help with puppy

[bakura_fan]

Ok, so if you looked at him he doesn't look like a puppy. He's a red healer (possibly a mix becuase of his long legs). Anyway, here's our problem...Rusty is a horder. Anything that is on the floor (or the cat knocks onto the floor) he will grab and bring it outside to his little stash. He has had socks, underwear, pillows, collectable dolls and teddybears, figurines, and shoes stashed outside either in a pile or hidden out in the yard. No matter how many times we punish him he still does this. Any ideas on how to stop this bad habit?

[Nia-chan]

<===== doesn't know much about puppies or training

Do you catch him when he's actually taking something? I'm sure you already do this but try to keep everything closed off and out of reach Also I'm not sure how this works but try putting something bad-tasting on the stuff so he doesn't want to put it in his mouth

[bakura_fan]

<===== doesn't know much about puppies or training

Do you catch him when he's actually taking something? I'm sure you already do this but try to keep everything closed off and out of reach Also I'm not sure how this works but try putting something bad-tasting on the stuff so he doesn't want to put it in his mouth

both yes and no. We will find him taking things once they drop and telling him no...but he still takes things. We do keep things out of reach...the cat likes to push them into reach. We would have to spray everything in the house (stuffed animals, clothes, etc) so...basically since the whole punish when he does it (saying no and tapping his nose slightly hard)...isn't working...I was looking for maybe a different method of training.

[K. Ayato]

Do you say "no" while the object is in his mouth?

[bakura_fan]

Do you say "no" while the object is in his mouth?

yup. then we tap his nose. That is rare though. Typically we will find our items in a pile or outside and he will be elsewhere. He reminds me of a ferret because of how he steals things. The thing is, even though we have four people at the house, we're mostly gone the whole day. Luke goes to school, jeremiah goes to work (doesn't get back til 8ish), Janet works (gets home about 7-9ish) and I don't get home til after 10. So, there's a huge portion of the day when no one's there. We do our best to keep all our doors closed so they don't have access, although sometimes the door ends up open anyway. So, we have Rusty, my dog yuki, janet's other dog ceara, and the cat c.c. (aka cookies and cream). We know it's not them because this stuff didn't happen until she got rusty, and we have caught him in the act enough times to know it's him.

[12praiseGOD]

well what does the dog not like you to do to him, when you catch him doing that rub his nose on the thing he is taking, tap him on the nose, and tie him up for a couple of hours, so that he will learn that taking stuff will get him tied up...which I imagine most dogs dislike.

[Sakura15]

Hmm, to be honest a tap on the nose doesn't really affect puppies much..you may need to be a little bit harder...my mom when we first got our dog Jade, would even growl while she said no so it kinda came out as a "NAH!" but she only had a problem with chewing things up, not running away and hiding them XD

[bakura_fan]

well what does the dog not like you to do to him, when you catch him doing that rub his nose on the thing he is taking, tap him on the nose, and tie him up for a couple of hours, so that he will learn that taking stuff will get him tied up...which I imagine most dogs dislike.

when he takes things and chews em up we lock him outside. However, we can't do that for too long, because we don't want to forget to open the door so the other animals can go outside to go potty. =_=; which hapened once. tieing him up. He has no collar and the last harness we put on him he chewed completly off, I don't think anything could keep him for long. He is getting a bit better with that stuff...maybe it's just a puppy thing that he'll grow out of? I think he's about 4 months old...

[GeneD]

Since the nose-tapping doesn't work, try this: put pebbles/gravel or marbles in a can or jar (a can will work better though) and when you catch him taking/chewing things you shake the can to make a noise by his head (just watch that you don’t do it too loud, their hearing is beter than ours after all). Apparently they don't like the noise and associate it with taking things, so they stop doing the thing that brings the noise. This method was recommended to us by a dog trainer when our dog was climbing on our cars (believe it :-) but she stopped doing it so we didn't use the method much. So I’m not 100% sure it will work, but you might as well try it. Good luck.

p.s. let me know if it does work!

[bakura_fan]

Since the nose-tapping doesn't work, try this: put pebbles/gravel or marbles in a can or jar (a can will work better though) and when you catch him taking/chewing things you shake the can to make a noise by his head (just watch that you don’t do it too loud, their hearing is beter than ours after all). Apparently they don't like the noise and associate it with taking things, so they stop doing the thing that brings the noise. This method was recommended to us by a dog trainer when our dog was climbing on our cars (believe it :-) but she stopped doing it so we didn't use the method much. So I’m not 100% sure it will work, but you might as well try it. Good luck.

p.s. let me know if it does work!

hmm. i'll suggest that to my mother in law. thanks.

[ChristianKitsune]

hmmm...seems to me the puppy may be trying to cope with you guys being gone so much... My mom's Old English Sheep dog has a problem of biting his ankles. (it's a security thing)

This might sound soooo stupid, but maybe he is taking these things so he can get some attention?

You do need to resolve this though ^^; I like the can idea, and I agree nose-tapping doesn't usually work..you might even make your puppy aggressive if you do this.

[bakura_fan]

well, he's gotten much better. Seems we weren't showing ourselves as dominant enough *my mother in law watches the dog wisperer and got some ideas from that...they worked* So, now that we're home alot we've been able to teach him to come *and not run away like he usually would*, sit, stay, lie down, and...chair *we bought this rocking gaming chair at a garage sale last summer, well when Janet brought Rusty home he thought we bought it for him. it's the only furniture he's allowed to be on. so we say chair and he goes right to it and sits/lies down in it. ^_^ *

[ShiroiHikari]

I'm glad he's gotten better. o_O If I had a dog that was doing that, he would very quickly become an outside-only dog. >_<