All great advice, most of which we've already implemented with no success.
" If I run through the commands and he doesn't listen,"
People say all the time my dog knows his commands/cues. The dog understands the command during a quiet non distractive moment and does well. But once the dog gets over excited for whatever reason the dog doesn't listen. They have not built up enough repetition of the cue and behavior in very distracting over exciting situations.
We have to build up slowly in different situations our training in more and more distractive situations building on the dogs successes. At first you/we have to set these situations up and be in control of the situations for training for success. After lots of successful training then we can use them in non training situations.
At the very beginning we ask our dogs/pups can you sit or down in the kitchen with just me there.
Then can you sit or down with me and another family member.
Then we ask in another room such as the living room.
Then we move to the backyard, then front yard, then on the corner with more distractions, then the park.
For new people coming to the house we first set up training situations with people coming and going and coming and going with lots of repetition. Then when we are really sure the pup can do it when excited we will ask if we aren't sure we prevent the pup from acting inappropriately by crating/gating etc until we have had many successes in controled training.
Figure out when your dog is getting overly excited and for now prevent him from getting to that point by managing the situation.
Set up training scenerios that slowly build up and mimic those excited moments and practice them.
Dogs don't generalize so because the dog knows sit/down/stay when asked in one situation the dog may not really know/understand sit/down/stay when really over threshold of excitement. Any inconsistency will also break down or confuse the dogs ability to perform the wanted behaviors.
Sometimes we expect more from our dogs/pups when their bodies become mature we seem to think that their brains are just as mature. They still are puppy brains that need very consistent training.
One of the things we as owners do is to start becoming lax in what we accept from oour dogs/pups because they seem to be listening so well and don't work on our training in more and more challenging settings and when they end up in that situation we expect more than they can give.
Don't be discouraged just re-evaluate both the pups skills and your own. Then just rebuild with training. Make it fun for the both of you.
I just think there is a miscommunication between you two. The pup doesn't think he has to perform the commands/cues during times he is over excited. He didn't have enough success in over excited controled situations for him to be able to successfully handle these occasions during uncontroled situations.
He isn't bored he just doesn't know any better.
I understand what you're saying and have tired to do so. Naturally, I started training JJ in the house where it was quite and his attention was all on me. When I felt he had his commands down, I moved his training outside where there were more sounds, smells and sights to distract him. After he conquered that, I started taking him downtown and to the park for training sessions, where there were people walking by, kids playing and screaming and yatta yatta yatta. He did and continues to do great in every situation, obeying me every step of the way. I usually mimic the people who walk around my town with the Guiding Eyes dogs.
One of the problems I'm having is pinpointing when he's about to get overly excited cause its not like he does it every time in certain situations. For example, my mother may walk in and out of the house 20 times and he'll just lay there and watch her 19 times, but on the 20th time he decides to get up and jump on her and bite her. Seeing as how he was fine the first 19 times, one would think he would be fine when she did it again, but that's not always the case. Sometimes he decides to take action, sometimes he doesn't, so it's really hard to figure out when he's about to let loose. And if my some odd chance I'm able to cut him off before the behavior, he'll direct his bad behavior towards me since I won't let him near the other person. I try my best to ignore him, but it's hard when you have a dog trying to bite you in the crotch. My natural reflexes kick in then and I tend to push him away in order to protect my privates haha
Question: If he starts jumping on me, my girlfriend, my mother or anybody else in the house, should I just tell him to "sit" and wait until he does so, even if he jumps 10 times before sitting, and than reward him with praise and treats? One of my trainers told me that I should never treat a dog after bad behavior and that if he doesn't sit the first time he shouldn't get treated cause he's going to think he got rewarded for jumping. I've been somewhat reluctant to reward him after hearing that.
Valerie is right. We shouldn't force a dog into the crate as punishment. This is another thing we should all work on. We should be able to ask our dogs/pups to go in the crate and they should comply no matter how excited they are. This is something to train for setting up lots of different crate games. We want the pup to think that the crate is a fun, safe place.
Having a pup go into the crate as a time out doesn't have to be punishment. If we set them up to like the crate we can ask them to go to the crate and give them something to chew on in there so that they can calm down. With lots of reinforcement playing fun games with the crate, giving really good rewards in there over time asking to go to the crate, the dog will just feel good in the crate.
Until you have a solid command that the dog will go in willingly when you ask,Instead of grabbing the pup and putting the pup into the crate. Make a game grab a toy or a greatly valued treat run to the crate calling your dog make it seem like the most fun game ever and throw in the treat or toy for the dog to get. Then give lots of praise and the chew toy or kong or bone.
Normally, JJ will go in his crate, or house as we call it, when he's told, running right in there and sitting down once he hears "JJ, in your house". We played crate games all the time when he was younger and still do so every so often. He just won't go in there on his own when he gets in these moods. It's like he has selective hearing and knows what's on the outside of the crate is better than what's on the inside. We've tired having people come over and getting him to go into the crate, but we've had no luck no matter how hard we try and how consistent we are. At this point, we've basically run out of neighbors who are willing to come over and help with the training since majority of them are tired of getting mauled and their clothes ripped. It doesn't matter if you throw a kong pull of treats in there or his favorite toy, he'll turn to glance at it and ignore it completely. I've even crawled into the crate myself a few times to try and entice him, which I might add isn't easy for somebody who's 6'8 to do lol. People are the most exciting thing to him, more so than any treat or toy. I've never heard a dog whimper so much when meeting people. He enjoys his crate and has no problem being in there. He hasn't whimpered once while in there since bringing him home (not even during timeouts) and usually puts himself in there when he's tired. Unless I put him in a closet or construct something in the house, I don't have another area for a timeout.
Work on building self control, dogs do not have it naturally, they have to learn it. Slowly build on the time he has to wait to eat his meals, teach 'leave it', and gradually increase the time before he receives his reward, teach stay - gradually building time, distance and distractions. Teach him 'door manners' - when he wants out, wait for him to sit - let him think about it and figure out that he needs to sit, as long as he is sitting you open the door slowly, if he gets up, you close it, and wait for him to sit (don't correct or remind him) when you open the door, and he must be still sitting, wait briefly and release him to go through, gradually build up the time before you release him, teach him 'find it'. Like you said, it is not that he is lacking physical exercise, but he could be lacking mental exercise, find ways to work his brain and make him think. My dogs are far more 'relaxed' after spending an hour in a training class and using their brains, than if they had been for a long walk.
Great suggestions, but I've already been doing much of what you said since the day I brought him home. I'm always making him think and working on his patience. He can hold a "sit" for a long time, whether it be in the house when we're alone or out on a walk where other people are walking by and distracting him. He never "just gets feed". When I feed him, I make him "sit". Once he sits, I put the bowl on the floor and tell him to "stay". He than must maintain eye contact with me for at least 2 minutes before I give him the "ok". To test him even more, I blurt out random words before saying "ok" to ensure he knows the meaning of "ok" and doesn't think any random word means he can just go. He knows "leave it" since it was one of the first things we had to work on with him since we have a cat that's not all that fond of him and ferrets he could eat in a matter of minutes. "Leave it" works with animals and random things he shouldn't have, but when it comes to people, leave it is like gibberish. He doesn't go out the front door until he waits and I give him the "ok". First, I make him sit before opening the door. Once he sits, I slowly open the door and tell him to "wait". I vary how long he must wait before I give him the "ok" and release him. I do this with him before entering and exiting any door, whether it be at home or out in public. I see every door/gate as an opportunity to train him and will sometimes go out of my way just to go through a random door we didn't have to go through in order to work on this. We've been working on "find it" for the past few months. We started with a muffin pan and tennis balls and hiding a treat under one of the tennis balls and making him find it. We than moved up to two muffin pans and now three, usually which I put in different parts of the house so he has to track down which muffin pan has the treat and which ball its under. He amazes me. He gets it on the first try every time, removing only one tennis ball to uncover the treat no matter how many muffin pans we use.
I'm not trying to say you guys haven't made good suggestions cause you have, so don't take what I say the wrong way. I know some people here can get their panties in a bunch when they think you're disagreeing with them. I'm just trying to explain what I've done and what I've been doing so that maybe somebody can tell me how to adjust things or how to do something differently. JJ will be starting with a personal, in-home trainer within the next two weeks so we're hoping that she'll be able to help us handle the situation by observing first hand what he's doing and what we're doing to stop it.
If I can, I'll see if I can set up a camera and record some of the behavior so you guys can see for yourself as well and maybe give me some tips based on what you see. It's just going to be a matter of having the camera recording at the right moment since you can't really determine when he's going to turn into a mental case.