Time Out

[pwhite48]

Hi all

I was just wonder what methods of 'time out' do you use, when you need to.

Honey is a horror and about the same time each day - around 8pm, when the mouthing, pulling on trouser legs, barking and growling is at it's worse.  We try distracting her with toys, but it seems to make her more excited so it ends up in time out to calm her down :oops: .  To do this, we put her in the cloakroom and shut the door for a couple of minutes.  It seems to do the trick, because when she comes out she goes straight to her bed :?   The only bit that concerns me is that at nightime, she sleeps in a crate in the kitchen with the door shut, we also shut the kitchen door when she's sleeping in the day time, school run etc.  I guess I don't want to confuse her time out with sleep time, so that she doesn't feel that sleep time is because she's been naughty - does that make sense or am talking gobbledegook :shock:   The main reason for asking is that today, she would not be shut in the kitchen whilst we all got dressed - she howled like a wolf

I suppose the fact that it is a particular time of day when she is worse should mean that we should predict the behaviour and keep things very calm in the first place.

Does it sound like we are doing the right thing?

All the best
Phil                    

[Mary]

Instead of distracting her with toys which you say excites her even more, perhaps you could give her a chew stick at these times?  Lottie loves the rawhide chews, keeps her quiet for ages .  Keep an eye on her whilst she has it though.  Make sure you give her it when you can anticipate the behaviour coming on as otherwise she may associate being rewarded for the bad behaviour :?

I believe you are doing the right thing with the time out though.  If she has been told a firm 'NO' when she's naughty and is given time out in the cloakroom and being praised 'Good girl' when left in the kitchen or crate then she should soon distinguish between the two areas.  Also she probably has her comfort things (bed/toys) in the kitchen and nothing in the cloakroom.

I would continue as you are, the penny will drop eventually :wink:                    

[Shirley]

Hi Phil

We did exactly what you're doing when Morgan was a pup and it definately works.  We didn't have one room that we put him in - no matter which room we were in, if the mouthing got too much or he was over-excited, we just put him out of that room and closed the door.  He had the rest of the house to roam round if he wanted to but each time he was shut out he would sit right at the door until he was let back in with us.  Sometimes he would bark or whine outside the door  :roll: and we never opened the door while he was making a noise.  You don't want to leave her outside the room for too long but you should always wait for a lull in the howling (however small) before letting her back in, otherwise she'll think that howling is the magic key to the door.

We went through a bad couple of weeks where we thought we had a  :twisted: demon dog and he'd never calm down and stop biting, but the message does get through as long as you're consistent.

It won't happen over-night but one day you'll sit there and you'll be surprised by the fact that you can't remember the last time you had to put Honey out of the room or tell her off for mouthing - that's what happened with us anyway.  Good Luck                      

[shonajoy]

Hi all

I was just wonder what methods of 'time out' do you use, when you need to.

Honey is a horror and about the same time each day - around 8pm, when the mouthing, pulling on trouser legs, barking and growling is at it's worse.  We try distracting her with toys, but it seems to make her more excited so it ends up in time out to calm her down :oops: .  To do this, we put her in the cloakroom and shut the door for a couple of minutes.  It seems to do the trick, because when she comes out she goes straight to her bed :?   The only bit that concerns me is that at nightime, she sleeps in a crate in the kitchen with the door shut, we also shut the kitchen door when she's sleeping in the day time, school run etc.  I guess I don't want to confuse her time out with sleep time, so that she doesn't feel that sleep time is because she's been naughty - does that make sense or am talking gobbledegook :shock:   The main reason for asking is that today, she would not be shut in the kitchen whilst we all got dressed - she howled like a wolf  

I suppose the fact that it is a particular time of day when she is worse should mean that we should predict the behaviour and keep things very calm in the first place.

Does it sound like we are doing the right thing?

All the best
Phil

Hi Phil,

We did ignoring and *OW!* with Indie, who's now 15 weeks. He went through a right phase of similar behaviour, I posted a few times about it, and was getting really fed up to be honest. In the past 2 weeks he's like a different pup, he's matured and knows not to bite. He maybe nips once a day now, when before maybe about 20 or 30 times. I felt like all we did was tell him off, but he has finally got it.

Shona