My dog is a nightmare, tearing my hair out and feel we have tried everything.

[marne2]

It's actually making me depressed, it's effecting my other dog and effecting my relationship with dh ( oh and probably my social life ).

We have had him for almost 2 years, he is a lab x ( possibly collie ). He Cries all day, I get up, he cries for food, I feed him and he cries until he gets walked, I walk him for an hour, he sleeps for 5 minutes and then he cries, a hour before his dinner he cries and then the crying for his 2nd walk, he finally sleeps at 10pm and then awake by 6am. If anyone visits the house he barks constantly and jumps up ( not aggressive, just wants attention ), I remove him from the room and he barks louder and destroys the door/gate. No one will visit us or bring children in the house. My other dog is a wreck because when I raise my voice at the lab x is scares her, the only thing he listens to is me shouting ( and that's hit and miss ), we have tried clicker training, rewarding the good behaviour, ignoring the crying, shutting him outside ( removing him from the room ) but he gets worse.

My husband has had enough, the kids have had enough ( dd2 has ASD and the barking really hurts her ears ), the only thing that would keep him quite was to be walked all day. I know he is a working breed and needs to have a job to do but when I got him from the rescue I was told he would be a small dog ( he is not huge ) and I thought 2 walks a day would be enough ( plus we play ball ), he has puzzle toys, balls, bones and my other dog to keep him entertained but he will not play without me, won't go in the garden to play ( we have a large garden ).

No one will visit us for Christmas because of the dog. He has a crate which we no longer use as this seemed to make him worse. I feel so sorry for my other dog, she is so laid back and I can tell she is really annoyed with the other dog leaping around all the time and crying.

I can't afford to get a behaviour specialist in.

I have posted here so many times and I feel I have tried everything people have suggested.

He does have a few good points, he is very loving, he is great with other dogs, great off the lead ( good recall ), in a way he would be much happier living on a farm or being worked.

Thank you, which behaviour would be the easiest to work on first?

The barking and jumping up at visitors?
The pulling me over when he see's someone when on the lead?
The crying for food and walks?

Ideally the 'barking and jumping up' would be my choice as it's the one that's effecting me the most ( as I can't have visitors without them getting licked to death, scratched and barked at ), is it going to be the hardest one to crack though?

I'd imagine the crying would be hardest...it's a bit more um, unusual, lol.

The visitors thing is pretty straightforward in theory, prevent him doing what you don't want him to, reward him for doing something else, be consistent. (I do appreciate that it's harder than that in practice...but in theory it's pretty straightforward).

Pulling is fairly similar.

Crying...that's a bit beyond me, so I'd leave that just now - I mean I assume that's a case of rewarding not crying and ignoring the crying...but I wouldn't know where to start with that really as it's a bit less obvious to him what you're ignoring or rewarding if it's just something he always does rather than in specific situations like the other two.

That's just my opinion though.

I don't think you need to be think of working on a specific problem. You need to install general calm to your dog which will then improve most of the behaviours.

You need to show him what you want him to do - so start with him calmly taking treats from you. You said he gets hyper and exited when you reward him.

Then I would teach a mat command and reward calm behaviour on the mat.

Combine the two and you can send him to the mat when you have visitors, after his walk and when you are working and need him to chill. You will also break the cry reward attention cycle.

If he is calm when taking treats you will find lead walking much easier to do.

Thank you Mutty, will give that a go. I have been trying to teach him to sit on his bed ( he has a lovely bad/mat but rarely sleeps on it ), I have been trying to reward with treats and he is taking them a bit better ( without jumping on me or nipping my fingers off ), I will continue with it.

Tabula, I agree about the crying, I don't think he even knows he's doing it most of the time, he starts by pacing around and crying, I can calm him enough for him to lie down due the crying continues so I'm never sure when to reward him ( because I should reward for him being calm and led down but I don't want to reward to noise he is still making ). I have never had a noisy dog, my other dog has started to copy him, she has always been very quiet and she never barks.

The above is about 'capturing calm'

Barking above.

Jumping up.

Really, the stuff on Kikopup is amazing. Those are just 3 videos. She's got so much stuff on there though.

Dog Training Advice on Support on Facebook is great too if you want to peruse the files on there or even ask specific questions.

It's very hard, I know it is, and I don't think you have an easy life in the background. I think my two are calm because the DC are teens and the house is mainly calm more than anything I've done.

I just thought that having one thing to focus on would give Marne a feeling of control, rather than feeling over whelmed, a sense of purpose if you will. 'Picking the battles', as I used to do with the DC, focus on the thing that pisses you off the most and go from there

Thank you xx

Kiko is great and does have a place however she uses luring a lot which is fab for teaching a new trick but for behavioural work will slow down the learning of the new behaviour.

If luring is used the dog will wait for command and in the case of a pushy dog (like Marne's) will actually use the new behaviour to continue to demand the reward for the new behaviour. So you do not teach the dog to think, be calm just what can I do to get a reward or attention.

If the dog is asked to think what is required rather than luring you will get a behaviour that lasts and is truly learnt by the dog.

I'm really sorry if I'm posting something that's been said (I am in a hurry, haven't rtft but wanted to give my tiny piece of advice).

What are you feeding him?

I changed my dog's food to a very natural, low cereal/additive brand and she changed immediately. Calmed down, slept better, super soft fur, ok breath etc, etc.

I feel for you, I love my dog but she has ishoos and can drive me nuts but I don't have the other problems of another dog and upset family etc.....she saves all her nuttiness just for me.......

Good luck OP.

I have a lab x collie too... notice the similarities?! She is 2 1/2 and the only time I had trouble with constant whining and crying was when the vet nurse told me I had to cut her food back. She was a complete pain in the arse and cried constantly. Random thought but... Could yours be hungry? Just a thought obviously!
Totally relate to the madness when people come to the house, I keep her on lead and sit on floor with her using Stay, Down etc, good girl and praise and when she finally gives in I can let her off and she will be fine. She likes to be a scarf to people, which obviously isn't much fun for visitors!. Mine is ball obsessed, chase obsessed and barks at any car turning outside or the neighbours daring to pull into their driveways! Postman etc.. but we are working on it!
I love winter as its when we get most training done as we walk alone instead of with friends and in the last 2 weeks she has properly learnt 'go round', 'go back' and we have been nailing wait, over and down! She loves the one-one attention and it completely knackers her!
I don't have anything useful to tell you, I just wanted you to know that I get it! But its worth it!

Thanks Ibble, I think if anything I am over feeding him, he had so many problems with colitis for the first year I had him so I started feeding him more to get the weight back on, I feed him more than the packet tells me. I did try giving him 3 smaller meals a day but then he cried more ( as he gets so used to routine that he cries a hour before he's due to be fed, so was crying for 3 hours a day for food ), he knows that he gets fed after we have eaten so as soon as we sit down to eat he starts with the crying and pacing around, when ever I stand up he goes crazy thinking I'm getting his dinner.

My new halti harness and double ended lead came today so going to give that a try tomorrow on our walk.

Ibble, you dog looks identical to mine , I do hope they calm down as they get older.

It really struck me how alike they were when I saw your pic.. I am also in the south west! I'm sure mine has some lurcher chucked in too though...!

I know you say its difficult to raw feed, but it is one of the easiest things you could try to change his behaviour, and would actually be cheaper than wainwrights. I'm veggie, didn't have a freezer and have immune systems issues that made me wary of raw meat around, but freecycle provides the freezer, I'm careful I clean up well after preppin their food, and it turned my 16 month old bouncing off the walls / jumping on people / hyper but very overweight Spanish pointer x springer rescue dog into a slim, fit, healthy mostly well behaved family friendly dog. It really is a minor change compared to possibility of having to rehome your dog as you can't manage his behaviour

Hi Marne.

I am obviously on the wrong tangent with the Kikopup thing, so I'll say good luck and lurk on your threads to see how you get on.

I wish you the very best of luck.

Adana, I just havn't got room for a freezer ( could easily afford to buy one. ) our house is very small, I have no room for a freezer, dish washer or tumble dryer and we have no garage or outbuilding to put one either , if I had the space for one then I would try raw feeding as I know it would benefit both dogs.

Ibble, I suspect there is some lurcher in their too, some people have mentioned flat coat retriever too, I would love to get a DNA test to find out for sure what her is. His birthday was in October so his a little bit older than 2 years.