Attention seeking rascal!

[sophie.ivy]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone had any advice about how best to react to attention seeking behaviour? My girl, Ivy is 18 months and has recently started to attention seek quite a bit. She pushes my hands for strokes, tries to jump on me if I'm on the sofa, or huffs and snorts at me when I'm on the phone or talking to my husband. It's worse in the evening when we're settling down for the night.

I've been trying to ignore her when she does this, but it doesn't really seem to be working. She will just ramp it up - last night, I had been ignoring her making these noises at me as she had been fed, walked, and played with so couldn't possibly need anything, and she stood on my lap and stared at me so I would stop watching the tv and look at her instead.

I'm really unsure of how to handle this as if I give her an alternative command, like 'off', or a chew to distract her will this just be giving her the attention she wants?

Could be unrelated, but was spayed recently and I've noticed her being a bit more boisterous with other dogs too. She is also getting vocal in pubs and cafes when she used to be good as gold. I can't think of anything in her routine or the way we are with her that's changed, but I must be a factor in it as she's worse with me than with my husband.

I did think she was out of her teenage pain in the bum stage, but now I'm not so sure!

Any and all tips and tricks welcome.

[vixen]

Not much help to you I know but my two play up really badly when I am on the phone.  They seem to know when I am distracted and start playing VERY noisily or try getting on my knee to get my attention from the phone conversation and on to them.  It gets so bad sometimes that I have to go into another room.  My previous two girls did the exact same thing.
Both my two want my attention and Maisie (18 months) has become much worse now that I have Ned (9months) If he comes up for a stroke, she has to butt in and vice versa.  Sometimes it is just easier to ignore them both 
I have noticed that Maisie has become more loving since her spay but she still has her feistiness and attitude 

[bizzylizzy]

i just showed this to OH and we‘ve both had a chuckle, its all soooo familiar! 
Not sure if the neutering in itself would have had any effect but I do wonder if the additional attention and „mothering“ received when they’ve been recovering from operations has maybe increased the demand for constant attention? - Humphrey was the center of attention for weeks while recovering from spinal surgery and I know I‘ve continued spoiling him since.
Not quite sure what the solution is other than to be consistent in totally ignoring their demands and not letting them gain the upper hand paw  but I admit I‘m often too soft because he still has to endure such a lot.
I‘ll be interested to see what others think but I‘m sure we’re not on our own! 

[sophie.ivy]

I'm glad I'm not alone! What is it with spaniels and phones?! She's terrible on work Zoom's too and I have to crate her or she'll try and jump on my lap (much to the amusement of my colleagues)

That's a good point about 'mothering' her post-op as I felt so sorry for her having to be in a onesie 24/7 that I probably did make too much of a fuss of her. I also slept downstairs with her for a few nights, much to the horror of the cat.

I have noticed a little bit less attention seeking in the evening this last week so maybe the ignoring is starting to work. I notice with her that I'll be really consistent with something for ages and think I'm getting nowhere, then all of a sudden, it clicks. Although, she did just whine at me when I was looking at the washing machine instead of her just now so who knows!