[gcwebbyuk]

Hi All

We have a work in progress at the moment to stop Mabel jumping up onto the sofa. We allow her up when she is calm and we have "trained" her to sit and give us eye contact for us to allow her up (we lift her up and down).

However, when she is highly strung she has started to leap up onto the sofa. Last night during a particularly mad session of the zoomies she lept up onto the sofa and then straight back down again. We are obviously very concerned about this for her joints, and so are looking for advice on how we can overcome it without turning it into a game for her.

The trouble seems to be once she is up on the sofa, she is already learning she has the physical ability to get up, and then getting her back down becomes a game. We try to do it as calmly as possible, but she generally goes into a play bow and either gets snappy, or runs to the other end of the sofa to avoid us.

Any advice please, as we don't want this to become a learned behaviour.

As a side note we are starting to see a trend in when she gets the zoomies, so we are going to plan a short walk at this time to try and calm it down before it happens.

 

[Tarimoor]

Leave a lead on her trailing, take the lead and either lift her off and pop her out of the way for 5 mins (somewhere she can't do any damage) then just let her back in as if nothing had happened. Completely normal behaviour, to a Labrador any attention is good attention, even if they are doing something you don't want them to. By putting her out of the way without saying anything, it gives her time to think about what happened, and she will work out that that behaviour gets her excluded from what she's craving.

 

[gcwebbyuk]

Thanks, we will try that today.

Is putting her in her crate a suitable place for "out of the way"? We have an open plan house, so not easy to set aside an area without using the puppy plan pen which is really just a big crate - and we have noticed she gets more het up about in being in there than she does in her crate.

 

[Tarimoor]

It needs to be a place she obviously can't get back to you, but at the same time you don't want to associate somewhere like a crate as punishment. I have a big bouncy 18 month old boy at the minute, who I just pop in my kitchen when he gets too pushy, but have popped him in a crate on the odd occasion when he's pushed his luck a bit too often. What you don't want to do is make them think crates are bad in any way, thankfully he loves his as he gets fed in there, but usually just popping him in the kitchen is enough to make him think about what happened. I also have a baby gate set up so they can't just all go upstairs when they want, if your play pen is one that you can set up in different ways, it might be possible to use it like a baby gate to separate off part of the house? I've done this in my dog/utility room to separate off where food is stored with parts of a play pen I have and it works really well.

 

[gcwebbyuk]

The play pen is one you can use as a stair gate too, we do use it that way to keep her in the kitchen area with us when we have dinner. So that may be an option.

She does love her crate though and will happily take herself off there for a sleep during the day, so unsure if putting her in there for a time out will make her less keen, it’s an easier option though if caught off guard and no had chance to setup the pen.