Ignoring vs redirecting excited mouthing and jumping?

[leggyblondegrey]

Hi all, my husband and I have had our 2yo boy a bit over a month. Bit of background: he is statuing a lot so we are only taking him on the same very short walk around the block about 4x a day until we start seeing a trainer in a couple of weeks. So it's not yet an option to tire him out with walks. We live in an apartment with no fenced yard so no romping around off leash either. We tried to play some keep away tossing his fav squeaky toy back and forth to each other on a nearby grassy patch on leash but he got possessive of the toy quite quickly and we decided it wasn't for us at this stage.

The actual issue is that he has started getting really excitable in the evenings and when we come back from walks. Nice to see his personality come through but it has moved onto quite excited nipping/mouthing and jumping, and pretty much only on my husband who didn't do as much of the caretaking in the beginning due to work. Hubby tries yelping and turning away but something about his body language/timing is still reading as play to the dog and he doesn't stop. He doesn't put his mouth on me often at all but when he has and I have tried the yelping, it works - so he understands the signal if it's done right (unlike some dogs who get more riled up when you yelp). 

We want to redirect his mouth energy to something more appropriate like chews, but we also don't want to accidentally reward/reinforce the bad behaviour - what are peoples thoughts on this? Is it ok to ignore mouthing, wait until calmer, then give a chew?

Should also mention he shows definite resource guarding with natural chews so it's not something we want to use too much unless we know we've got some time set aside where he can safely work on it and we don't need to try and take it away. 

Thanks!

[greysmom]

Couple thoughts:

Have your husband take over as much of the feeding and walking as he can.  It will help your dog and him bond together better so the dog will care when your husband yelps.   

Dogs generally are here-and-now creatures, so training needs to be done pretty much at the time the behavior occurs.  They won't associate the reward with the behavior if it's more than 30 secs to a minute away.

You need to find a balance between a high enough value reward to get his attention for redirection, but not so high value that he will feel he needs to guard it strongly.  Something just good enough.  A toy, or a small peanut butter filled Kong - something he can take away from the jumping area and that will maintain his attention for about 5 minutes.

If there's no such high value treat for him, then use whatever works to get his attention and redirect him from the jumping, and use the "trading up" technique to safely take it away from him after the excitement of coming home is over.  

I'm sure your trainer will work with you on commands to teach him to distract him and calm him down.  Commands like "watch me," or "sit," or "go to your bed," can help him remain calm and in control, which is what you're trying to teach him.  Make sure your trainer only uses Positive Reinforcement techniques with your greyhound.  They don't respond well to negative reinforcers.

Good luck and Welcome!

[HeyRunDog]

I fond a loud firm NO as soon as Grace started to do something unwanted often did the trick and I agree with greysmom, if your going to ignore bad behaviour and reward good, then the reward must be immediate.

Don't worry about the statuing, a lot of greyhounds do it until they can make sense of this strange new world they've been transported into. If you look through these forums you will find plenty of advice and stories about it.

[cleptogrey]

you have a young dog there who needs exercise! that's why all of that energy is coming out at night. all of these behaviors can be redirected if he is exercised and yes, at that age they have a ton of energy!  any place fenced in that you can let him really move and maybe run w/ another dog and form a relationship? the mouthy behavior is a royal p.i.t.a. and hurts- felix was like that between 7 and 11 months of age. and he always played soccer, ran, 4 mile walks- etc. using a deterrent on my arms during training classes didn't help. somehow he grew out of it.

rather than just an individual trainer try group classes. they are starting to open up again(hopefully the delta variant will NOT result in another lock down).

personally i do not like dog parks- but maybe you can find something and go off hours. greyhounds have thin skin and rip easily and it's not fair to muzzle your dog when no other creature is muzzled.  

work with your adoption group- you may be candidates for an older more settled dog or you might be able to pair up w/ others and go for group walks. that will start him walking and you can extend your walks to a good 1-2 hrs to tucker the lad out.