How Do You Say No/Stop - Blast Up The Bum

[Brian M]

Hi

If you darling baby is busy chewing a piece off your new leather chair what do you do or say to stop her .

My favorite item is a can of compressed air and if I find Daisy on the bed chewing my mobile phone or the Sky remote which she has done and as I don't believe in hitting them with me I give her a blast of air up her bum and she soon stops and now even if I move to pick the can up they all watch .It works wonders ,what is your method.

[meljoy]

When we first got Leo he used to bark at every dog we met on our walks.
To stop this I bought a mini water pistol for 50p then every time he barked I gave him a quick squirt in the face

The collars that do this are about £70.....I only needed to do this 3 times
Glad I didnt spent all that money on a collar we would only use 3 times

[Mindysmom]

I redirect and ask them to do a behaviour that they know - like sit, down, or come and give them something more appropriate to chew on. When my guys were in the chewing phase I did spray the inappropriate items (such as my leather couch) with bitter apple or some such.

[Charlifarley]

Hmm....I find a firm 'no' or 'leave it' and giving something they are allowed chew works - most of the time

[pippa]

Hmm....I find a firm 'no' or 'leave it' and giving something they are allowed chew works - most of the time

Me too

[*Pauline*]

My little angels never do anything like that

Hope you don't mind me sounding like a Health and Safety rep as usual but...Those cans of air you mentioned Brian are dangerous if accidentally let off near the eye. With the four dogs you have, I'd be a bit worried either the offending dog might turn round or others may get in the way when you use it. They were designed to distract and not to be aimed at the dog.

[jasperpaw]

I have`nt found just saying no firmly works with my little Ollie, he just looks at you as much as to say "so what". It depends what he is doing if it is chewing something he should`nt we normally get him his little toy to chew, and we tried a little spray as Meljoy said but although Jasper would have not liked it, Ollie does`nt care one bit, it has been very difficult with little Ollie as times and we always said we would be firmer, but I can see we are just as soft with him as we have been with Jasper. I personally would`nt use one of those canister sprays, we sat next to someone at puppy classes when we first started going - she was using it a lot to stop her dog barking, it barked really badly, it was`nt a really young puppy, it really got on our nerves and we were glad to get out of the hall by the end of the session. I guess all dogs are different and you just have to do what you feel is right for your dog. I often feel we have two very stubborn cavaliers, although we have meet others who say their cavaliers are also very stubborn.

[Duffer]

the firm NO doesnt work with mine either, and i also get the : ill eat it if i want to look !!
tried the spray thing on the furniture, i think Cava likes the taste and ate it more!
i find a tap on the nose works, and if its something really bold ( cought spud on the kitchen table last week eating food ) he got put into solitary confinment for 1/2 hour (out the back on his own - no attention, no toys, no Cava)

[Mindysmom]

I may get blasted for my attitude butI won't do physical correction - other than when I caught Rylie on the table for the SECOND time I beat myself with a rolled up newspaper for allowing him unsupervised access after I knew he could jump up. My Mindy was twelve years old and I never bopped her on the nose, sprayed her with anything, or even raised my voice with her - different from using my stern voice. I am blessed that with Max and Rylie I found a trainer who walked out of training class when she was told to squirt her dog in the face with water to stop him from barking and decided there must be a better way. Mindy really was a very good girl and lived her life to please me but my two boys are more "average". Rylie probably could have even been considered stubborn but my trainer helped me work through it with positive training methods and he is far from stubborn.

I believe it was Dr. Ian Dunbar who said if if you find your dog has gotten into something it shouldn't you should beat yourself not the dog because why were they given the freedom to misbehave or something similar?

I've had other dogs than Cavaliers but either I'm am truly blessed with my dogs or Cavaliers are a dream to train compared to most - I will probably NEVER own another fluffy dog after the one we had when I was growing up. Our Golden was a going concern - now I'd be better equipped to train him but in those days trainers were all about physical correction and I couldn't do it. Sadly, at the time I didn't know anything about positive training methods because I'm sure we would have all been much happier.

[Reptigirl]

Both of my dogs ( a Cavalier & German Shepard) respond VERY well to a "drop it", "leave it" or "Ah" sound. But then again we have worked VERY hard at training. Every now and then they will test my boundaries and a FIRM "No" is more then enough. They will look so guilty that I will feel guilty for raising my voice at them. When my Shepard was a puppy I used to keep a metal can with a few coins in it. If she was doing something wrong I would just shake the can to distract her. Also whenever I would say "No" I would snap my fingers. Now that she is older a "snap" of the fingers does wonders. Although water gun does work great for my cats when the do things they shouldn't