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There are puppy behavoirs that are normal to the puppy but are annoying or unexceptable to the puppy's owner. These behavoirs should be dealt with as a puppy for if left unchecked they could turn into adult behavorial problems. Sometimes these behavoirs get so out of control that it renders the dog unacceptable as a pet. This we want to avoid. |
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Jumping Up Dogs are social animals and often jump up on people so they can lick their face when greeting them. This may have originated from wolves as they will lick each other on the face in greeting. Owners often consider this cute in a puppy but it becomes more annoying as the puppy gets bigger. Certainly a full grown Great Dane jumping up on a person is not acceptable. If your puppy jumps up on you, turn away and ignore them. Any positive or negative reinforecement is discouraged so no petting, no pushing the dog down or saying no. Just turn your back and ignore. If you do not ignore the dog, it has achieved its goal of getting attention. Besides ignoring the puppy, it is good to teach the puppy an alternative behavoir such as sitting during greetings. When the puppy sits, reward with praise. |
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Play Biting puppies use their mouths for social interactions including play but it is important to let the puppy know when biting is not acceptable. When a puppy starts to bite at your hands or arm, interaction with the puppy should cease. Give the puppy an alternative object for the puppy to mouth. A sharp "yip" from the person may startle the puppy and stop him from biting. Do not engage in wrestling or other games of contact which encourage the puppy to bite. Games such as fetch are much better and decrease the puppy's desire to play bite Do not yell or hit your puppy as these will only make him firghtened of people and not stop the behavoir. Pulling -of course the best treatment for this is obedience training. a dog trained to heel on command is a pleasure to walk. Great Danes need a lot of exercise and if you do not have a very large back yard walks are essential. A Dane pulling on the leash all the time will not be a Dane walked for very long |
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Barking -Barking starts at 2 to 4 weeks of age and persists throughout the dogs life. Dogs bark for many different reasons including greetings, play, solicitation, defense, distress and alarm. Dogs use different tones of barks in different situations a play bark is higher than a territorial bark. If a dog is barking excessively the cause of the vocaliztion needs to be determined, Great Danes tend to be very aggrissive defenders of their territory the yard, house and the car. This has to do with the fact that they were bred to be defenders of the nobels estates in the middle ages. It is very difficult to stop this behavoir but most Danes will bark w hen someone walks along their fence or approaches their car but will stop as soon as the stimuli is removed. Attention seeking barking is easy to control. Simply remove any reinforcement for barking. Anxiety related barking might need the help of a veterinary behavoirist or at least a really good dog trainer. Bark collars and citronella collars can be used in any non anxiety bark problems but I would leave them to last. |
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Digging-There are different motivations for digging including regulation of body temperature, play, exploration, hunting, escape behavoirs and burying food items. So you msut determine the motivation for the digging. For dogs engaged in recreational digging you can provide them with an acceptable digging area with soft, loosly packed dirt and burying objects that the dog will like to dig up. In areas you want to keep the puppy away from you can use motion activated sprinklers or rocks. Of course fencing the areas or kenneling the dog can keep those flower beds from being dug up. I have put 4 foot rod iron fencing around all of my flower beds to keep the Danes from laying on my plants that is something that the plants do not seem to like. |
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Chewing -Chewing is a normal form of exploration and activity for puppies. They learn information about their environment by sniffing, tasting, and chewing on objects. Teething is also a normal reason for chewing. Some more abnormal reasons for chewing are attention-seeking anxiety, escape behavoir and obsessive comulsive behavoirs. In puppies the most common reason for chewing is exploration, play and teething. I have toy boxes in the house in any of the areas where the puppies will be. I invest in a lot of toys both hard and soft but the Danes seem to like the soft best. If you catch a puppy chewing on an unaccepable object replace it with an acceptalble one. So supervision is the key at first. Soon the puppy will learn that all of the objects in his toy box are his and give plenty of praise when the puppy learns this. You can use a startling noise (can with pennies) or a water squirt to interrupt the behavoir if caught in the act. Of course when you cannot supervise the puppy, it will be in his crate. Any dangerous objects such as electrical cords should be dealt with. Be sure not to give any attention either positive or negaitive for chewing on unacceptable objects. Just as with jumping, ignore the puppy or use remote punishment. |
| Coprophagia- The ingestion of feces is a form of pica. Young dogs are more likely and puppies will often outgrow the behavoir. The behavoir is self rewarding and may become a habit that is difficult to erradicate. If behavoir persists a medical work up to look for GI or nutritional cause. Forbid can be used to make feces less attractive or just denying access to feces can be a sucessfultreatment. | |
