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.