# Obsessive barking and bad behaviors



## Makovach (Jan 24, 2012)

Nalah is a very obsessive dog. She will obsess over an object or food, or toy or another dog or a human. Mostly, I see this behavior come out when we are playing with her toys or holding her food.

Nalah has had two strokes and many seizures in her short life of five years. Some times I wonder if this has messed with her neurological set up? Or if it is just a bad behavior.

One of our biggest problem areas is off lead. On lead, she does nothing, has no interest in toys or the other dogs and just sits or lies by my side. But I refuse to not let her run and play and get her exercise. The way I see it, she needs to be off lead so we can work on correcting her and she can wear herself out and maybe do it less. When she is off lead, she will bark and bark and bark, at the other dogs, at the air, at a toy, at a rock- she will bark for no reason but pure excitement. If you are holding a toy, she WILL jump and leap at you trying to get the toy, She has lept so high that she has kicked me in the face with her back feet. If other dogs get close, she with mouth at them and push them with her paws and continue jumping. If you stop and ignore the behavior, she will start nipping the toy (usually manages to get a few fingers). She will jump up around you (not on you) while barking the whole time. If you are walking and carrying the toy by your side, she will bark the whole time and jump and lunge at the toy trying to get it out of your hand and pushing away any dog that is near it.

So I guess my main reason for this post, is to get ideas. I have started (since I got her back) making her sit, down and wait- when she is quiet I will throw her toy. Some times it takes seconds to get her to respond. Other times she is so intent on the toy that it will take 10-15 minutes to get her attention. When she is lunging at me, I have started "stalking" her. When she realizes the game plan has changed, she will stop barking and stop lunging, sit down and wait for direction. This is not a fool proof idea, she still is doing the behaviors. I don't expect a sudden change. I am asking for help to make sure I am going about this right and see if there are any more ideas I could try.

She has also got Tucker doing the same thing (and he KNOWS better). He knows he isn't allowed and will stop with in seconds when I say enough. But when they are going for the toy, (usually starts with Nalah pushing and mouthing him), he will start to push and mouth back. Then both dogs are barking and eventually, I could see a fight coming from this if it isn't stopped.


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## lily (May 16, 2011)

Makovach said:


> Nalah is a very obsessive dog. She will obsess over an object or food, or toy or another dog or a human. Mostly, I see this behavior come out when we are playing with her toys or holding her food.
> 
> Nalah has had two strokes and many seizures in her short life of five years. Some times I wonder if this has messed with her neurological set up? Or if it is just a bad behavior.
> 
> ...


The only thing that stopped my bulldogs obsessive behaviours was a squirt in the face with water from a squeeze bottle,I tried all I read online and nothing ever worked,she would obsess over toys,shadows were the worst she would sit for hours waiting to see one if I let her,after squirting her a couple of times she got the message and it got to we're I only had to shake the bottle and tell her leave it ,she would just give me a filthy look and skulk away,worked for me ,hope you get sorted,karen


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## BearMurphy (Feb 29, 2012)

i think she's overexuberant. i would continue making her sit nice or lay down and wait for the toy. when she does praise and throw the toy or allow tug or whatever the objective is. if she gets too out of control i would not give her attention and end the game.

now things are a little complicated with having 2 other dogs around so I would work with her by herself a lot to get her in the groove.

consistency is the key here. remember where she was before you brought her back home.....you are having to repair her behavior from that time of no structure if she ever behaved well.

this is advice is given with no knowledge of boxers though.


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## Makovach (Jan 24, 2012)

BearMurphy said:


> i think she's overexuberant. i would continue making her sit nice or lay down and wait for the toy. when she does praise and throw the toy or allow tug or whatever the objective is. if she gets too out of control i would not give her attention and end the game.
> 
> now things are a little complicated with having 2 other dogs around so I would work with her by herself a lot to get her in the groove.
> 
> ...


But she won't do it if she is alone. She only does it if other dogs are around. 

I will continue with what I am doing now and see how it goes. You are right, I have no idea what she was allowed to do when she wasn't here or what happened when she did bad behaviors. I know she didn't get much exercise, and the more she gets every day, the less she acts out. I exercise the dogs until all three are laying down and don't want to run anymore, which usually takes about an hour or so.


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## BearMurphy (Feb 29, 2012)

if they will all do the training i described by themselves than you can do it with the other dogs around. maybe start with 2 first. like any other training you have to work up to difficult disctractions


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## xchairity_casex (Oct 8, 2011)

Cesar had a similar problem with toys and food he would jsut grab,grab,grab and grab anything else including hand right alone with it.
i taught him some impulse control with treats first.
if i have a treat in my hand i hold it in hand at my side so he has the chance to nose it and grab from my hand, but i keep my hand tightly around it and dont let him have it once he stops noseing it i say 
"Cesar" the second he looks at me i reward him with the treat.
awfully soon he learned to give me eye contact when i held the treat and not try to grab for it.
then we moved on to toys. doing the same thing except with toys he would grab harder to take them from me so instead of jsut holding it enclosed in my hand i would use my other hand to block him from grabbing and saying "uhuh" he would grab i would nudge him off gentely with my other hand while holding tight and jsut stand there again and again and again and again till he would jsut stare at it in my hand then i would call him "Cesar" he looks at me i say "focus" he focuses for a few seconds i throw the toy.

call him back and offer a treat take the toy do it again.
the better and better he got at it the more and more challangeing i made it. i would begin moving the toy back and forth shake the toy squeek the toy then drop the toy at my feet or just set it at my feet.
move slowly however, too quickly and youll set her up to fail. i personally dont think she has a thing wrong with her, sounds like normall doggy behavior.
dogs are like kids, they have no realy impulse control they want waht they want when they want it and will do waht they can to get it, she needs to be shown clearly HOW she can get the toy as fast as posaible. which is by remaining calm when you have it


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## BearMurphy (Feb 29, 2012)

i really like the training activity charity described too. I started doing that work with murphy as part of attention training and it's so useful. especially in my training class where he has the tendency to lunge at other dogs on leash. i can tell him leave it and he'll look right at me when I have a treat in my hand. great bonding drill. really good suggestion charity


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