A couple of problems...

[KCSoccerDad]

We have a wonderful 9 month old boxer female. We are having a lot of great success with her in just about all areas that are important to us except we have two specific concerns that we're struggling to address which are domination of our two younger children - specifically our 7 year old and also table/counter surfing.

It seems that the problem of dominance continues to get bigger and bigger with each passing week for our 7 year old son. He loves our boxer so much and tries and tires to work with her but she seems to really just see him as a giant play toy. The more he resists physically or tries to instruct her the more escalated her behavior gets. She bites his clothes (anywhere) and shakes her head like she's playing tug. She jumps up on him and has left him with serious scratches on his face and all over his body. We continue to step in when we're around and have asked him to please leave the room when she's behaving like this (time out for her) but often now he can't evade her to get away. We want to find a way to help establish his position in our pack so that she treats him with the same respect she treats the rest of us.

Our other big issue is counter surfing. We're having the hardest time keeping her from standing up to see/grab what is on the counters and tables. Last night she got up on the counter while we had stepped out of the room and ate 1/2 of an entire sweet 16 birthday cake. We've lost sunglasses, hats, cell phones, etc. We need to put a stop to this behavior as well.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Cami]

As far as your son goes.....the displayed behavior isn't so much about dominance as it is about play. She is 100% all puppy and he being closer to her size makes him a prime target. She also knows she can probably get him to react differently than he can the adults in the home (louder squealing, moving faster--running, etc....). She sees these reactions from him as FUN and of course wants to seek him out and act a certain way around him.
I don't have children so this is purely assumption on my part but I can say that my nieces and nephews at that age were never capable of timing corrections right. Play had to literally stop verses them trying to teach a dog how to play differently with them.
I'd perhaps have him be more involved with feeding and training. She might not respect him in as far as he has been a play toy in the past (FUN FOR HER) and having him take on a different role in her eyes could help towards changing her behavior around him. With supervision of course he can easily be taught to get her to sit, stay, down, etc....for short periods of time during the day and even when she is acting like this. Stop the "play" and through in a 5-10 minute training session. He can still have the interaction with her but on a different level.
Counter surfing.....easy fix but not a quick one.
She just can't ever FIND ANYTHING up there within reach. She will continue to seek things out and if she continues to not find anything she will stop looking as it will be a waste of her time. Now she isn't wasting her time since she IS able to get to things!
My girl has never gotten to anything on the counter BUT she knows what goes on up there so she makes a good attempt at putting her feet on the counter to get a birds eye view. She knows "off" means all four feet on the ground so she complies when asked and if I catch her getting a little too interested I can stop her before she starts. There isn't anything up there within her reach so I don't worry when we leave that she is going to get to something.
Continued training on both issues will have her well schooled eventually!

 

[KCSoccerDad]

Thanks for the reply,

On the counter surfing we're never having any trouble with her doing this when we're in the room. She does it pretty much exclusively when we leave the room (as she also does with getting on the couch). She knows better. It seems silly to have to crate her each time we leave the room for 5-10 minutes. Also, with a family of 7 (5 kids) there is just about no way we can completely eliminate things from being on the counter or table. Might just be something we have to be VERY VERY patient about for a while.

 

[ELubas]

Patience is a virtue with a boxer pup for sure They only learn by being shown so you do need to be with her until the behavior is extinguished. But it also helps if there is nothing good within reach ever-also nearly impossible with five kids I know! Good luck