Any tips will be treasured

Hi
New to this forum and new Labrador owner,I’m really struggling with obedience on walks and in the house.
He is only 7 months old so is very excitable.
I need help with him jumping up constantly,biting everything,pulling on the lead,eating everything in sight while out on walks,any tips would be greatly received.thanks
 
Hi and welcome to you and your pup ! If you have a look in the puppy section , you will see some posts that might help you and your boy . Lab pups are hard work , I currently have four month old Reuben who is testing at times , also look in the adolescent section , where other members have had the same issues as you are having , it does get better I promise !
 

HAH

Moderator
Location
Devon, UK
Hi @Jo anne , a very warm welcome to you and your pup! I’ve got Kipper who now 15 months old and I sympathise with your trials and tribulations. As @kateincornwall says, there’s a wealth of information, experience and sympathy on this forum (definitely head to the Puppies thread) that has helped hugely with the tricky puppy stuff. Their puppyhood does last a long time so at 7 months you still have a full blown puppy in a growing body - it’s tough but it will get easier - we promise!
 

Boogie

Moderator
Location
Manchester UK
Welcome to you, I also have a seven month old - they are hard work and I have lots of sympathy.

My pup is a Guide Dog pup and I had some excellent advice from my supervisor. I often forget it in the moments of madness, but it works!

Here it is -

Adolescence – Don’t Fight It!

Adolescent dogs love to get your goat! Often, their greatest pleasure is getting you wound up over some trivial matter, such as refusing to have their paws wiped, stubbornly ignoring your commands to come in from the garden or playing “keep away” with your slippers or TV remote.
Remember, what fuels the misbehaviour is the conflict itself, so avoiding the battle is far more important than trying to win it. This means staying calm and refusing to get engaged in a battle of physical strength or a shouting match with your dog. Instead use your superior brain power to find a way around it.
For example, your dog has a tantrum and starts biting the towel whilst you are wiping his paws. Instead of getting frustrated and engaging in a wrestling match, stop, line up 4 treats on a surface where he can see them and give him 1 treat per paw for good behaviour. It may feel like bribery, but the positive result will prove that rewards work fast.
Imagine your dog runs under the dining table with a tissue. He tries to tempt you to come and take it from him – which you know will end up in confrontation. Don’t engage! Instead, keep your dignity and prevent the situation from escalating by simply walking away and ignoring him.

It’s NOT dominance!
If your dog repeatedly performs a behaviour which you find infuriating, such as barking, attention seeking, or pulling on the lead, ask yourself what’s reinforcing it.
These are not symptoms of dominance. Your dog is not trying to challenge you for leadership. It’s far more obvious and simple than that.
Dogs repeat behaviours that get rewarded
Rewards include eye contact, vocal contact and physical contact. They also include you getting wound up, cross and upset.
If your dog is getting any of these rewards for his misbehaviour, you need to change tactics and stop giving them immediately! Fold your arms, look away and walk out of the room if practically possible. Being ignored is a major consequence for dogs.

Don’t nag!
Question: What happens when you nag someone?
Answer: They ignore you!
Beware of nagging your dog. It’s nearly always better to be calm and quiet so that your dog listens when you do give him a cue. If you find that you are repeating yourself (Fido, come! Fido, stop that! Fido, no!) think about what triggers the behaviour you don’t like and find a strategy to prevent it. This is not giving in – it’s sensible management and will help to maintain a positive relationship between you.

Keep training!
During adolescence, it’s not unusual for owners to wonder if any of the training they did with their puppy was really worthwhile. If it seems like your dog has suddenly lost his hearing, or his desire to do anything to please you – don’t panic! The answer is to make sure that you keep on training.
Go back to basics and reinforce simple tasks, such as “sit” which you can reward your dog for getting right.
Good training can solve all of these irritating habits and more. However, in the meantime, it’s important to prevent them from happening to ensure that your dog doesn’t have a chance to practice them. For example, putting your dog on a lead when visitors arrive is safe and practical. Behaviour management like this may not be all singing and dancing, but it is effective and will save your sanity!

Use rewards wisely

If your dog finds “sit” on cue easy, then praise or a piece of dry food is adequate. However, if you want him to do something he finds more difficult, such as coming away from playing with other dogs, you will need to use treats at the top of the list – and lots of them!

How much fun are you?
Once off the lead, your dog is constantly weighing up whether you are worth paying attention to. If you are dull, cross, indifferent or half-hearted, your dog will make the easy decision that everything else is more attractive.
Make sure you are the centre of your dog’s world. Take a toy and play games with your dog, engage in hide and seek, make sudden changes of direction and be FUN!


Recall Rules
Praise is not enough – take really good treats with you and if they do a great recall give them a jackpot reward.
Walk with a friend if their dog has good recall – avoid those that don’t!
Don’t call your dog if you know he is likely to ignore you (i.e. just started to play with another dog)
Practice recall regularly, not just at the end of a free run or if you see a distraction.
Always be positive, even if your dog is slow to return – he will simply learn to ignore you if you reprimand him.

Your clever dog
Finally, it’s so important to realise that while many adolescent dogs can be difficult or challenging, they are also great fun, bright and entertaining. Enjoy this period in your dog’s life and help set the scene for the adult they are about to become.
 
Hello and a warm welcome to you! This is a challenging age for Labrador owners: they’re getting big and strong, but are still very much puppies. There’s a reason that it’s the most common time for them to be surrendered to shelters.
Patience is your friend! He will mature in time. But sometimes that’s a lot of time (not looking at a certain chocolate girl I share my life with, ooooh no 😂), and you have to have some way to manage in the meantime, as well as training tips on how you can get the behaviours you’re after.

You’ve covered a lot of things here, so I’ll just focus on one for now: walking nicely on a loose lead.
With my latest, I worked on her wanting to walk with me from the day she came home, as it is such an important skill to have. I did this mainly off-lead to start with: if you can get a good walk at your side off-lead, you’re good to go on lead. I do this by rewarding her A LOT for walking by my side. It’s a really difficult thing for any dog to do, as our walking pace is generally very unnatural for them. Not to mention, of course, that there’s no reason a dog should know that it’s the “right” thing to do. It’s a very human construct; watch dogs moving together and they don’t walk side by side for long periods. Plus, at this age, his nose is starting to kick in a bit more so all the sniffs are so much more distracting for him.

Many of us choose to not use the lead when we have to go from A to B when the pup doesn’t yet have these skills; it’s stressful for both ends of the lead. Instead, we might choose a patch 50m long outside our front door and walk back and forth along that, rewarding every time the pup comes into position. This way he learns that being with you is worthwhile and he becomes habituated to all the scents on that little piece of road, so he is better able to concentrate and learn his lesson. Once you start moving farther afield, you can start using the figure-8 if he gets over-excited again. Figure of Eight

And off-lead, play loads of games to make being by your side a really good experience. Feed him five treats in a row standing at your side, then toss a treat away. When he turns back to you, say “yes!” and lure him with a treat back to your side again. Feed another five, then toss. After a few repetitions, he won’t need the lure any more. You need to do this somewhere easy for him at first, because the more distracting the environment, the more difficult it is for him to succeed, and you want to be building really firm foundations before testing him. After a while, add in a little bit of movement, feed five steps for five slow paces, then throw. You get the idea. Eventually, you can start fading the treats, but don’t be in a rush, because you want to build that place as the most amazing place to be. I did a bit too much of a good job with my latest and she rarely leaves me off lead now, and is always “asking” me to play another training game! Labs love learning, and if you can get yours obsessed with working with you, even if it’s just silly tricks like hand targeting (dog “hoops” your hand with his nose), “middle” (going between your legs), leg weaves, spins etc etc, then he’ll want to stay with you in case there’s another fun game about to start.

I see @Boogie has posted in the meantime and I’m sure you’ll have lots of great advice from her, too :)
 
Hi Jo anne, and welcome from me and my big yellow boy Pongo in South Wales! I don't have any advice to add (there are people on this forum who are much, much more expert than me) but I do send sympathies - Labrador puppies are hard, hard work. But I promise you that it passes, and it is so very much worth it. Pongo is currently snoring with his big heavy head on my foot and his feet in the air.
 

Naya

Moderator
Location
Bristol, UK
Hi and welcome from me and 5 year old girl, Harley. Consistency is the one thing that I would ensure I did. If you are consistent in the cues /words you use as well as rewarding etc they will get it much quicker. Look forward to hearing more about your boy. What is his name?
 
Hi from me and Rory. He's my third lab. They are slow to mature but so worth the stress of raising them. I getting a pup in 2019 hopefully the teenage phase is hard but just a phase.
 
Hi @Jo anne , a very big welcome to this lovely Forum from me and Cassie who is two and a half, not my first dog but my first Lab. I agree with others , they are worth all the hard work and commitment. She really put me through the wringer, but without doubt is the brightest and funniest dog I've ever had.
So stay around, and we will hold your hand through this phase!
 

Joy

Location
East Sussex
Hi and welcome from me and Molly. My tip would be to think of 'walks' as time to spend together outside, and not necessarily try to go anywhere (if you can drive to an off-lead area that's really helpful.) Spend your time playing ( games like tug and fetch) interspersed with short periods of lead walking. Give LOTS of food rewards (tiny pieces of meat) now for the behaviour you want - if necessary cutting down the quantity of food your pup gets in his bowl - and don't worry about fading the rewards too soon. Rewarding heavily now will pay big dividends in the future.
Looking forward to hearing more about your puppy.
 
Hi and welcome from me and 5 year old girl, Harley. Consistency is the one thing that I would ensure I did. If you are consistent in the cues /words you use as well as rewarding etc they will get it much quicker. Look forward to hearing more about your boy. What is his name?
Thank you his name is Stanley,it sounds to me from reading all the lovely comments he is just being like any other pup,he took a woman clean out in the park the other day 😳,I took him to the vets last week and that’s was an adventure,the vet still has bite marks in her chair,the other dogs in the waiting area are probably still traumatised from his visit,he got all the for sale things from the shelf and was chucking them everywhere and I just couldn’t hold him back he is so strong 😳
 
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