I'm stressed....My dog is great but is large and very exuberant! She is 1.5 years old so I'm told by our trainer and the vet she is still "puppyish". She gets pretty excitable when people come over to the house, tries to jump up, wont leave my in-laws alone, all things we are working on. Out and about in public, though, she is pretty well behaved (yesterday we went from the vet, to the pet store to pick up a new leash to obedience and then had neighbors over with their dogs for playdate) she was a true lady! No jumping, just tail wagging and no barking! I got a lot of compliments actually on how well behaved she was.
Im taking her down to my parents for the 4th of July and they are having my cousins and their little kids and a bunch of people over for a bbq. I really don't feel comfortable with her off a leash b/c in the house with guests she paws or tries to jump sometimes (which we are working on, still in obedience training), especially with little ones that she can knock over. I feel bad crating her and feel like she won't learn how to act if she doesn't get exposed to it. I'll def. take her for a long walk in the morning to tire her out some and have a big bully stick that should keep her occupied but for whatever reason, whenever i know she is going to be around people in a house I get nervous. She is NOT aggressive, just really friendly and thats tough b/c shes so big. Side note, none of these guests have dogs themselves..around "dog people" they just adore her. Am i totally neurotic?
Re: So dumb that I get nervous about this...
Is there a reason you can't keep her attached to you? On leash?
Also, this may not be the best place to bring her to work on these traits? You may want to work on individual guests rather than a huge group of people.
Ditto Doglove. If you absolutely must bring her along, can you keep her tethered to you/leashed? Maybe while everyone is arriving, you can be in a back room, to let people come to you one at a time/more slowly so you can work on keeping her sitting while they greet?
It's definitely not the ideal place to work on better indoor manners, because it's going to be an environment very highly charged with excitement, which will keep your dog a bit riled up. But if there's no way around having her there (and I totally understand wanting to have her with you), staying away from the main gathering area is your best bet.
B/w 1/8: betas 17,345, progesterone 25.6
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I agree with PPs - when you're training, it's best to start out with low distraction/stimulus situations and very gradually work up to situations with more districtions/stimuli. Throwing her into a big, loud social setting with lots of people might not be the best idea and could ultimately cause her to regress a bit in her training if she is allowed to practice the undesirable behaviors (jumping, pawing, etc.).
If you want her to be able to attend in some way, I would crate her until everyone has arrived (lots of people coming in, doors opening/closing, doorbells, etc. can be very overwhelming), then bring her out on a leash to greet people one at a time (or in pairs/very small groups if she is ok with that) for a little bit, then put her back in her crate.