Advice for looked after dog

[undermycatsthumb]

For the past month or so we have been helping out a neighbour with their 3 year old lab. It started with just walks but we are taking him for longer periods now including having him at home for full days. I should say that we offered this and we are very happy to do it!
He’s a lovely boy but there are a couple of things I struggle with. 1) He really tugs on the lead. He’s good off lead but on pavements/around livestock etc obviously I keep him on. 2) He never wants to stop playing. Which is lovely but when we have him for the whole day, I wish he would relax a bit sometimes.
Obviously he’s not our dog so I feel a bit weird about attempting to train either of these but just wondering if there are any minor things I can do to make things a bit easier? I do understand that (2) might just be a result of him not feeling entirely settled in our house.

Your house, your rules. As long as you aren’t mistreating him anything goes.

On 1, maybe it would be worth trying a halti or similar (if the owner doesn't mind).

On 2 - you probably need to do something like sit down with a book (or MN) and just ignore him for a while.

If someone were looking after my dog for extended periods of time*, for free I would be DELIGHTED if they did some training with him. Really anything they wanted. It would be good for him, his enjoyment of his time there, and his quality of life. It would be good for me because - just maybe, probably not - he might decide to continue loose lead walking at home. It would make the dog less hard work for them, so they'd be more likely to continue having him. It would be a win/win/win.

So I'd say knock yourself out.

(*Or even just long enough for me to have a bath in peace, looking at you miss-ten-week-old puppy.)

He won't necessarily distinguish between 'training' and 'playing' - training can be fun for the dog.

I’d definitely train him to “settle”. Does he have a bed at your house? If not I’d invest in one if this is going to be a long term thing or get his actual owners to buy you one. That’s the least I’d do for such a helpful neighbour! Then he’ll have his own space and be more likely to settle. I’d also invest in a Kong toy, fill it with his food and freeze it so it takes longer for him to eat it. That should buy you some time out.

There's an excellent Facebook group called Dog Training Advice and Support with lots of guides written by (force-free, positive reward) trainers. Its been invaluable with our pup.

No, he doesn't have a bed at ours... I've tried to make him inviting cushion beds but he ignores them and brings me his toy and his beautiful 'play with me' brown eyes instead! I'll ask if I can borrow one when we have him for the whole day. The Kong is a great idea too.
I've had a watch of some positive reinforcement walk to heel videos so I'll give them a go. I just felt strange about trying to change the behaviour of someone else's dog, maybe that sounds silly.

I walk a 7 month old golden retriever one day a week and he stays in the house with us for that day. We sadly lost our 12 year old Labrador 3 months ago and I find it helps me with the grieving process although it obviously does replace him.
Goldie pulls on the lead and his recall isn't brilliant. I do bits of training with him and then I tell the owner what I've done in what I hope is a supportive way that doesn't sound as if I'm being critical. So I'll say "I found this or that works with him" or "I wonder what you'd suggest we do about this issue" etc so it sounds like it's both our problem and we're sharing advice.

I take him to an enclosed field which is common land and do recall with him- unlike my lab he isn't food motivated so I make a big fuss of him instead when he comes back to me. I also walk him on quite a short lead on pavements doing frequent stops and sits. He's getting better.

Coincidently in the house he lies in exactly the same place as our dog did - something to do with the underfloor heating? Most of the time he likes to lie in the garden chewing on his toys but I try to get him calm enough to lie down and snooze

For me it's just repeat repeat repeat til he gets your rules and lots of affection and praise so he feels happy and calm.

Thank you @leekandpotsoup, that's great advice. The pup's owners sound very lucky to have you! I've never owned a dog of my own so I'm not experienced with training; I managed to get him walking a little better on the lead this weekend though only after he'd already had a considerable amount of off lead time so he was probably just too tired to tug