Labrador playbites everyone/jumps up at people

[spurs12345]

Have a very worrying situation which I hope you can help me with. My Labrador playbites not only me and my husband but the kids as well. Kids dont like it and push him away which makes him jump up and do it more to them. Have tried to limit the interaction between them. Also when kids are playing in the garden our dog will come up from behind them and jump up and push them down. Have taken him to dog classes but nothing seems to work. Also he jumps up on people when we are walking him anyway. If he sees another dog though he will bark aggressively.

How old is he? Is he castrated yet? Have you had him from a pup?

If he is a puppy then he will grow out of it, given the right training, and its possible to get an adult dog over it quite quickly too, but the whole family has to be in on it. We had an 18month old rottie from battersea who "playbit" i promise you, it wasn't funny! But it didnt take him long to get over it.

When the kids push him away, they are interacting with him and rewarding the behaviour, how old are your children? Are they old enough to understand and take part in a new way of doing things? What i would do was, stand up if i was sitting, walk away, not acknowledging the dog, arms folded so no fingers to snap at. Look anywhere but the dog, direct your attention elsewhere - just keep turning away from him. Harsh as it sounds but we would only interact with the dog on our terms, he could come to us when we called him, not when he decided to dump his ten bloody stone on my lap. He needed to know that being a quiet non pushy dog got him attention and not being in your face. It seriously worked, you could see the wheels whirring in his head when we did this - it would be like, errrr whats going on, i want to play but she wont - oh, i cant make her, because she is in charge and im not, nice dog, result.

So its ignore ignore ignore with the play biting and to a certain degree the jumping up.

Him knocking the children down is a worry, this a dominance behaviour and must be stopped as dogs can get carried away and seriously bite if their "prey" is on the ground. Don't underestimate a labrador, they are a rotweiller without the brown bits! He doesn't sound aggressive but he sounds like he is the top dog and this has to stop. So, no dog on beds, sofas etc, no dog upstairs ever.

If he is not castrated then get him done as soon as possible. Do you ever walk him off lead? how much is he being walked. Jumping up at people is totally unacceptable and can get you into trouble, make sure that whoever is walking him is strong enough to prevent this.

What do you feed him on? Is it high protein rocket fuel? Maybe consider changing his diet to something with a lesser protein content.

Think about investing in a halti collar, he wont be able to jump up with one of those on.

He has excess energy and needs some sort of formal training, i would seriously consider dog training classes as they will teach YOU how to train him.

When your DH plays with the dog, is it rough and tumble? Does he get all riled up?

Before we had our rescue rottie, we had a rottie that we had from a pup. He never did the play biting thing, ever - except to my Dad, who used to play rough and tumble with him, until one day the dog caught his hand with his tooth and it bloody hurt!!

Have done dog training classes but it doesnt help. To be honest with you my husband doesnt play rough and tumble games with him. We all play with him as a family together.

you still dont say how old he is, makes a difference, this is normal adolescent dog behavioru and they tend to grow out of it, but if hes an adult, its a problem

He is 4 years old and have had him since he was 1 years old. Got him from a pet shop.

Ok, so his vital training time could have been a bit hit and miss then. Its going to be hard to get him to change his ways but its not impossible.

We tried dog training classes with our rescue rottie, it was too much, he was so stressed out by it all he bit me. We did however do some one on one training with a reputable dog trainer. This might help?

The ignore tactics would be the one i would advise the most, and never leave your children alone with him.

What is he being fed on? How much exercise does he get? What training have you done with him already (not just classes but generally)?

As the previous poster pointed out, diet is important - a good quality food with the right amount of protein is vital. Feeding dogs food like Bakers (as one example) is like feeding kids on Sunny D and M&Ms - there will be effects

I'm not sure how old your kids are - and this is definitely harder with younger ones, but everyone needs to be consistent when he jumps up. Fold your arms, turn around and stay silent - basically become the most boring wooden post you can. If he continues to jump up at your back, then go out of the room and shut the door and leave him alone for 30 seconds. In conjunction with this, you need to ALWAYS reward him for nice greetings, and for keeping all four paws on the floor. This could be a reward with praise (though be careful this doesn't over-excite him and make him jump up!), a quick game or (esp as he's a lab!) with food. Little tiny bits of a treat. He needs to learn that jumping = boring and four paws down and calm greetings = GOOD STUFF FOR DOGS!!

With him jumping on the kids, this is exuberance and excitement. He has also had it reinforced that it's a positive, rewarding behaviour (kids squealing, rough and tumble etc). If a dog finds something rewarding, he will repeat it - it's as simple as that. Don't worry about 'dominance' - we have a better understanding of how dogs learn now and the old dominance theory has been discredited.

With this behaviour I'd start from scratch, and here's what I'd suggest. You need to be in the garden to supervise, and keep the dog entertained - on a long line if you're not confident enough with voice commands. When the kids are running around and he shows an interest / looks like he wants to chase, use the 'VOICE OF GOD' and say firmly (don't shout!) "LEAVE". When he looks back at you, give him a treat and play a little game with him. You need to reinforce this loads over a period of days / weeks so he understands that he may not chase them and jump, and being a good boy again = GOOD THINGS FOR DOGS.

If he doesn't understand leave, then you need to teach this and make it a positive experience for him to 'leave'.

Loving the "voice of God" Laska

I still tend to adhere to the dominance theory, as my dog used to do subtle things like laying his head over my lap, friendly? hmmm, yes, but i used to see him do it to other dogs in a very deliberate way, trying to be the top dog. Of course i would also like to excuse my Jack Russel humping everything he sees as dominance but he is just a randy little gaylord! :) I Do however think it is a mistake to try and treat a dog/human situation as a pack which i guess is why the dominance thing is less regarded now?

Good advice re the jumping up in the garden!

Sorry dominance theory is bollocks.

No animals in the whole of the animal kingdom try to dominant another species - so why should dogs!

How on earth is putting his head on your lap dominance!?

Loads and loads and loads of links already on mumsnet disproving the dominance theory.

Turn your back when the dog jumps up only interact with the dog when all four feet are on the ground. This does and will always work BUT you do need to be consistent and if he has learn other behaviour for four years you will have to work on this for a while and even when you think he has it mastered be prepared to carry on the training.

I would not yet do as Laska suggests and have the dog on a line to teach leave it I think that is too much too soon. I would just put food in my hand and say leave it when the dog tries to get it close my hand and walk away. when he starts to leave it treat with another treat really quickly. When he has a basic idea of leave it then you can try it in more exciting and difficult situations eg children running around.

@ your description of your JR!

The whole domainance theory was based on one flawed study of two (captive) wolf packs which had been combined - a wholly unnatural start in the first place. The behaviours seen were extrapolated to apply to dogs. John Fisher was an exponent of this theory, but he (bravely) rejected it before he died (see 'Diary of a Dotty Dog Doctor' - v entertaining little book!). Saying that to try to relate your dog's behaviour to a wolf's behaviour was about as relevant as humans taking parenting lessons from gorillas!

I do absolutely see what you mean about relating it about dog-dog behaviour, but even this is tricky territory. If you've ever seen a truly confident dog, they genuinely don't need to go about asserting themselves - they can control a situation with a look - even from a distance. It tends to be the slightly insecure dogs who need to go around asserting their authoritehhhh

So a diagnosis of 'dominance' is dangerous as it's treating a problem (as bullying behaviour is a problem natch!) by coming at it from an angle which doesn't help the dog. And it's a 'one size fits all' method - another dodgy tactic.

Another trouble with the theory is that it's very palatable to owners - it sounds easy. 'I can control my dogs behaviour by eating a biscuit before I feed him and going through doorways first.' But this won't fix the vast majority of behavioural problems, which need tackling directly. Much harder than the biscuit approach! Some of the theory is just simple manners and appears to work for this reason - I go through doorways first because it's safer than letting my dog charge through, and if I say 'excuse me' she'll move . But as someone else said - I don't have to play at being pack leader - by definition I am in charge, because I have opposable (sp?) thumbs and I control the food source!!

There's an excellent book which will take about an hour to read called Dominance: Fact or Fiction by Barry Eaton which deconstructs Dominance Theory - it's really useful if you're interested in exploring it all.

Sorry for waffling and taking this a little OT!

Watch the episode of 'its me or the dog' on 4od where she trains a husky who showed the same behaviours

I missed Minimu1's post - def. agree that he needs to learn 'leave' in simple situations before progressing to more exciting ones - should have made that clearer in my OP.

But laska,it was a very deliberate action, i guess you had to see it but he would just do it. Obviously laying his head in my lap wasn't dominance like i said, but i can't see what else it could have been with other dogs. I've never subscribed to the whole pack thing. I think it must be something between the two extremes, dogs are not wolves, but they are not people either.

Its quite interesting, i haven't looked much at this of late as i am crap when training my JR, hence him being a randy little gaylord!

If he was a true 'dominant' dog, he'd have no need to assert himself in this way. Truly powerful people don't need to scream and shout to get others to pay attention - they can command with a look. It's the same with dogs.

A dog who's not confident about their own status around other dogs may well posture like this. But thinking you have a 'dominant' dog is likely to be wrong and lead to you treating the issue in a less effective way than if you consider that your dog may be lacking in confidence.

Our dog will 'police' others and seems very confident and direct when doing so. She doesn't like rough play (especially around kids and will body block other dogs from getting close to any kids bless her) but on most occasions she isn't confident enough to stop the rough play effectively without force and she is inclined to go in too hard. Thus I call her back as she's not capable of doing this 'job'. However I've watched other dogs do this very effectively as they have the confidence to block and police without resorting to becoming physical.

There's a trainer called Angela Stockdale who has a video where you can watch a dog policing a group absolutely beautifully (forgotten the name of it for now - sorry). He doesn't need to do anything physical as the other dogs respect his very presence.

Of course I agree with you - dogs are not wolves and neither are they people! We need to recognise that they are dogs and do our best to understand how they learn and what their gestures can mean.

Laska, that is exactly my point, my dog wasn't dominant at all, maybe i indicated that he was, but i assumed that these behaviours were him trying to assert it due to his dodgy background and insecurities. Sinking his teeth in my head one day i put down to high jinx . He had ishooooos so he did. I don't half miss him :( I've not witnessed any other dog doing this head across shoulders of other dog, it was quite weird, but then so was my dog!

Dogs do all sorts of odd things and have all sorts of little 'things', I think we often read too much into them.

One of my dogs will sit on one of the others. The 'sat on' dog will be just laying down minding her own business or eating a bone and the other dog will just go over and sit on her, usually her head. It's just something she does.

i woudlnt lay on the floor then midori!!

Agree with all the points on here about checking diet and exercise. An exhausted dog is less likely to do this. And also agree with the basic behaviour mod techiques - give absolutely no attention to dog jumping up. Offer them attention when they're being calm and stable. (When we were training our springer, we excluded her from the pack if she tried jumping up. We shut her outside on the patio so she could see us all inside together without her. We also limited the time.)

Dogs hate being excluded.

I am loving the Voice of God recommendation. It also works with children sometimes.

I find the dominance theory discussion interesting. I do think dogs need to know where they belong within the group (not sure if this is a different way of saying the same thing, so may be shouted down.) My mum's a dog training instructor, and she has always maintained that dogs who are allowed on furniture/beds or basically given too many human privileges are the ones who present the most trouble behaviourally. Not sure if this applies to your situation, OP.

Funny you should say that...

During a bout of play fighting one day when I wa slaying on the floor, my husband called 'sit' and I ended up with a dog sat on my face. Disgusting! At that point I had wished they weren't so well trained!

missmehalia dogs need to know what behaviour is expected of them and be able to understand the commands we give them. It isn't anything to do with where they belong in any group. All that being allowed on the bed or sofa will teach them is that they are allowed on the bed or sofa.

Hmm.. interesting perspective. Our dog has become far, far better when she was given a few boundaries, though, however they're decided upon. She was a nightmare when she was allowed on the sofa and fed before we all were. (And also became weird when our baby began to walk - she saw it as a challenge, I think.)

With our dog (and my family's dogs over the years) it was also about where they saw themselves within the group, definitely. Without a knowledge of where their place was, they seemed to challenge commands far more.

I guess all our experiences are different. I do believe in the 'place within the group' theory wholeheartedly, I'm afraid.

What makes you think setting them boundaries or not allowing them on the sofa changed their opinion of where they were in your 'group' or what their place was?

Allowing them human privileges like sitting on furniture can confuse them. If they think they are equal to humans, then it follows that many of them will be less inclined to follow commands.

Our philosophy is, treat them with consistency, humour and kindness, but remember they are dogs, not glorified humans. If ours have been disobedient in the past, we've shut them out of the group by putting them outside for a specified time. Their privilege is to be allowed inside near us, but in their own place in their bed. We are in charge, not them.

Works for us. And the dogs, just as importantly.

"the place within your group theory" has been scientifically disproved many many times over.

However what you are saying re dogs having clear boundaries, treating them with consistency etc is obviously correct but has nothing to do with dominance idea.

I can guarantee that eating before your dog did not make any difference to their behaviour or being allowed on the sofa. As for your little one starting to walk that of course would arouse your dogs curiosity and interest but would certainly not make them dominant. A dominant animal in any pack would not show any interest in the weak young members of a group.

Links explaining why dominance theory is so outdated and inaccurate here

this one has loads of other links from it

esssential reading

However I can not agree enough that dogs need clear boundaries, clear signals, consistent kind handling and reward based training methods and definitely not the use of aversive methods.

Whenever I read the words dominance/Alpha/top dog/pack etc my heart rate actually goes up. I blame Cesar Millan for making all that crap fashionable again.

Well, call it what you like, there was a rise in aggression, not curiosity, when our toddler started walking. And it needed addressing.

I'm afraid science can say what it likes, changes within the associated human group brings about changes in the dog.