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Whining......

1K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  Cheerful1 
#1 ·
Our guy whines.....not loudly all the time just starting to be more often. He whines when he is excited - probably because he doesn't bark - but that doesn't bother me as much as he whines when my husband goes into the bathroom.... I don't get it. When we are downstairs, that bathroom is okay and doesn't elicit a whine, but the upstairs one does. This is happening more and more.

I was thinking of trying two things

1 - that we need to work on a long down with him - we haven't done this with him. I know he can do a long down but if he whines how do we correct??

2 . To work on a "quiet" command via positive training

I know we have created our own monster by allowing him to go outside excited etc etc and I understand that and we are working on that - but the while whining and the bathroom thing confuses me.

Any other thoughts/ideas/suggestions?


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#2 ·
How old is he? Rather than correcting him for whining (which is giving him attention), I'd probably completely ignore him when he's whining. Don't say anything, don't even look at him - he's the invisible dog. The second he stops, he gets attention, or whatever he's excited about, such as letting him outside. Make calm quiet behavior work to get him what he wants. Obviously if he's young and not housebroken yet you don't want to make him wait when he needs to go, so use your best judgement, and do it when you can. Mealtime? Playtime?

If this has been going on for a while it may take some time to extinguish the behavior, but if you stop reinforcing it with your attention, it will eventually extinguish. My dogs don't get to beg me for attention in any way, but I make sure they get lots of attention and reinforcement for NOT pestering me and being annoying!
 
#3 ·
He's a rescue - we have had him 2 years next month and we figure he is about 3 1/2 or so. I haven't given him any attention for the whining what so ever - my hope was if I ignored it - especially when hubby when into the bathroom it would go away but it is getting worse. I guess I don't understand the point of the whine - hubby is coming back and Newton knows this and it's no big deal. But.... Hubby has started going to the gym in the morning some times and obviously puppy doesn't get to go - so maybe that is the issue that it is more of a separation anxiety thing.... He sees hubby heading into that bathroom as the start of him leaving. He is my husbands shadow

So how do we deal with that???


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#4 ·
Joey's been whining more lately. It's hard to know if he's whining because he's hungry, because he has to go out, or just whining for the sake of whining.

My husband thinks it's a cue because he has to poop, and I'm not picking up on it right away. I think it's for attention, but am not really sure.
 
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