Teaching A Dog Not To Whine

This is a particularly topical subject for me as I'm currently tackling it with Molly, my almost 3 year old greyhound. It's never been a problem before in the 9 months that we've now had her, but for some reason she's suddenly started making a noise in certain circumstances.

By noise I don't mean barking; rather whingeing and whining.

She spends the night shut away on her own in 'the dog room'. I've no idea what's sparked it off, but recently she started whining like mad as soon as I opened the door in the mornings to go into her room.

If I just ignore her and walk in as normal she shuts up almost immediately. But I'm not prepared to do that because by doing so I would actually be reinforcing the beahviour.

How so?

In common with most dogs she absolutely adores human company. And she particularly likes it when *I'm* with her. I think she's whining because she wants me in the room with her and having already waited about seven hours for me to reappear she's too impatient to wait another couple of seconds for me to actually walk through the door.

So in effect she's actually saying "Oh there you are - thank goodness. Hurry up and get in here will you."

If at that moment I ignore her whines and do as she wants (ie go into the room) I'm teaching her that if she continues to whine when she wants my attention she'll get exactly what she wants. There's no way I'm prepared to let her think that.

That's a slippery slope to get onto. Although at the moment the symptoms I've described to you are pretty innocuous it could easily degenerate into something far worse. She might begin whining a few seconds earlier as she hears me coming down the stairs. Then she could start up as soon as she hears me get out of bed and start moving around upstairs.

From there it's a very small step to starting as soon as she hears my alarm go off in the morning. And if she got to that point there'd be nothing stopping her from whining in anticipation of my alarm going off. And suddenly I'd find myself in the situation of being woken up by a dog demanding attention at whatever hour of the night she pleased.

Just as teaching a dog to do something like sit/stay for 5 minutes is a series of little gradual steps, so too can a minor irritation turn into a major problem through a series of little steps. So it's important to snuff out the behaviour pattern while it's still at the stage of being like a germinating seed. If you wait until it's turned into a rampaging vine that hooks its tendrils into everything within reach you'll have a far bigger and more exhausting job on your hands.

So how am I tackling this issue with Molly?

Easy - when she whines at my appearance I deny her what she wants. When she's quiet I reward her by giving her what she wants.

What she wants is for me to go into her room.

So if I open the door and she whines I just say "Molly shush" and immediately close the door again. I wait a couple of seconds then try again. I open the door again and wait a split second to see what her reaction will be before I go through.

If she waits quietly I immediately go through and make a quiet 'good morning' fuss of her (I'm always very subdued with the dogs first thing in the morning. They've been cooped up all night and are like coiled springs ready to go off. The last thing I want to do is get them all excited at that time of day. So I only ever acknowledge them with the quietest of words and quickest of pats at that moment.)

But if, when I open the door for the second time, she whines again I just repeat the process, telling her to be quiet and closing the door on her again.

You just repeat this over and over again as necessary. Sooner or later even the stubbornest dog will realise that whining only causes you to disappear - the exact opposite of what it wants.

The first couple of mornings this happened with Molly it took 3 or 4 repeats of the process for her to twig what was going on. But thereafter the penny dropped pretty quickly.

I do still have some mornings when we have to go through it once or occasionally twice, but the good news is that the problem - although still not solved completely - has been nipped in the bud and I'm convinced will not get any worse.

There are variations on this theme that you can try.

Long time readers will remember I used to have a Chesapeake Bay Retriever called Ripple. I built a kennel for her, not as a permanent home but purely as a place for her to go if she was wet or muddy in order to dry off before coming back into the house.

When she was a young puppy she would whine if I put her into the kennel - she wanted to be let out. So what I did was put her into the kennel and wait a few seconds to see how she'd react. If she stayed quiet I'd tell her what a good girl she was and let her straight back out.

But if she whined I'd tell her to be quiet and take a step backwards. If at that point she was quiet I'd step back to the kennel, praise her and let her out. But if the sight of me stepping away from the kennel made her whine all the more I'd tell her to be quiet again and take another step back.

Within a day or two she'd worked out that the more she whined the further away I'd walk, all the while leaving her in the kennel. But if she waited in silence she'd get the reward she wanted - being let out of the kennel and able to spend time playing with me.

If you've got a problem with your dog whining see if you can adapt the techniques I've described to meet your needs. It's not difficult, and most dogs work out what's required of them very quickly.

Recommended reading - "Dog Training Blueprint To Success".

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