My doberman, Maya, is almost 1 year old. She has been in 3 obedience classes and does fairly well with commands, except when there are visitors in our house. If anyone comes to our house, Maya wants to sit on their lap or beside them and lick them. She will keep trying to get in their faces and be buddies. She will not listen to any commands unless we put her on her leash and prong collar, and then she will not stay in a down or sit position, but has to keep being reminded. What I can do to help her learn to listen while other people are in my home?
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Visitors and obedience.
Irisblossom81
Jul 25, 2006 10:27 AM
Replies (2)
mjansel
Jul 25, 2006 12:38 PM
It takes a long time for a dog to be able to take what they learned in class over to behavior in the home. Remember that your Doberman is still just a puppy no matter how grown up she looks.
Keep working on it and she will eventually calm down enough to be calm with visitors. In the meantime, if the visitors you have are not into having a dog in their lap, then crate her when they come over. I sometimes crate my dogs for awhile when people come over and then let them out later when things have calmed down.
Also, kudos to you for continuing with the obedience classes!
KDiamondDavis
Jul 25, 2006 09:27 PM
>>My doberman, Maya, is almost 1 year old. She has been in 3 obedience classes and does fairly well with commands, except when there are visitors in our house. If anyone comes to our house, Maya wants to sit on their lap or beside them and lick them. She will keep trying to get in their faces and be buddies. She will not listen to any commands unless we put her on her leash and prong collar, and then she will not stay in a down or sit position, but has to keep being reminded. What I can do to help her learn to listen while other people are in my home?
>>>>>>>>>>>>
DO keep her on leash, especially the first fifteen minutes, which for dogs is an instinctive "greeting" period of very high energy. With a dog that young, I might keep her on leash the entire visit. I do anyway, with even a highly trained dog, unless I totally trust how that visitor will behave toward the dog! With the leash you can guide your dog into the appropriate behavior until that behavior becomes a habit to her. It is the kindest way to train a dog for that situation--guide her through it until she is mature enough and trained enough to handle it more on her own. For some dogs, that is never, but you should be able to at least work past the need for a prong collar over time.
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Kathy Diamond Davis, author, "Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others," 2nd edition, and the free Canine Behavior Series articles at http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=SRC&S=1&SourceID=47
