why does my young dog do this....has he lost his marbles ???

Hi everyone, just a good bit of advice needed please, Bailey is about 9 months now and still goes mental if anyone stops in the street to say hello to him....not aggressive as such but goes loopy...like he doesn't know how to deal with the situation....he has been around people since very small and walks with my other staff Tia fine....

He jumps up like crackers and then jumps at me and then goes to mouth not hard but does go for my arm and then starts to bite his lead and I have to spend at least 5 minutes calming him down.

I would like to think I was pretty good with training the dogs I have had, this is my third staff and I have had a huge male rottie before him but I have never had any of them behalf in this manner and its getting quite stressful when we are out.

He is fine if he passes people, it is literally when they stop and speak.

Any advice would be really good to overcome this situation.

Thanks Linda

Hi Linda, what do you do to keep him calm and to control the situation?

janey wrote:

Hi Linda, what do you do to keep him calm and to control the situation?

Hi I turn him away from the situation and I have to pull on the lead tight to hold him and even sometimes have to pull the lead really tight so he cant move his mouth but not in a nasty way and that seems to calm him, its hard to explain without me showing really...

Can you control him and get him in a sit/stay position, if not keep practicing that as it will really help, he is still young and as you well know very excitable! Moo used to be a real pain at jumping up at people and tbh it just took patience and it clicked, also try treats/toys as a distraction, never did help us but being one step ahead did Xx

Hi yes I do have treats and try to make him sit to take his mind off it but he still pushes it

All I can really say is keep up with the training and make sure everyone who walks him has the same command. How is he at home because changing things there can help, say if he gets excited stop it also. Some dogs take longer to learn than others.

He is very boisterous where ever he is but what I was going to start to do was make sure he was with me everywhere I went for a while to learn to sit at my side what ever I am doing to see if that helps

Start to teach the 'watch' command indoors. Get him to sit & hold a treat in front of your face. As soon as he looks at the treat say "Watch" and give it to him. After a while say "watch" before you hold the treat up & hopefully he'll automatically look at you - then give him the treat as usual. Once you've got this far you can start to train it outdoors - first in the garden & then the street/park etc. At first only do it when there are no distractions.

Once you're fairly confident that he'll look at you, try it when someone stops to talk. If he sits & looks at you give him quiet praise and try to keep him in the sit.

Caryll wrote:Start to teach the 'watch' command indoors. Get him to sit & hold a treat in front of your face. As soon as he looks at the treat say "Watch" and give it to him. After a while say "watch" before you hold the treat up & hopefully he'll automatically look at you - then give him the treat as usual. Once you've got this far you can start to train it outdoors - first in the garden & then the street/park etc. At first only do it when there are no distractions.

Once you're fairly confident that he'll look at you, try it when someone stops to talk. If he sits & looks at you give him quiet praise and try to keep him in the sit.

I agree with this. Just be consistant and patient and he will get there.

I had similar issues with Taz - and tbh it blew my mind to begin with because it came totally out of the blue after months of good behaviour (started a few months after her first season), and I could not think of any single event that had triggered it - if you stay calm and consistent, offering a distraction or 'look at me' command', you should both happily find your way through this

I found distraction with a prized squeaky toy that she is never allowed to have worked better for Taz than treats though

Debo does it as well, everytime we stop to talk to someone and they want tu stroke him,he jumps up and want to pull their sleeves. I always him that down and remove from the situation but it's really embarassing. He did that yesterday ( now he puts his head on tha keyboard like he wanted to stop writting things about him ). There was a guy with 3mnths old staffy. Debo and the puppy said hello really nicelly, Debo no jumping,which suprised me and the magic was gone when the guy tryed to stroke Debo while the dogs were sniffig eachother. Debo jumped on him,tried to pull his sleeve. When I pull Debo down he growled and barked not aggressive but like he wasn't happy about me pull him away ( you know like when puppies are not happy that they can't do something).

so I am not alone, that helps = I will keep trying my best hope he will learn in time

Best of luck

Jellybean constantly does this in the street while we walk and with visitors to the house, especially with my step-kids.

we went to another round of training starting last week and it was brilliant - he told us to get a 6 ft long lead (2 m) so we can keep the loop in our hand but it will drop to the ground so we can stand on it, giving her about a foot of room so it "pins" her but doesn't choke of course. this way she has to sit and calm down, she does it herself (no yelling or NO!s required really) and if she goes to jump she checks herself and can't. We just got the 6 ft lead and tried it this morning when she met the kids' au pair in the street so they could go to school. Really worked well. Very calmly, very aloof, I just dropped the lead, put my foot on it and she sat still while the au pair said hello and the kids said goodbye to her. No jumping, no freaking out (by her or me!) and when she stayed calm I treated her and lots of praise. Then we got on with our walk.

If she meets another dog and wants to say hello I won't step on it, but if the dog's owner goes in for a stroke, I will.

So far so good.

Otherwise, like Janey said, get her in a sit/calm position with treats before the situation arises if possible, give her something to do and think about before she even has a chance to go mental. Teach her watch and to wait while sitting as well.

Thanks that seems like a really good idea I will certainly give it a good.