Hi elibrown -
Sounds like you have quite the spoiled little brat on your hands! I'm glad that you've acknowledged that it's a lack of understanding and training that has contributed to this - admitting that the people are generally the problem is the first step.
If you can manage to get some help in your area, that will be the best. Someone with experience in positive reinforcement training (someone who won't immediately suggest corrections, but instead work on behavior modification) would be able to assess your dog and give you ways to deal with her.
But in the meantime, I do have some recommendations. First of all, you need to sit down with your husband and have a serious talk about his dog. A dog like that can really mess up a household. It's not just the constant cleaning and care, it's the stress of dealing with the fear of someone getting bit, or not getting enough sleep, etc. This can cause a lot of strain on a relationship. You and he need to be in complete agreement on the course of action, because this dog needs to have 100% consistency in her training in order to change the behaviors.
Once you are in agreement, then you need to set up rules for the little furkid. It sounds to me like she's kind of running the household. If you go to my website (
http://www.kippsdogs.com/tips.html - I will have more tips up soon) you can take a look at the pack hierarchy section. I would immediately implement all of the rules for your dog. She WON'T like it, but this will be the first step towards teaching her (in a pretty kind way) exactly where she belongs in the family "pack". I'd also recommend that she has to earn every piece of dog food, every playtime with toys, every pet, every bit of attention. She has to learn that those things are privileges, not rights, and so from now on she has to do a sit before she gets a small handful of food (or a down, or a trick, or something - make her EARN it). Same goes with toys, petting, attention. NOTHING IN LIFE IS FREE.
She should not be allowed loose in the house at all unless someone is actively watching her. You need to consider her as not being housebroken and go back to step one as if she was a puppy. This means if you are going to take a shower or cook dinner or watch TV, she needs to either be in her kennel, confined in a small area in a room (like behind an exercise pen) or tethered to your belt loop with a leash so she can't go off somewhere and potty or pee. NO EXCEPTIONS! Any time that she pees or poops in the house, it's the fault of a human who wasn't watching her. I'm not convinced that she knows that she shouldn't go inside. I'm guessing that she knows she shouldn't go inside when you're watching.
Make good use of that crate and ignore the whining. You may want to reward her crate time with special goodies - get a small kong toy and some squeeze cheese, and stuff the toy with tiny pieces of biscuit held in with some squeeze cheese. Give these to her ONLY when she goes into her crate. You can also use raw knuckle bones or other special treats that will take awhile to eat. Put her in the crate with a "puppy pacifier" (my term for these special treats), close the crate and go about your business. Turn up the music if you find she is whining, but under no circumstances do you give her any attention when she whines or barks! That will only encourage her to do it more.
Plan on teaching her a bunch of behaviors - you say she knows sit. Also teach her come (use treats - there's info on how to teach that on my site also) along with down, maybe roll over, sit up and beg (if she can), shake paws, bark on command, spin circles, etc. Lure her with treats when you start and go from there. As she learns more, you will not only have more things she can do to "earn" attention, but you will start building a bond and giving her something to do other than misbehave.
Your story is not really all that uncommon. In all honesty, most of our dogs would just do whatever they wanted to do if we didn't direct them in the right direction. Your little juvenile delinquent just hasn't had the right direction yet! It's not impossible to change, but everything has to be very consistent and you have to be tough for awhile and not give in to her even if she looks at you with big sad eyes.
Good luck to you, and please look into finding someone to help you locally. It's much easier to understand the concepts of training if you have someone who can assess your dog and demonstrate what needs to be done.
Melanie and the gang in Alaska
- there's rarely badly behaved dogs, only inexperienced owners who don't understand the reasons behind their dog's behaviour! I'm sure her problems will be relatively straightforward to fix - could you give us some more info?
