Help With Grey Who Is Overly Friendly With Strangers

[Guest FinnsMama]

Finn approaches people in a manner I call 'friendly aggressive' although I am concerned that he may be masking a real aggressive tendancy. He seems to want to jump on people and lick their faces. For that reason I try to avoid people altoghther on our walks, but I would like to break him of this so he can get petted on his walks. Since he is so striking, like most greyhounds are, people really want to pet him.

 

I try holding his harness so he stays on all fours and say firmly Down!, but it is still a struggle. (I have had him seven years.)

 

He used to do this to me and family when we came home from work, but broke of jumping on us by tossing a toy and turning our backs to him until he settled. Then we would pet him. Now he just grabs that same toy and 'celebrates' running around the house which we praise effusively.

 

Any suggestions?

[krissy]

I may be misunderstanding but I fail to see the aggressive component. Sounds like he just has a bad habit of jumping up when greeting people?

[Time4ANap]

We pass a lot of people on our walks, and Rocket is always excited to see them. He used to pull toward them in the same manner.

 

I use the "Wait" command with him, usually moving him to the edge of the sidewalk, then telling him to WAIT. He then has to stand there until the people pass. Most of them can;t believe how well behaved he is when they see this. If they want to approach and pet, that's fine, but some of them are obviously intimidated by his size, so we leave it up to them.

 

If we are in a crowd and he gets excited like that, his leash gets very short and he has to walk almost against me. He usually calms down then.

[Sambuca]

I think obedience classes would be great for him. If he learns to sit or down you can ask him to do that when he's ready to jump. With lots of treats and positive reinforcement he'll learn the proper behavior.

It doesn't sound at all aggressive to me. Many dogs like to jump on people. It's over exuberant, but not usually aggressive.

[Guest FinnsMama]

Thank you, Time4anap. I will try as you suggest. He already knows the "wait!" command and does it very well when he isn't excited.

 

Krissy, i may be raeding more into it, but he could knock someone down easily. True he seems to only want to lick their faces, but I don't want him to scratch the strangers. We walk twice a day but I may have just avoided people instead of working on this for too long.

 

I am so grateful to have found a website like this to go to the greyhound community for advice.

[Sambuca]

While jumping can be a dangerous behavior, they can knock someone down, scratch them, head butt them knocking out a tooth, etc, it's not aggressive. He's not meaning to harm anyone. Avoiding people can make it worse because then he'll be even more excited when he does get to say hi. It can take time. One thing to do is to step on the leash so he can't jump. You'll want to work on having him follow other commands so that eventually you won't need to do it, but it should help in the mean time.

[krissy]

Krissy, i may be raeding more into it, but he could knock someone down easily. True he seems to only want to lick their faces, but I don't want him to scratch the strangers. We walk twice a day but I may have just avoided people instead of working on this for too long.

 

He absolutely could hurt someone which is why I only allow Kili to jump up on me. However, "aggression" denotes an intention to do harm (whether true aggression or fear aggression). An over exuberant dog jumping up has no intention of hurting anyone. It is simply an over excited, under trained dog. Impulse control and obedience training will easily fix the situation. Maybe not easily if he's been doing it for 7 years, but still very possible!

[tydyelady]

Our Opie did this, and he was 95 lbs. We had to work with him ALL the time, and anticipate when we would run into people that he was "thinking' of jumping. We said NO JUMP, he learned what we meant, and he got lots of praise for not jumping. He used to do this to us too when we came home from work, jumping and slamming me into the wall! We also redirected his enthusiasm with throwing a toy, and eventually that's what he would would when we got home. I agree, I was very concerned that he would accidentally hurt someone in his enthusiasm to say hello, so its something you need to work on all the time. Avoiding people is not the answer.

[KristenMichele]

We do the no jump and treats with fanny. It has really improved this however she still has her moments whet she get super excited.

[sobesmom]

Welllll.... I did a little sneaky thing with my Diana. She'd get WAY too excited meeting people on walks, and the ones that approached us, she'd want to jump up on. Not cool. So - when being approached by somebody who'd want to visit, I'd get Diana close, stop, and drop the slack of the 6 ft. leash on the ground, and stand on it. One end in my hand by my side. Most people NEVER NOTICED. But Diana did if she tried to jump because she had NO slack to go up. She had enough to move around and look and feel natural, as long as the feet stayed on the ground. It confused the heck outta her - and I acted like NOTHING happened - so she figured jumping on people just didn't work, and pretty quickly quit trying. It was actually way easier than teaching her not to jump on ME!

[Guest FinnsMama]

Thank you all for the advice. I will give the treat and no jump comands some work. In my defense I might add that shortly after Finn came to grace my home I ruptured a disc in my back. That might help explain why I avoided people instead of working on this earlier. He continued to get his walks but painfully for me.

 

That was a few years ago and I am better now and should have started woking on it sooner but I will start now. He really is a very sweet boy and I would love to be able to share him with others more. He learns quickly but when he gets excited, he forgets or he selectively follows instructions. I have given him the command 'Mind your manners' which means not to pull or jump so I have done some work on it. But when he gets excited treats don't interest him much which makes training all the more challenging.

 

I am looking forward to this. He is such a fun, smart boy! Thanks again!

SobesMom! Pretty tneat trick! I will be sure to use this one!

[sobesmom]

Thank you all for the advice. I will give the treat and no jump comands some work. In my defense I might add that shortly after Finn came to grace my home I ruptured a disc in my back. That might help explain why I avoided people instead of working on this earlier. He continued to get his walks but painfully for me.

 

That was a few years ago and I am better now and should have started woking on it sooner but I will start now. He really is a very sweet boy and I would love to be able to share him with others more. He learns quickly but when he gets excited, he forgets or he selectively follows instructions. I have given him the command 'Mind your manners' which means not to pull or jump so I have done some work on it. But when he gets excited treats don't interest him much which makes training all the more challenging.

 

I am looking forward to this. He is such a fun, smart boy! Thanks again!

SobesMom! Pretty tneat trick! I will be sure to use this one!

Do try my trick. Let me know how it works out! PM me. BTW - I ruptured 2 disks in my back a few years ago - and it definitely affected how I exercised, trained, and interacted with my dogs. I had to learn a whole new way of doing things. I started my "stepping on the leash" thing after my back injury. It was out of physical necessity as much as anything. I simply couldn't bend down or muscle my dog with my body - but I could stand upright - use the leash under my foot - and maintain control - teach the dog not to jump on people - and have a nice interaction with someone - without being in pain.

 

We need to adapt not only to our dog's needs - but to ours.

[Guest k9soul]

Rudy can be a bit overly exuberant too. He adores people and wants to meet everyone and for them to pet him. If I have him by himself he does pretty good, but if I have my lab mix with me he tends to want to jump up because I think he he feels more competitive for the attention. I use "off" if he jumps up since "down" is for lying down, but mainly I try to anticipate the situations it may happen in and redirect him before he jumps. "Wait" is a good command or a "look at me" which is often rewarded with a treat.