There were many children also in the water and we allowed him to run free. He did a great job with the children, and played with them without jumping up. Maybe it will just take some more time, and at nearly 10 months old he is maturing quickly it seems.

I will check out the clicker training website. We have not done the clicker training, but have heard it works rather well.

Again, thanks for all your help.

[Mattie]

He is well socialized as we take him to doggie-daycare several times a week where he is allowed to run with other dogs of different sizes and breeds for hours on end. When we pick him up from daycare, he is totally worn out and sleeps for hours.

How much supervision is at this daycare? Dogs can have too much physical exercise and as you have a teenage hooligan all this running with dogs could be having a bad effect on him especially if there is very little or no supervision, the dogs are not learning self control. Dogs also need mental exercise, clicker training is good for this as well as various mind games.

We feed him high end/high protein foods such as EVO canned stew for breakfast and Orijen puppy chicken. We have a large yard, and he is allowed to run free when we are outdoors which is often since we live in Florida. We take him to to the dog parks and a dog beach often so that he may burn off energy.

You could be feeding a dog food too high in protein, this can make dogs hyper, I always say between 20% and 24% protein for pet dogs is plenty but that also depends on what the protein is. Some of the members who live in the USA will be able to advise you on suitable food.

Even our Vet has complained about his exuberance whenever we take him in for checkups. We are so afraid he is going to inadvertently seriously injure someone or a child. Sergeant is such a loving dog. At one time we had considered using him as a therapy dog because of the love he shows to others.

He will hurt someone unless he is taught self control.

Even with wearing an Easy Leader collar he is difficult to control when greeting others.

Lots of advice on teaching him to walk on a loose lead here viewtopic.php?f=20&t=858, it will also tire him because he will have to use his brain and help teach him some self control. It will take months not hours to get him to walk on a loose lead but well worth the effort. You will go up and down the same 10ft at first, but think of his walks in time not distance, 10 minutes of this will tire him as much as an hour or 2s walk. If you can do this 2 or 3 times a day he will soon learn. Walking will become very enjoyable then.