I need some advice. I have a one year old pup who insists on putting his paw on your arm, lap, leg, hand, anything whenever you pet him. He is too pushy with visitors and will bother them continually by pushing up against them and pawing them. I have tried everything I can think of even having guests ignore him until he sits nicely in front of them. But as soon as they pet him his paws come up again and he even tries to climb into their lap. He is very strong and persistent. I have worked every day on training him but it doesn't seem to get through. I have never had this happen before. Please give advice as to how you would try to train him to have better manners with company. THank you

One of the families who adopted one of our pups last summer taught their young puppy to go to her special rug in the kitchen when company would come over. If she got up, the owner would show her back to her " Stay Rug " until the owner gave her the signal to come over and meet their guest. The owner would put their dog in a sit position and if their girl stepped over the boundries, getting obnoxiou, they signaled her to go back to her rug. They have been working with her on this technique since she was a puppy and now that she is a year old, she can now behave herself appropriately when company comes over.

I bet you could teach your over zealous boy the rug trick in no time if you worked with him a couple times a day, having neighbors or whoever come knocking on your door to practice.

This is classic dominant behaviour. I would suggest thorough obedience training and getting info on how to be a strong pack leader of this boy. I have one a bit less dominant, but he is completely well aware that I am the top of the order. Lots of positive reinforcement for submission achieved through obedience work and leadership. There is so much info and so many ways to achieve this, pick one style that you are comfortable with.

Sit/stay, down/stay should be the greatest counter-conditioning commands to help you.

Leave it and stop that are all part of my puppy training from the very beginning. No voice raising, no dragging the dog off, etc......just one command with authority.

Basically, right now he does not respect your authority. You can take charge and have good success quickly, this is the good news.

Good luck with him. My boy makes me laugh every time he tries to weasel his way over me to the top spot. He just makes this face like, "Oh crap, this is NOT working"

I disagree about the dominance thing. It could be dominance, but not necessarily. I have an 18 month old boy who is the farthest thing from dominant. He is low man on the totem pole here, but he just loves to put his paws on people and get a good snuggle in. I do not allow it, but he will still try it with guests if they seem interested in petting him. He comes over with a toy, puts his paws on them and buries his face under their arms (sort of their armpits). He is also wiggling the whole time. I have started using the "go place" command and it works quite well. He is not so pushy anymore and is improving every day.

I have a seriously submissive bitch here - to the point it's a problem - and she does this all the time. It's her way of saying 'hey, I wasn't done yet!'

Everyone who has ever met her thinks it's the cutest thing ever and they are thoroughly charmed by her very obvious requests for engagement.

It drives me crazy, btw.

No this boy is definitely not dominant. He is just very loving and can't seem to get close enough to people. He has had basic obedience and responds to me well on a leash and off leash as well as long as no visitors are around. I just want him to be able to meet new people without completely smothering them. It gives them the wrong idea of his personality, like he is a crazy, hyper boy, when in reality he is super sweet and gentle.

I have a friend who's Pug is like this. Bugs to no end. She hates her nails done. One day I had a pair of nail clippers in my pocket. Jut showed her them and she left me alone the rest of the visit. :)

Hello Help

I agree with Aquila, I'm a qualified behaviourist, your 1 year old (pup) I think thats the problem. Pup, no!
is dominant.
Many dog owners think that "dominant" has somthing to do with aggression, that is most cases not true.

But he take the space and pushes himself to be the center of attention. This means he is controlling the situation and you have to react to him misbehaving.
He has no right to take your space, which doesn't mean that you have to be aggressive with him.
Because he is a sweet and gentle dog, he uses the attenion seeking to control you.


It is quite normal that a 1 year old dog, still has problems with being constantly obedient when there are distractions ( Visitors).

I would suggest "Clicker Training".
Click for space and paws on the floor.
If you have no experience with clicker, then get some professional help, its a great training for solving a huge amount of different problems , especially one that are no so day to day..
The special rug , where the dog stays on until he is allowed to greet the guests, is a good solution, it will only work though if the dog knows that when he is allowed to greet guests that he is not to paw them.

Persist calmly and consistantly and you will win without the dog realising it.


Just a sweet example.

I had a stud dog from a dear friend that died much too early.
The dog used to take everybody's arm in his mouth and lead them in the house.
Everybody thought that it was very funny.
I got a vist from puppy buyers that brought their grandmother with them,.
He took her arm and because she was quite old, she had very thin skin and it broke!!
We needed a Dr.. It could have gone horribly wrong.
Although the dog was over 5 years old, we solved the problem within 14 days within the clicker. He never did it again.

Good luck and have fun solving the problem

On the topic of bad manners and clicker trainning...
I have a very sweet 5 month old girl that is just a love indoors.
Take her outside and she starts to butt tuck around the yard, which is fine.
But then she comes flying by and tries to grab my shirt or coat! She has put pulls and small tears in a number of things.
Have tried the knee, voice NO! but she is not fased. Seems to think it is a great game.
She is outside alott and gets lots of exercise.
Help!

HI
I can only suggest restriction for a period!
Don't just let her out in the yard.
Take her out on the lead and give her some imaginative exercise for a while.
Please don't use your knie at that age. Its painful for both of you and in the end you will have a shot knie and the dog will still be crashing into you.
The same applies as to the young dog that has the pawing problem. She is taking your space!!
We have a 8 month old bitch that would do the same thing if we let her.

When your young bitch has excepted that she can't go balistic because of the lead and the small exercises you do with her are fun , she will be more attentive. Then you can start to take her back off the lead after the exercises for a short time and see how it works.
Should she start again, then restriction and be very consistent, she does it your way or she is resticted, this can take a few weeks!
Using the Clicker to re enforce the good behaviour is always a great advantage, but the timing is very important.

Good luck and have fun training