Molly Is A Bully

[GreyhoundGirl]

Molly is the alpha, always has been, but lately it has gotten worse. She takes toys right out of Mason's mouth, "play" bites him, and barks at him to play but it just freaks him out so he hides behind me or goes into his crate. When she does this I distract her with a toy.

 

With my last 2 dogs when my female tried to take over it took a few months and my boy finally stood up for himself. It only took once and that was the end of it.

 

We are over a year in and Mason has yet to assert himself so Molly is just getting more and more alpha.

 

Do I intercede? Do I let them work it out? I'm fully prepared for injuries if/when he asserts himself. I'm just tired of her being a bitch!!!

 

I should add that she can be sweet and adorable; she snuggles with him, kisses him every morning, and cleans his ears!

[Beachbum1]

I think it's time for Brother Taylor to come over, and explain a few things to his sister

[a_daerr]

If Mason is hiding behind you and is clearly not enjoying that type of play, it's time for you to get involved. Henry would try to bully Truman (back when he was a puppy and smaller than him), and I had to give Henry time-outs. Anytime she starts with these behaviors, I would take her by the collar and separate for 1-2 minutes. Let her go, and if she starts again, then she gets another time out. Put her on a leash if you have to. If you do this half a dozen times or so, and she's still demonstrating the same behaviors, then it's time to separate them until she calms down.

[Guest cwholsin]

I think instead of distracting her, you should correct her when she's being too intense with your other dog. A no-no noise, or telling her to 'Leave it!' would be good. It may also help bring your boy out of his shell to see that you will keep your dominant girl in check.

 

Distracting her with a toy = rewarding her for barking and otherwise demanding play

 

Good luck! If your boy isn't going to tell your girl to back off, it's your job since the humans should be the ultimate boss in the house!

Edited January 23, 2013 by cwholsin

[Guest grey_dreams]

I wouldn't let one dog bully another dog. It's not fair to either of them.

[Guest june]

I think instead of distracting her, you should correct her when she's being too intense with your other dog. A no-no noise, or telling her to 'Leave it!' would be good. It may also help bring your boy out of his shell to see that you will keep your dominant girl in check.

 

Distracting her with a toy = rewarding her for barking and otherwise demanding play

 

Good luck! If your boy isn't going to tell your girl to back off, it's your job since the humans should be the ultimate boss in the house!

This

[GreyhoundGirl]

At first he seemed to enjoy it, and at times, he will play with her. But most of the time he either hides behind me or goes to his crate. I so wish he would man up and give her what for. It would only take once...I just know it!

 

Thank you for the advice.

[NeylasMom]

Ay yi yi, this has nothing to do with alpha anything, nor does it sound like she is bullying him. It sounds like she wants to play but may not have the best skills in terms of initiating play (not at all uncommon with greyhounds) and she may be a bit "reckless" in terms of rules of engagement with other dogs. In fact, everything you've described happens between my girls on a daily basis and it's all part of their play.

The problem with your situation, unlike mine, is that Mason doesn't seem interested in engaging with Molly, or he's just overwhelmed with her assertive efforts. How I approached it would probably depend on what my goal was, but since you said that in the past he has enjoyed playing with her at times, I might try for teaching her how to engage in play more appropriately by using time outs when she gets too aroused. When she's calmed down, she's released again to play, if she gets too aroused, she gets another timeout. When you're doing this, you are not speaking to her at all. You just keep your body language calm and relaxed (there is no punishment involved here) and put her in the timeout. I might use an x-pen or a crate for this if possible, or you could babygate her in a hallway or room adjacent wher she can still see you.

 

If she doens't eventually catch on, or you would prefer she just not try to play iwth him, then yes, redirect her to a toy. I would give a cue like "Let him be" or something simple like that, then say "Get your toy" and toss a toy for her. Eventually you may be able to just say "Let him be" and she'll go get her toy automatically. And no, this is not rewarding her behavior, it's teaching her appropriate behavior rather than just saying no or punishing her. It's the same as a puppy who has to learn not to chew on inappropriate items. The age old way to do that - redirect to an appropriate toy, ad nauseum, until finally one day they catch on.

Edited January 23, 2013 by NeylasMom

[GreyhoundGirl]

That's what I thought too with the play but this really has escalated. She is taking toys and rawhides right out of his mouth beyond just play. Her body language has just changed from what it was. When she's playing Mason will play with her until she gets too aggressive/rough with him.

 

The worst time is when we come in from our walks; I get them off their leashes and she is on him. In fact, the last few days she has been barking at him WHILE we have been walking. I have been correcting her ("No Molly") if she does it while we're walking. I also correct her or distract her when she gets too aggressive for him. He seems to solve the problem on his own by going in the crate most of the time. However, sometimes she corners him so he can't get to his crate. If she corners him I get involved. Play or not, I don't like the idea of one dog being cornered.

[NeylasMom]

I agree that you definitely need to address the behavior. Sounds like you need a lot more management for the time being. Since you know she does it right after a walk for example, you might separate them as soon as you come in (don't unleash her until you do) via babygate and then let her have some playtime with a toy or some chewtime with a rawhide until she unwinds for example. I would also give her a job to do on walks that she can focus on instead of barking at Mason. Simplest thing is to start asking her for her attention and rewarding her for paying attention to you (with high value food treats). Also, would definitely separate them when they have high value items like rawhides to prevent her from taking them. You may need to go so far as to remove all toys and only give them during supervised/separated playtime.

 

Is she getting less exercise lately, maybe because of the weather? Just thinking about what could be causing the behavior to escalate.

 

ETA: Does she know a "give" cue? If not, I would also work on that. One option for the stealing things out of his mouth would be to have her immediately give you the thing she's stolen and put it away so she learns that that sort of behavior doesn't get her what she wants. When she gives it to you, you should still reward and then point her to an item on the floor, in the toybox, etc. that she is allowed to take things from. In other words, taking a toy directly from his mouth doesn't get me what I want (playing with a toy), but taking it from an "allowed" place does.

Edited January 23, 2013 by NeylasMom

[JJNg]

Excellent responses from Jen (NeylasMom). This is play behavior (albeit rather rough and pushy) and has nothing to do with alpha or 'trying to take over'. I do agree that since Mason sounds like he's being intimidated by her, you need to step in and protect him. The easiest solution is to separate them when she's too worked up, and redirect her away from him when she's in a playful mood and he's not.

 

I don't think this type of behavior is necessarily inappropriate or indicative of a dog lacking skills in initiating play. It may be more of a difference in enthusiasm and play style. My girl Willow does this to my other dogs. My mixed breed Corey will play with her, and they get very rough together. But when he's had enough, he tells her in no uncertain terms, and she immediately stops and give him submissive/appeasement signals. She tries the same thing with my other grey Wiki - he doesn't play like that, but he's confident enough to just ignore her and walk off as she's bouncing around him, barking and mouthing at his face and neck. Most of my fosters have told her 'no' by showing their teeth and snapping when she gets pushy, and she immediately backs off.

 

I don't interfere in any of the above interactions. The only time I have to intercede is with my whippet Ollie. He's not as intimidated as your boy sounds, but he won't tell Willow 'no' so she keeps going after him. If she's pestering him too much, and he's looking overwhelmed, I'll step in between them or grab Willow's collar and lead her away. In our case, this behavior usually happens outside in the yard, so I just put one of them back inside, and the pestering stops.

 

Like you, I feel that if Ollie would just stand up for himself, Willow would stop. But for whatever reason, he just pitifully puts up with it. Odd, because he will tell off other dogs that get too pushy with him, just not Willow. And indoors, they're very sweet together. Willow cleans his ears, he cleans her eyes, and while they don't really snuggle, he will lay across her front legs when she's in the sphinx position.

[Guest sirsmom]

Molly is the alpha, always has been, but lately it has gotten worse. She takes toys right out of Mason's mouth, "play" bites him, and barks at him to play but it just freaks him out so he hides behind me or goes into his crate. When she does this I distract her with a toy.

 

With my last 2 dogs when my female tried to take over it took a few months and my boy finally stood up for himself. It only took once and that was the end of it.

 

We are over a year in and Mason has yet to assert himself so Molly is just getting more and more alpha.

 

Do I intercede? Do I let them work it out? I'm fully prepared for injuries if/when he asserts himself. I'm just tired of her being a bitch!!!

 

I should add that she can be sweet and adorable; she snuggles with him, kisses him every morning, and cleans his ears!

 

Grey's are sensitive and will know when you mean business, soo when she gets obnoxious, I would just stop her and say firmly each time 'BE NICE'

[Guest cwholsin]

That's what I thought too with the play but this really has escalated. She is taking toys and rawhides right out of his mouth beyond just play. Her body language has just changed from what it was. When she's playing Mason will play with her until she gets too aggressive/rough with him.

 

The worst time is when we come in from our walks; I get them off their leashes and she is on him. In fact, the last few days she has been barking at him WHILE we have been walking. I have been correcting her ("No Molly") if she does it while we're walking. I also correct her or distract her when she gets too aggressive for him. He seems to solve the problem on his own by going in the crate most of the time. However, sometimes she corners him so he can't get to his crate. If she corners him I get involved. Play or not, I don't like the idea of one dog being cornered.

 

Taking toys right out of the mouth of another dog is absolutely a dominance thing. Part of being the top dog is the attitude of 'I can have what I want when I want' like play, or toys. Our guys do the toy taking thing, but it doesn't nother our other dogs. The top guy, Nash, can take a toy from the other dogs, our other adult can take toys from the puppy but never tries to take them from Nash-- since Nash is the most dominant. The most important thing is that the most dominant dog will lay off when he tell him to.

 

Teaching your dog to stop being a pest is not mean or punishment, it's teaching her boundaries and what behavior will not get her good things. Redirecting her onto a toy is absolutely rewarding the behavior you don't want. Her goal is to get someone to play with her, and guess what, it's working! When she's being a bully, the last thing you want is that behavior reinforced by giving her what she's demanding!

 

Make her leave your boy alone and settle for a minute or two, and then YOU can initiate a play session with her. It teaches her that getting in your other dog's face does not result in what she wants---play, and that settling down does result in what she wants. Giving her time outs will accomplish the same thing, but your boy may always be a timid thing and it may be good to teach her to play with him when he initiates it and to otherwise play with you.

 

As for the walkies, if telling her to be nice isn't stopping the behavior you can turn walking with you and your boy into a reward. If she doesn't behave, the walk ends and she goes back in the house. You can do training walks up and down your street or wherever you're close enough to home that you can put her inside for a few minutes. You could also do this with another person walking your girl, and when she acts up they split off and go home while you do a 'lap' and when you come by the house you try again walking them together. The goal is for her to learn that she doesn't get to do the thing when she's overexcited or being loud and bossy.

 

I do want to let you know that the behaviors may get worse before they get better. This is called an extinction burst, where she's frustrated that she's not getting what she's asking for so she escalates the behavior. (Think about a person at a soda maching: what do they do when they press the button and a soda doesn't come out?). Ignore it, tell her to knock it off, but never give in and reward her for this, you'll just be teaching her that if at first she doesn't succeed get louder and more obnoxious and she might get what she wants. It just sounds like she's had rude behavior rewarded and has started doing more of it. She needs boundaries to tell her what behavior pays and what doesn't. Once she gets that certain behaviors aren't going to be rewarded, it's an easy choice to choose the behavior that gets walkies and play sessions vs. the ones that end these good things.

[NeylasMom]

Taking toys right out of the mouth of another dog is absolutely a dominance thing.

You can call it what you want, but the truth is that at worst Molly is just lacking in some good dog manners, aka. she's being rude. And without being there to see if Mason is even telling her in some way to back off (and if he isn't, does he even care that she took the toy?), she might not even be that.

 

Handling of resources is pretty straightforward in the dog world. If it's in my possession, it's mine. What constitutes in my possession can depend on an individual dog and generally they communicate that definition to other dogs with their body language. Generally speaking, "in my mouth" constitutes possession, but in some cases dogs have a certain radius around them in which they consider themselves still in possession even if the item is not in their mouth/paws. However, conflict only arises when one dog is not willing to defer to the other, whether it's the dog in possession not being willing to give up an item when another dog approaches to take it or when the approaching dog won't back off when the dog in possession of the item says no thanks, I'm not done.

 

This article from Pat Miller (via Whole Dog Journal) does a great job of outlining the various scenarios and giving instruction on when and how to step in.

 

As far as redirecting reinforcing the behavior, I'm not going to beat a dead horse, but that's just not true. You are giving her an appropriate way to act in place of an inappropriate one rather than just telling her what you don't want, which is only half of the equation and doesn't address the underlying issue (I want to play play play - playing with your brother when you're that wound up is not okay, but playing iwth a toy instead is). Honestly, are you suggesting that teaching a puppy not to chew on the remote by trading the remote for a chew toy is not an effective way to teach puppy what to chew on? If so, a large number of people who have raised puppies must have just been getting lucky all of these years!

[NeylasMom]

I don't think this type of behavior is necessarily inappropriate or indicative of a dog lacking skills in initiating play.

This is a valid point, although one could argue that her unwillingness to back off when Mason has made it very clear he doesn't want to play (even if he doesn't tell her off, he's got to be sending her a ton of signals) is. I did have Zuri very clearly in my head as I imagined Molly trying to interact with Mason and Zuri's issue tends to be one of overarousal. Dogs *should* be able to self-regulate by taking breaks when things get too hardcore (unless, to your point both dogs enjoy that really rough play), but some dogs don't know how to hit the pause switch and I was thinking that might be the case with Molly, hence the timeout advice.

 

Not disagreeing with you, I just had the vision of Zuri in my head, standing over Skye barking his fool head off when the girls have been playing hard enough to entice him off of the couch and get in on the play. In his youth he actually was able to engage in a bit of normal dog play, but somewhere along the line he seems to have lost those skills and now he just stands there barking. I know it's his sad attempt, it's clearest from Skye's body language when it happens, but he just can't figure it out so generally I have to put a stop to it. I actually recently decided (coincidentally, lol) to start redirecting him to his 'Cuz ball, which I call his pacifier. That way in the future if I'm not there to intervene his automatic reaction will be to get his toy and play rather than get in the middle of things with them.

 

:blah Not sure how helpful any of this will be to the OP, but I find the discussion interesting of course.

[Guest cwholsin]

You can call it what you want, but the truth is that at worst Molly is just lacking in some good dog manners, aka. she's being rude. And without being there to see if Mason is even telling her in some way to back off (and if he isn't, does he even care that she took the toy?), she might not even be that.

 

Handling of resources is pretty straightforward in the dog world. If it's in my possession, it's mine. What constitutes in my possession can depend on an individual dog and generally they communicate that definition to other dogs with their body language. Generally speaking, "in my mouth" constitutes possession, but in some cases dogs have a certain radius around them in which they consider themselves still in possession even if the item is not in their mouth/paws. However, conflict only arises when one dog is not willing to defer to the other, whether it's the dog in possession not being willing to give up an item when another dog approaches to take it or when the approaching dog won't back off when the dog in possession of the item says no thanks, I'm not done.

 

This http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/issues/14_10/features/Resource-Guarding-Behavior-Modification_20368-1.html]article from Pat Miller[/url] (via Whole Dog Journal) does a great job of outlining the various scenarios and giving instruction on when and how to step in.

 

As far as redirecting reinforcing the behavior, I'm not going to beat a dead horse, but that's just not true. You are giving her an appropriate way to act in place of an inappropriate one rather than just telling her what you don't want, which is only half of the equation and doesn't address the underlying issue (I want to play play play - playing with your brother when you're that wound up is not okay, but playing iwth a toy instead is). Honestly, are you suggesting that teaching a puppy not to chew on the remote by trading the remote for a chew toy is not an effective way to teach puppy what to chew on? If so, a large number of people who have raised puppies must have just been getting lucky all of these years!

Puppies are a different issue than adult dogs. Puppies are, for the most part, not capable of much restraint. They don't have the maturity or attention span. If a puppy has a need, it will be expressed appropriately or not... They just don't have impulse control. An adult does, and can be reasonably expectd to show it when taught to. I'm not suggesting the OP just tell her what not to do. If you read my post, you would see I am suggesting the OP mark the behavior as not desireable, get her to do it right, and then reward her by giving what she wants. A dog that's too wound up isn't going to learn to calm herself down if you're just redirecting her energy to a toy. She has to learn to be calm, and that offering calmness instead of in your face gets rewarded with the playtime. Unlike puppies, adults are capable of learning this and capable of impulse control. What's the motivator to get the girl to calm down when she knows she's gonna get what she wants without having to change her behavior?

 

I do know what puppies are like, I have a 7 month old crazy borzoi At a certain point, you don't have to treat a dog like he or she just can't help themselves. IMO treating an adult like a puppy is not encouraging a dog to think for him or her self, and impulse control is a very important skill for an adult dog to have. Can it work to get the girl to leave the boy alone? Yeah. Is it going to be that effective in keeping her from getting overaroused? Not really. From what the OP has said, her girl has a problem with getting overexcited and it's been happening in more situations. Yes, telling her no is only part of the equation. The same can also be said for redirecting without ever marking the first behavior as inappropriate.

Edited January 23, 2013 by cwholsin

[Guest cwholsin]

Also, the OP has been redirecting her to a toy and this has not helped with the behavior or taught her to play with the toy instead. From what I can tell from the post, the behavior seems to have gotten worse. So I'd day that no, redirecting her to a toy is not particularly helpful in stopping this behavior, and yes, it seems to have been reinforcing the behavior since the behavior has escalated under the current management of it (redirecting to a toy). Not to beat a dead horse

Edited January 24, 2013 by cwholsin

[GreyTzu]

Personally, I would follow the advice of Jen and of the Vet.

Ay yi yi, this has nothing to do with alpha anything, nor does it sound like she is bullying him. It sounds like she wants to play but may not have the best skills in terms of initiating play (not at all uncommon with greyhounds) and she may be a bit "reckless" in terms of rules of engagement with other dogs. In fact, everything you've described happens between my girls on a daily basis and it's all part of their play.

The problem with your situation, unlike mine, is that Mason doesn't seem interested in engaging with Molly, or he's just overwhelmed with her assertive efforts. How I approached it would probably depend on what my goal was, but since you said that in the past he has enjoyed playing with her at times, I might try for teaching her how to engage in play more appropriately by using time outs when she gets too aroused. When she's calmed down, she's released again to play, if she gets too aroused, she gets another timeout. When you're doing this, you are not speaking to her at all. You just keep your body language calm and relaxed (there is no punishment involved here) and put her in the timeout. I might use an x-pen or a crate for this if possible, or you could babygate her in a hallway or room adjacent wher she can still see you.

 

If she doens't eventually catch on, or you would prefer she just not try to play iwth him, then yes, redirect her to a toy. I would give a cue like "Let him be" or something simple like that, then say "Get your toy" and toss a toy for her. Eventually you may be able to just say "Let him be" and she'll go get her toy automatically. And no, this is not rewarding her behavior, it's teaching her appropriate behavior rather than just saying no or punishing her. It's the same as a puppy who has to learn not to chew on inappropriate items. The age old way to do that - redirect to an appropriate toy, ad nauseum, until finally one day they catch on.

 

 

I agree that you definitely need to address the behavior. Sounds like you need a lot more management for the time being. Since you know she does it right after a walk for example, you might separate them as soon as you come in (don't unleash her until you do) via babygate and then let her have some playtime with a toy or some chewtime with a rawhide until she unwinds for example. I would also give her a job to do on walks that she can focus on instead of barking at Mason. Simplest thing is to start asking her for her attention and rewarding her for paying attention to you (with high value food treats). Also, would definitely separate them when they have high value items like rawhides to prevent her from taking them. You may need to go so far as to remove all toys and only give them during supervised/separated playtime.

 

Is she getting less exercise lately, maybe because of the weather? Just thinking about what could be causing the behavior to escalate.

 

ETA: Does she know a "give" cue? If not, I would also work on that. One option for the stealing things out of his mouth would be to have her immediately give you the thing she's stolen and put it away so she learns that that sort of behavior doesn't get her what she wants. When she gives it to you, you should still reward and then point her to an item on the floor, in the toybox, etc. that she is allowed to take things from. In other words, taking a toy directly from his mouth doesn't get me what I want (playing with a toy), but taking it from an "allowed" place does.

 

 

Excellent responses from Jen (NeylasMom). This is play behavior (albeit rather rough and pushy) and has nothing to do with alpha or 'trying to take over'. I do agree that since Mason sounds like he's being intimidated by her, you need to step in and protect him. The easiest solution is to separate them when she's too worked up, and redirect her away from him when she's in a playful mood and he's not.

 

I don't think this type of behavior is necessarily inappropriate or indicative of a dog lacking skills in initiating play. It may be more of a difference in enthusiasm and play style. My girl Willow does this to my other dogs. My mixed breed Corey will play with her, and they get very rough together. But when he's had enough, he tells her in no uncertain terms, and she immediately stops and give him submissive/appeasement signals. She tries the same thing with my other grey Wiki - he doesn't play like that, but he's confident enough to just ignore her and walk off as she's bouncing around him, barking and mouthing at his face and neck. Most of my fosters have told her 'no' by showing their teeth and snapping when she gets pushy, and she immediately backs off.

 

I don't interfere in any of the above interactions. The only time I have to intercede is with my whippet Ollie. He's not as intimidated as your boy sounds, but he won't tell Willow 'no' so she keeps going after him. If she's pestering him too much, and he's looking overwhelmed, I'll step in between them or grab Willow's collar and lead her away. In our case, this behavior usually happens outside in the yard, so I just put one of them back inside, and the pestering stops.

 

Like you, I feel that if Ollie would just stand up for himself, Willow would stop. But for whatever reason, he just pitifully puts up with it. Odd, because he will tell off other dogs that get too pushy with him, just not Willow. And indoors, they're very sweet together. Willow cleans his ears, he cleans her eyes, and while they don't really snuggle, he will lay across her front legs when she's in the sphinx position.

 

 

You can call it what you want, but the truth is that at worst Molly is just lacking in some good dog manners, aka. she's being rude. And without being there to see if Mason is even telling her in some way to back off (and if he isn't, does he even care that she took the toy?), she might not even be that.

 

Handling of resources is pretty straightforward in the dog world. If it's in my possession, it's mine. What constitutes in my possession can depend on an individual dog and generally they communicate that definition to other dogs with their body language. Generally speaking, "in my mouth" constitutes possession, but in some cases dogs have a certain radius around them in which they consider themselves still in possession even if the item is not in their mouth/paws. However, conflict only arises when one dog is not willing to defer to the other, whether it's the dog in possession not being willing to give up an item when another dog approaches to take it or when the approaching dog won't back off when the dog in possession of the item says no thanks, I'm not done.

This article from Pat Miller (via Whole Dog Journal) does a great job of outlining the various scenarios and giving instruction on when and how to step in.

 

As far as redirecting reinforcing the behavior, I'm not going to beat a dead horse, but that's just not true. You are giving her an appropriate way to act in place of an inappropriate one rather than just telling her what you don't want, which is only half of the equation and doesn't address the underlying issue (I want to play play play - playing with your brother when you're that wound up is not okay, but playing iwth a toy instead is). Honestly, are you suggesting that teaching a puppy not to chew on the remote by trading the remote for a chew toy is not an effective way to teach puppy what to chew on? If so, a large number of people who have raised puppies must have just been getting lucky all of these years!

 

 

This is a valid point, although one could argue that her unwillingness to back off when Mason has made it very clear he doesn't want to play (even if he doesn't tell her off, he's got to be sending her a ton of signals) is. I did have Zuri very clearly in my head as I imagined Molly trying to interact with Mason and Zuri's issue tends to be one of overarousal. Dogs *should* be able to self-regulate by taking breaks when things get too hardcore (unless, to your point both dogs enjoy that really rough play), but some dogs don't know how to hit the pause switch and I was thinking that might be the case with Molly, hence the timeout advice.

 

Not disagreeing with you, I just had the vision of Zuri in my head, standing over Skye barking his fool head off when the girls have been playing hard enough to entice him off of the couch and get in on the play. In his youth he actually was able to engage in a bit of normal dog play, but somewhere along the line he seems to have lost those skills and now he just stands there barking. I know it's his sad attempt, it's clearest from Skye's body language when it happens, but he just can't figure it out so generally I have to put a stop to it. I actually recently decided (coincidentally, lol) to start redirecting him to his 'Cuz ball, which I call his pacifier. That way in the future if I'm not there to intervene his automatic reaction will be to get his toy and play rather than get in the middle of things with them.

:blah Not sure how helpful any of this will be to the OP, but I find the discussion interesting of course.

 

 

Yup...

[Guest cwholsin]

I gotta disagree, and this is why. Attention seeking behaviors will not be reduced by giving attention. This is why scolding a dog that is deliberately misbehaving will do no good. The intent was to get attention, and attention was recieved. Chewing, however, is not an attention-seeking behavior (the exception being the deliberately naughty dog), so giving your attention to the puppy to redirect him to something else is a good way to teach him or her what is okay to chew on. The thing is, it's usually accompanied by a negative marker so the puppy can learn a sign to stop a particular behavior on command.

 

Our puppy, the 7 month old borzoi, used to have a terrible barking problem. We lived in an apartment, so I had to re-direct her so we wouldn't get a noise complaints. Unsuprisingly, giving attention to this attention seeking behavior did not reduce the behavior long-term. Distracting her with something would get her to be quiet right then, but we continued to have a barking problem until we moved to a house where I could do what I should have been doing the whole time: ignoring her barking and not rewarding her with attention. It only took a few days of not giving her what she wanted in response to barking paired with praising her when she was quiet and the barking was significantly reduced. Praising her when she was quiet by itself did not work (we were doing that from the beginning in the apartment).

 

The OP's bossy dog is behaving that way to get a particular type of attention. She wants to play and she is demanding that the boy play with her. In response to her behavior, her human starts playing with her. It's not surprising that the behavior isn't going away! And it's unlikely the behavior will stop until she stops getting played with when she's over the top. Redirecting her to a toy is a short-term solution. It will get her off the OP's insecure boy momentarily, but it will not teach her to be calmer or keep the behavior from continuing to escalate. Redirecting works for some things, but unless you know a way to redirect without interacting with the dog, it's not gonnna work on attention-seeking behavior.

Edited January 24, 2013 by cwholsin

[NeylasMom]

You're making the assumption that the behavior is attention seeking. In fact, you've made a couple of assumptions, including that the behavior escalated as a result of the OP redirecting to the toy (and thus attributing a causal relationship), which wasn't stated clearly anywhere. Somewhere along the way I asked whether anything had changed that might contribute to this escalation of the behavior, specifically a reduction in exercise related to weather (which wouldn't be unreasonable on the OP's part) and the OP has so far not had a chance to answer. The main problem with your assumption is that if it's not an attention seeking behavior, but rather Molly just wanting to play because she's young, playful, has the desire (insert whatever totally healthy reason you'd like here) that your suggestions don't give her an adequate outlet for that energy like redirecting to a toy does. By the way, plenty of the advice I gave was to encourage teaching Molly self control (ie. using timeouts during play).

 

And that's going to be all I'm going to say about that because the OP has plenty of advice to work with and is probably overwhelmed by this total derailment of her thread.

 

To the OP, I hope you can find a good solution. I think you have a very workable situation - just likely that Mason needs you to step in and manage a bit to make things more comfortable for him. Let us know how it goes!