Puppy robbing clothes

dodderangler

My 11 week old old vizsla/gwp is always trying to rob clothes
She sleeps in the kitchen at night time in her dog basket and her blanket and yet every morning I walk in to kitchen stinking of her sh1t and she has robbed the clothes out of wash basket
I even put the basket on top of kitchen table and this morning opened the kitchen door to see her on top of the table waggin her table with loads of clothes on ground
Also when she is out the back garden she tries to pull the clothes off the line and I've had to pick them up every day
The biggest problem is herself isn't a dog person and I'm trying to win her over but this isn't helping


Any advice?

SillyMangoX

Are the clothes in the basket clean or dirty? If they are dirty it's most likely she is getting your scent from them, she may be missing you during the night and want your smell. If its clean clothes it may be an attention seeking thing or be down to boredom. If she is going to the toilet over night in the kitchen you need to get up during the night and let her out, she's still a baby and can't hold it for that long. Would you think about crate training her? Will stop her from getting at your clothes anyway!

andreac

I suggest crate training. Will solve a lot of your problems. You have to remember shes only a baby and it will take weeks even months to fully toilet train so you need to be patient.

kinkygirl

Do you leave her all night long, without taking out for a toilet break? At eleven weeks old, our little guy was brought out twice during the night. He also loved to play with, eat and destroy anything made from material.

Could you consider moving the wash basket to another room at night?

kaimera

the dog at home still does it. he's 3 now I think, does it only to my mam; takes socks, t-towels, shoes but it's just for attention and he gets bold. my mam spoils him and he knows it!

maggiepip

Gosh shes only 11 weeks old......Im not sure what you are expecting but puppies chew things and get into all sorts of mischief, pulling a few clothes out of a washing basket is mild. How long is she left at night to hold her toilet? Its obviously too long at the moment for her age. Put all washing/ chewables into a different room when shes unsupervised and give her a safe chew toy.

If you wanted to try crate training it might be an idea but maybe someone else could offer you help there---Ive never used crates.

falabo

ahhhhh it's so cute when they steal clothes, one of mine is 3 y.o. and still walks into a room, ina sneaky way, trying to be unoticed and steals socks.

at 11 weeks of age she can't hold her wees by the way, it's impossible, you're gonna have to get up one or twice during the night and crate train her !

gramar

She's very young so will have no idea of bounderies or rules so you have to start imposing them. Putting the clothes somewhere lese is a start. The most important thing is to be consistent, not just you but your wife too. You need to deal with each situation in the same way and you'll be surprised how quickly the pup will learn. Don't be afraid to be firm, I'm not suggesting cruelty but a sharp slap or pinch gets their attention.
I've two dogs, the youngest is 11 months and while he's still a cheeky chappie I was amazed at how quickly he matured in terms of behaviour and obedience by the time he was 4 or 5 months. I did it all wrong with the other one when she was a pup and the extra effort this time at the beginning is paying off now.

Nody

gramar wrote: »

She's very young so will have no idea of bounderies or rules so you have to start imposing them. Putting the clothes somewhere lese is a start. The most important thing is to be consistent, not just you but your wife too. You need to deal with each situation in the same way and you'll be surprised how quickly the pup will learn. Don't be afraid to be firm, I'm not suggesting cruelty but a sharp slap or pinch gets their attention.
I've two dogs, the youngest is 11 months and while he's still a cheeky chappie I was amazed at how quickly he matured in terms of behaviour and obedience by the time he was 4 or 5 months. I did it all wrong with the other one when she was a pup and the extra effort this time at the beginning is paying off now.

Sure, no cruelty because pinching beating your dog is ok because it's not human, right?

To OP; positive reinforcement with praise and consistency in treatment is what's needed. As others have noted you need to bring your pup out multiple times during the night if you want to avoid accidents and praise them every time they go outside so they get the right association and make sure it got plenty of distractions to chew on while puppy proofing your kitchen. Crate training is most likely also going to be needed (esp. if you're wife is not a dog lover yet!) to keep things under control.

gramar

Nody wrote: »

Sure, no cruelty because pinching beating your dog is ok because it's not human, right?

Simply saying that with a young pup it can be very difficult to get their attention when you're trying to teach them discipline and boundaries and a sharp slap on shoulder or a quick pinch makes them pay you attention. It's not about being cruel or hurting them. I not advocating whacking them round the head or booting them in the arse. Ask any dog trainer and they'll tell you the same.

I totally agree with you about positive reinforcement when they do something correctly but you can't use it when they do thinhs they shouldn't or that you don't want them to.

gramar

Cesar Millan.

jimf

at 11 weeks old shes only a baby she will need at least 2 toilet trips at night as for the clothes this is what puppies do try an old jacket of yours for her to lie on maybe shes getting comfort from your smell in the clothes basket i have 1 springer 7 yrs old now and all she will let in her bed to lie on is an old jacket of mine and do not feed late at night last meal 7pm then you have plenty time before bedtime to bring her out and maybe a little treat for doing her business they cop on very fast what gets them a treat

by the way any chance of a few pics ????

borderlinemeath

gramar wrote: »

Nody wrote: »

Sure, no cruelty because pinching beating your dog is ok because it's not human, right?

Simply saying that with a young pup it can be very difficult to get their attention when you're trying to teach them discipline and boundaries and a sharp slap on shoulder or a quick pinch makes them pay you attention. It's not about being cruel or hurting them. I not advocating whacking them round the head or booting them in the arse. Ask any dog trainer and they'll tell you the same.

No reputable dog trainer would advocate techniques such as pinching or slapping.

I totally agree with you about positive reinforcement when they do something correctly but you can't use it when they do thinhs they shouldn't or that you don't want them to.

Tone of voice/time outs works better. Or a key word or phrase that you teach the dog through training so it knows to stop. The dog will associate the slap or pinch with you, not with the fact that he's done something wrong. Eventually he will get sick of it and nip you back.

I don't know about anybody else but there is nothing worse than seeing a dog grimacing from it's owner, shutting it's eyes and waiting for the slap. It's not the force of the slap, it's the act itself. An animal waiting to be abused by the person they trust the most.

OP, crate training is the way forward. If you don't want to go down that route, just take the clothes hamper out of the kitchen. But pups will chew anything, they don't know the difference between toys and your prize possessions so the crate prevents them from getting at anything they shouldn't. It will also help with toilet training but 11 weeks is too young for a pup to hold it overnight.

borderlinemeath

gramar wrote: »

Cesar Millan.

Is useless.

An untrained TV 'personality' who uses outdated methods to frighten animals into submission. He's even admitted himself that he was wrong on some dominance techniques he used. Problem is his books are still sitting on shelves and TV shows are repeated so the message going out is still wrong.

gramar

borderlinemeath wrote: »

gramar wrote: »

No reputable dog trainer would advocate techniques such as pinching or slapping.

Tone of voice/time outs works better. Or a key word or phrase that you teach the dog through training so it knows to stop. The dog will associate the slap or pinch with you, not with the fact that he's done something wrong. Eventually he will get sick of it and nip you back.

Like I said before I don't mean a hard slap or pinching the dog as hard as I can. It is simply getting the dogs attention. It is no different to pushing the dog away with your knee when he jumps up, As you say if this is accompanied by the right command in the right tone of voice the dog will quickly learn to stop this behaviour. I've seen plenty of dog trainers on TV and they all recommend a pinch or jab to the shoulder to get the dogs attention if they are too boistrous or overstep the mark. I've found it to work as it earns their respect of you as their leader through firmness not cruelty or fear.

borderlinemeath

gramar wrote: »

borderlinemeath wrote: »

Like I said before I don't mean a hard slap or pinching the dog as hard as I can. It is simply getting the dogs attention. It is no different to pushing the dog away with your knee when he jumps up, As you say if this is accompanied by the right command in the right tone of voice the dog will quickly learn to stop this behaviour. I've seen plenty of dog trainers on TV and they all recommend a pinch or jab to the shoulder to get the dogs attention if they are too boistrous or overstep the mark. I've found it to work as it earns their respect of you as their leader through firmness not cruelty or fear.

Like I said, it's not the hardness of the slap or the pinch, it's the action itself.
And why is it ok to 'knee' a dog when it jumps up? He may think your playing, you're responding to the jump, so he'll jump again, more exited or higher, and you could easily injure the dog. Turn your back, train with a command, or a clicker. But please don't use your knee to rebuff him. More often than not, the dog has been encouraged to jump up from puppyhood, and now because they're bigger and stronger, they're getting a knee in the chest for something they thought was ok?

I really don't see how a dog or a puppy would want to pay you any attention if you've slapped it or pinched it? It will just make them want to get away from you. Put it into human terms, if I was doing something that my other half considered 'bad behaviour' and he slapped me or pinched me to get my attention, do you think that's ok? Or if an adult does it to a child? Why is it ok to do it to an animal that doesn't actually know what it's doing is wrong?

Any links to all these dog 'trainers' on TV that all advocate pinching and slapping? Don't bother linking to CM, he isn't a trainer, he's just a self proclaimed dog 'whisperer', whatever he thinks that is.

cocker5

dodderangler wrote: »

My 11 week old old vizsla/gwp is always trying to rob clothes
She sleeps in the kitchen at night time in her dog basket and her blanket and yet every morning I walk in to kitchen stinking of her sh1t and she has robbed the clothes out of wash basket
I even put the basket on top of kitchen table and this morning opened the kitchen door to see her on top of the table waggin her table with loads of clothes on ground
Also when she is out the back garden she tries to pull the clothes off the line and I've had to pick them up every day
The biggest problem is herself isn't a dog person and I'm trying to win her over but this isn't helping


Any advice?

OP,



My advice to you is one of two things…


1. Crate Train her (I didn’t use this method myselfso can’t offer specific advice).

2. She is only 11 weeks at the moment, it will takeMONTHS of training for her to behave properly…my cocker used to take down all the clothes off of the radiators EVERTIME…the only way we stopped him was DON’T leave the basket on the floor where shehas access, she a puppy if far too tempting at the moment, in fact it’s great funfor her…. After a few months when she relaxes a bit then it will be ok but atthe moment she’s interested in EVERYTING, so don’t leave stuff she has access to,it’s too tempting. Once my cocker was about a year old he had calmed down a bit and wasn’t interested in the wash basketof the radiators… but when he was very young it was too tempting for him.



So all in all my advice is don’t leave stuff lying around as she WILL be interested… and it will get her in trouble, so by not leaving stuff around will help her behave better and when she gets older she’ll be a bitbetter but until then just avoid the situation from happening put the stuff upon the counters out of reach.

gramar

borderlinemeath wrote: »

gramar wrote: »

Like I said, it's not the hardness of the slap or the pinch, it's the action itself.
And why is it ok to 'knee' a dog when it jumps up? He may think your playing, you're responding to the jump, so he'll jump again, more exited or higher, and you could easily injure the dog. Turn your back, train with a command, or a clicker. But please don't use your knee to rebuff him. More often than not, the dog has been encouraged to jump up from puppyhood, and now because they're bigger and stronger, they're getting a knee in the chest for something they thought was ok?

I really don't see how a dog or a puppy would want to pay you any attention if you've slapped it or pinched it? It will just make them want to get away from you. Put it into human terms, if I was doing something that my other half considered 'bad behaviour' and he slapped me or pinched me to get my attention, do you think that's ok? Or if an adult does it to a child? Why is it ok to do it to an animal that doesn't actually know what it's doing is wrong?

Any links to all these dog 'trainers' on TV that all advocate pinching and slapping? Don't bother linking to CM, he isn't a trainer, he's just a self proclaimed dog 'whisperer', whatever he thinks that is.

'kneeing' the dog and pushing it away with your knee is not the same. Above I said pushing it away with your knee and as you said turn your back on it. I don't use my hands for this because a pup will only try to grab your hands as he thinks your playing with it and respond a lot more than pushing him away with your knee/thigh and giving him a firm voice command. In fact in this case I put my hands behing my back so it can't jump at them.

Both of my dogs I've had since they were less than 3 months old so they have never been encouraged to jump up. The 11 month old pup weight over 30 kilos and can place his paws on my shoulders if he wants so jumping up needs to be avoided as if he did it with a child you have a serious problem simply due to his size and weight. Again I agree with your point in that training an older dog is not the same a pup.

Put it into human terms all you want but while there are similarities dogs are dogs and humans are humans. Dogs put each other in their place by snarling or nipping. We use a voice command to replicate a snarl and poke/jab/pinch (call it what you want) to replicate a nip.

As for tv trainers - I don't agree with everything CM does but I have taken on board a few of his suggestions about basic discipline and marking boundaries and was pleasantly surprised by the results.

bluecherry74

OP, I'd go along with what other have suggested regarding crate training. Alternatively you'll need to make your kitchen puppy proof and remove everything that's within reach of her.

Also at 11 weeks old she'll need to be taken out at least once during the night, ideally twice. When I got my setter he was 12 weeks old and I took him out twice a night for a month, then reduced it to once a night until he was about 6/7 months old. He rarely had an accident. Just take your pup straight outside, wait for her to do her business (and use your chosen toilet command), praise her and put her back to bed. It's tough at the start, but eventually you get used to it and both you and the pup will almost sleep walk it after the first few nights.

Ms Tootsie

Agree with everything said here about crate training and making sure for the next little while that the pup has toilet breaks. Otherwise they will soil in the crate and crate training will be useless.

Disagree strongly with the advice on physically punishing your pup. Positive reinforcement is the only way to go. When they steal some clothes encourage them to give it back or drop it in exchange for a treat. DO NOT chase them to get the clothes back, this is very much a game for a young pup and part of the fun is having you running around.

I think the time outs work very well when a puppy is being bold as they love playing and having the play stop and being put in another room for a few minutes is punishment in their eyes. They will learn in their own little way that certain behaviors lead to the play time being halted, ergo don't do these behaviors in order to keep play time going. Keep this up for a few weeks and you will see a massive improvement.


As for helping with the time out, a fellow boardsie suggested to me to keep a light leash on the pup when in the house so that when he misbehaved I didnt have to chase him to coax him into another room (by the time I had done that our guy would no longer be associating the punishment with the actual crime). The loose lead allowed me to take him instantly to another room for time out when he misbehaved. On this though, don't ever leave a puppy unsupervised with the leash left on.

Whispered

gramar wrote: »

Ask any dog trainer and they'll tell you the same.
.

No they absolutely will not. Perhaps you should talk to some actual trainers rather than take your dog training tips from a TV show which specifically says it should not be tried at home.

OP as the others have said, at eleven weeks the pup will have to be brought out during the night. You will have to just make sure she can't get at the clothes

Keyzer

<snip> Not funny or helpful to the OP.

DBB

Gramar,
Can I direct you to a website, written by qualified trainers and behaviourists, taking note that Cesar Milan is not qualified, not trained, and refuses to be trained, and bearing in mind that his programs specifically state not to try his techniques at home, which should set off alarm bells, and bearing in mind that just because they're on the telly doesn't mean they're even remotely expert.... Cesar Milan is to dog training what "Dr" Gillian McKeith is to human nutrition advice, for example.

http://www.dogwelfarecampaign.co.uk

Please, read this link. It explains why using pinching, slapping, or any form of physical coercion is simply not necessary and potentially harmful: pinching some pups to get their attention would devastate them, and just because you've tried it and got away with it doesn't mean you won't harm (psychologically) the next pup you do it to... I have trained hundreds of dogs without ever laying a finger on them (other than to pet them), including dogs up to professional working dog standard. I've also, in the process, had to undo a lot, a LOT of damage caused by owners using their hands to punish a pup, because they saw The Dog Botherer and his ilk doing it on the tv. There's a reason Cesar Milan has bite wounds all over his arms, I'm afraid.
Please, if you want to be truly informed by people who genuinely know what they're talking about, read that link. And do take heed of the organisations involved in creating the Dog Welfare Campaign website, it's a seriously impressive list.

Tranceypoo

Slightly off topic but DBB it always gives me a little chuckle when you refer to Cesar Milan as the Dog Botherer!!

DBB

Tranceypoo wrote: »

Slightly off topic but DBB it always gives me a little chuckle when you refer to Cesar Milan as the Dog Botherer!!

I can't claim it as my own I'm afraid, but I chuckled when I first heard it too!

rorrissey

When my dog was younger he would steal clothes off the line as well. All we could do was give out to him if we caught him doing it. I think it was just his way of playing when it was windy outside, anyway he grew out of it when he was around 6 months old.

DBB

Yes, back on topic. OP, it must be hilarious fun for a pup to find things blowing in the wind just above his head, to leap up and successfully put an end to them! This simple pleasure could easily be further reinforced if people yell at him, and start running at him when he does it... Woohoo! Grabbing clothes off the line makes humans play chasing with me!
So, like any house when there's a new pup about, you need to puppyproof your garden, or at least, prevent pup from rehearsing this inherently rewarding behaviour.
It's just for a while, til pup gets out of the habit... If there's washing on the line, pup is either in his pen with some really nice alternative, such as a stuffed kong, Kong wobbler, or puppy stag bar or the like, or out on a walk, or in the house doing nice human interaction-y stuff, whilst there's washing on the line. Or you could perhaps fence off the washing line? I know, if you've kids, there's probably washing on the line a lot, but if you can, even for a few weeks, look into alternatives such as these, pup should eventually give it up.
If you catch pup in the act, distract him with, say, a firm "no", perhaps clapping your hands, and the moment his attention breaks away from the clothes, squeak a toy or kick a football, or some other activity to re-focus pup onto you, not the clothes.

kinkygirl

DBB wrote: »

Yes, back on topic. OP, it must be hilarious fun for a pup to find things blowing in the wind just above his head, to leap up and successfully put an end to them! This simple pleasure could easily be further reinforced if people yell at him, and start running at him when he does it... Woohoo! Grabbing clothes off the line makes humans play chasing with me!
So, like any house when there's a new pup about, you need to puppyproof your garden, or at least, prevent pup from rehearsing this inherently rewarding behaviour.
It's just for a while, til pup gets out of the habit... If there's washing on the line, pup is either in his pen with some really nice alternative, such as a stuffed kong, Kong wobbler, or puppy stag bar or the like, or out on a walk, or in the house doing nice human interaction-y stuff, whilst there's washing on the line. Or you could perhaps fence off the washing line? I know, if you've kids, there's probably washing on the line a lot, but if you can, even for a few weeks, look into alternatives such as these, pup should eventually give it up.
If you catch pup in the act, distract him with, say, a firm "no", perhaps clapping your hands, and the moment his attention breaks away from the clothes, squeak a toy or kick a football, or some other activity to re-focus pup onto you, not the clothes.

Gosh, I do like you.

SillyMangoX

kinkygirl wrote: »

Gosh, I do like you.

Sucking up to the mod :P :P :pac:

DBB

SillyMangoX wrote: »

Sucking up to the mod :P :P :pac:

Banned























*heh heh*
:-p

SillyMangoX

How did I know you were going to do that?! :P :pac: