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  1. #1
    Puppy milobuddy's Avatar
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    Exclamation HELP--Jumping Baby Gate

    Hi all. So, my 8-month old Milo is basically a Marley. We're taking him to training and working on lots of behaviors, but he's a very energetic and stubborn dog. The biggest issue right now is that Milo is jumping our baby gate. We have another dog and a cat, and we've always gated the dog downstairs and let the cat have free-reign upstairs. When we got Milo we gated the dogs into the family room and kitchen area. It's the size of two big-ish rooms, and they also have our big yard to be in (they're both inside and outside dogs). The problem started with Milo just jumping the gate to come upstairs with me when I left the room, but now he just does it whenever he feels like it, i.e. if someone is upstairs or he's bored. Whenever he does this I tell him "no" and drag him back into the room.

    The people at our training facility suggested that he needed more exercise and to use a can filled with coins to sense-train him away from jumping the gate. I took the exercise thing to heart and we've been doing daily walks, but if anything the jumping has gotten worse. The coin can didn't work at all, he didn't seem to care about the noise. Does anyone have experience with a jumper? I've read about boundary training but giving Milo treats and telling him to sit at the gate hasn't worked. I feel if we can just train Milo to stay in his area, it would be a lot easier to deal with him/work on other things. If anyone has tips expertise please let me know.

    p.s. We can't stack another gate on top, because we go through the hallway constantly. Also, we can't close the door because there is no door. And FYI, we stacked chairs in front and he still jumped them. HELP.

  2. #2
    Senior Dog Labradorks's Avatar
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    At 8 months, I am surprised that you are still gating him when you are home. I understand that you need him out of the way when you're mopping the floor or something and you may not want him loose when you are taking a shower, but both of these things should not take more than an hour or so. Why not keep him with you when you can and crate him when you absolutely cannot have him underfoot or on his own?

    The dog has already learned that he can jump the gate and when he does, he is rewarded (he gets to be with you). For many dogs, that is worth the "punishment". Apparently, he just wants to be able to hang out with you. Why not allow that? He is a young Lab, afterall. That's what they do. Teach him the place command. Use bones and filled Kongs frozen with treats (or whatever works for him) to keep him occupied. is it the cat? Can you teach him manners around the cat? Allow the cat sufficient places to get away from the dog?

    He also does sound bored and yard time and walks is not enough for a young Lab. Is he a field bred Lab? What about swimming? Retrieving? Running off leash? Playing with other dogs?

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  4. #3
    Puppy milobuddy's Avatar
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    We gate him partly because of the cat (there isn't really an adequate place for the cat to be...Milo is fairly polite with the cat but our other dog is not), and partly because Milo is a chewer and we need to have a place to put things. We have also just had our dogs be "downstairs dogs" for years, because our other dog always respected the gate. The problem is that Milo jumps the gate even when I'm in the room with him. I'm working part-time right now because I am applying to grad school, so I'm with him most of the day. He is crated when I leave, never more than a few hours. He's usually outside when I'm in the shower or cleaning or doing those kinds of tasks.

    I do take him on hikes/and or to the beach about once a week, but with my current schedule it's impossible to do that everyday. He does get to play with our other dog, and occasionally my dads dog. At this point it seems to me a behavioral issue, because he jumps the gate out of boredom even on days when he's gotten lots of exercise.

  5. #4
    Senior Dog Tanya's Avatar
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    so how much exercise IS he getting in a day? when he is outside how much of that time is he puttering VS actively running and playing? walks are how often? A young lab of that age generally needs like an hour offleash play daily (and active play not just puttering in the yard). adding walks is great as you can really work the mind by including training as you walk and just the new sites/smells help.

    how much mental stimulation are you providing him? this is actually where I would recommend putting mroe time, daily training, use toys or games for his meals, etc.

    Either way you'll likely need to actively train the gate as a boundary and you may want to make more use of the crate even if you are home. Boundary training will require you to be vigilant and correct him before he jumps up (and thus if you can't watch the gate you may have to either crate him, put him outside if that's safe, or use a taller baby gate/double baby gate system).

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  7. #5
    Senior Dog Snowshoe's Avatar
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    LOL, I never thought a baby gate would contain a determined dog as athletic as a lab so we built our own, higher and sturdier. Maybe you could do that, or get someone to do it for you.

    I'm not surprised he is jumping it more now that he's had more exercise, he's fitter now. That's a danger with simply ramping up exercise when you have behavioural problems, the dog just gets fitter and fitter. Mind games will tire him out without building muscles and fitness. REmember when you were in school? But you probably do need higher gates as well.

    When Oban was a puppy we had three older cats. We gated the kitchen and the stairs of our split level. That effectively gave us three different areas to contain the pup so he could be upstairs with us, or in the living/dining area or in the kitchen. The gates all had cat sized holes in them.

    If your arrangement is mostly to accommodate the cat then are you doing any training to get Milo used to the cat? I used one of the cats in part of our obedience training. I'd ask the pup for a SIT, he'd be too slow, the cat (one was less worried about him than the other two) would get a treat but not Oban. Oban sure sped up his response times but a side effect was he viewed the cat in a more favourable light and saw it more as a source of treats than a partner in tag. "Oh, cat's here, are we going to train?" This might help you too.

    ONe last thing. At five months we started letting Oban have free run of the house at night. He slept on the floor right beside me and did not roam or get into any mischief. But his daytime behaviour calmed right down. It was remarkable, it was as if previously he thought while he was stuck in the kitchen all night something might have changed somewhere in the house and he'd charge from room to room as if to see what it might have been. He just stopped that charging around. No guarantees but you might find MORE freedom will become a calmer dog. Good luck.

    Oh, there is another point. Our cats were used to a polite, well behaved older dog. They were not afraid of Oban, they just didn't like him. After he was about a year old they all got along much better.

  8. #6
    Senior Dog smartrock's Avatar
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    We have 3 baby gates around for occasional use but none of them are actually held in place by tension, they're all just propped into place when needed. They're just the relatively inexpensive EvenFlo gates you can pick up at Walmart or places like that and there actually are 2 sizes, one several inches taller than the other. We use 2 to keep them in or out of the kitchen and one at the bottom of the stairs. They usually do not need the doorway ones but they will sneak upstairs if the stairway gate isn't in place. They're 9 and 3 years old and the older one doesn't need the gates for the first floor but he'll go upstairs, the younger one will get up on the sofa, both of which activities I'd rather they not do on their own initiative. If you use the tension feature and the gate is too short, you can raise it a little by putting your feet under the gate before tensioning it and it can be put in a little higher, if that helps at all.

    My dogs do not like the clatter the gates make when they fall over so they avoid approaching the gates. They learned that if they touched the gates, they were likely to fall and so the crash and clatter of the gates was a self-reinforcing negative stimulus. Maybe Milo won't care about the noise and jump it anyway, but the noise of the falling gate would be similar to the can with pennies, only you wouldn't have to be there to give the stimulus and you could hear it from wherever you are to put the gate back in place.

    Milo is still young, so the chewing or other undesirable behavior is something he'll hopefully outgrow, then you may not care if he jumps the gate. My understanding is that the gate is also there to keep the older dog and the cat separate? Did you use the gates for that purpose before you got Milo, are they are "fixture" in your decorating scheme? How did you keep the cat and older dog apart before Milo? I don't have cats so I'm no expert on dog/cat interactions but if the cat has a safe place to go, maybe you won't always need the gates. In the meantime, I'd let Milo hang out in his crate while you do whatever you're doing that he cannot be supervised or outside.
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  9. #7
    Chief Pooper Scooper JenC's Avatar
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    Walking really isn't exercise. Walking is an appetizer. 30 minutes of fetch with a chuck-it is exercise.

    We have a Cardinal brand gate and it has an upper extender on it and it really helped reduce the jumping.

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  11. #8
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    I agree that it sounds like he isn’t getting enough exercise on a regular basis, but at the same time that won’t be enough. Regular mental stimulation is needed too, to prevent boredom.

    We had to take down our gates a couple weeks ago when our not quite 4 month old pups started escaping through them. Our downstairs is an open floor plan, so they have the run of that when someone is home. Upstairs, we keep all the doors shut so there isn’t anything for them to do but hang out in the hallway. The first couple days they loved exploring all over the house, but pretty soon the novelty wore off and they mostly stay in the kitchen family room (which is where they were originally gated into). If we really want to keep them confined we use a 48 inch ex-pen across the openings, but that isn’t something we want to have to walk through on a daily basis - we just do it if we need to go out and still want them to have access to the dog door.

    In your situation, if you want the upstairs to belong to the cat, can you put a baby gate at the top of the stairs - it would be difficult for any dog to jump in that position but would still prevent them from going up. You would need to teach the pup how to behave in the rest of our downstairs though.
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  13. #9
    Senior Dog Maxx&Emma's Avatar
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    I agree a gate acrooa the top of the steps with a kitty entrance on the bottom is a great idea. Adding more off leash, free exercise and lots of mental exercise will probably be a huge help.
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  14. #10
    Senior Dog Labradorks's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by milobuddy View Post
    We gate him partly because of the cat (there isn't really an adequate place for the cat to be...Milo is fairly polite with the cat but our other dog is not), and partly because Milo is a chewer and we need to have a place to put things. We have also just had our dogs be "downstairs dogs" for years, because our other dog always respected the gate. The problem is that Milo jumps the gate even when I'm in the room with him. I'm working part-time right now because I am applying to grad school, so I'm with him most of the day. He is crated when I leave, never more than a few hours. He's usually outside when I'm in the shower or cleaning or doing those kinds of tasks.

    I do take him on hikes/and or to the beach about once a week, but with my current schedule it's impossible to do that everyday. He does get to play with our other dog, and occasionally my dads dog. At this point it seems to me a behavioral issue, because he jumps the gate out of boredom even on days when he's gotten lots of exercise.
    I'd say that it's time to train, not just manage the chewing issue. At 8 months he should have a firm grasp of what is acceptable to chew and what is not, with minimal mistakes, and when you are home (my expectations of an 8 month old when left to their own devices is very low). If he is in the room with you, can you provide him with something to do? A puzzle toy? Kong? Bone? That way, he is not under your feet while you are working or getting into stuff. I also know that some people have a preference that their dogs stay out of certain spaces in their home, which I think is fine, but have you thought about changing your rule? Especially if it is not working for one of your dogs?

    My feeling is that dogs are not stubborn or bad. Labs, especially, are bred to please us and are good, honest workers. If something is not going right, it's maturity or training or the dog does not understand what we want. And, in some cases, the dog is just not happy (bored, feeling secluded, anxiety, etc., much of which can be hereditary and something you cannot train out of a dog). The issues are usually just problems that need to be solved. You say it's a behavioral issue because he is bored and in a sense, you are pinning the boredom on your dog, when, in fact, as an owner, the responsibility of ensuring our dogs are not bored falls on us. For some people this is a big responsibility and for others it is not. It depends on the dog, the owner and the environment. So, realistically, your options are to fix the boredom or manage the situation by getting a higher gate, putting the dog behind a closed door or crating. The problem with the management options is that they are band-aids and the jumping behavior can turn into something different, maybe worse. It won't fix your problem. And, the jumping has been established, so unteaching that is probably your least successful strategy, though not undoable if you can be there every single time he has the option to jump. Timewise, you might be better off doing something else.

    I have a dog that is easily bored as well and he is a touch anxious. When bored, he chews himself to pieces, causing lick granulomas on his legs. You can always tell when work has been insane because he has round red spots on his leg fur from his saliva where he is starting to lick. I could put on a cone on him and spray his legs with bitter apple a few times a day maybe give him some prozac, but that would be a band-aid not to mention, miserable for us both. He's pretty smart and he's a hard worker. He needs mental stimulation even more than physical exercise, so we do lots of 10-minute clicker training sessions (I keep the clicker in the fridge on top of a tub of pre-cut string cheese), weekly classes, group training a few times per month and daily walks in addition to swimming and running off leash about three times per week. I can't "fix" him because he is who he is. I cannot untrain this behavior. So I am addressing the problem in a healthy, positive manner.
    Last edited by Labradorks; 09-30-2015 at 06:41 PM.

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