Training Woes

Question
Hi there-

I have two rescued 11 month old Golden Retrievers. I adopted them from animal control 5 months ago. They were very, very scared and had no manners what so ever. They didn't know what leashes were, they didn't know what crates, cars, or really even people were. They were scared of dog dishes, beds, toys, everything.

Now, they are doing really well on their socialization. They are very sweet and the little girl spends 90% of the day sleeping in my lap. (even though she is 55 LBS now she thinks she is a Chihuahua) They will walk on leash, go for car rides, swim and play, and meet new people. They are sleeping in their crates and have stopped destroying my house (The little girl used to literally put anything she could get in her mouth and destroy it, no matter what it was)

However, there are a few things I just can not seem to break them of, and I could really use the help with any of them if you have any advice.

1) Walking on leash- if I walk one dog at a time, they walk very politely, never leaving my side, and will heal even if the command is given. They sit when I stop, they listen to "leave it" and "walk on" and are always praised by people we pass for how well behaved they are. However.. If I attempt to walk the two of them together, or even worse, all three of my golden retrievers (I have a 3 year old therapy golden as well) its like holding onto a hurricane. They are MANIACS pulling and lunging in every which way, jumping over each other, ignoring any commands, I have absolutely no control over each other when we walk all together. I have a coupler for the two of them, but our walk is in inches- we take a few steps, I halt them and have to hold them back and make them sit and then we try again, and I circle and start over... and I still cant get any control over them. Any advice?

2)I have housetrained a lot of dogs over my life, and have never had so much trouble as I am having with the boy, Cisco. He is neutered (he was neutered two weeks after I adopted him) but he continues to pee on any and all beds he sees. We will go outside, he will pee, he will come back in and within an hour he will pee on a dog bed, or a towel, or anything else on the floor. He has never peed in a puddle on the hardwood or carpet, but prefers rugs, beds, towels etc. He has even gone so far as to go into his sister's crate and pee on HER bed in her crate. He does not have a bed in his crate, because if I so much as put a towel in there he will pee on it in a second. I tried belly bands, but he chews them off. Last night he also defecated on the floor, which just floored me, because we had just come in from our walk just over an hour ago and he had pooped on the walk as well. What could he be trying to tell me?

3)Counter Surfing- Both of them are very bad counter surfers. I have tried clappers, I have tried sneaking up on them with cans of pennies, I have tried everything I can think of, and all it seems to do is make them a much sneakier counter surfer. I will scare them off with the can of pennies, and then the second I turn my back they jump up again.

And finally, #4) and probably the worst:

The little girl has a terrible, terrible tenancy to jump up on the back door. If I put them outside for a few minutes to run and play or do their business, within a matter of moments she will throw her entire body weight onto the storm door and bang on it. I have tried to ignore it, I have turned the porch light off, I have done everything I can think of. If I do go outside, she just looks at me and wags her tail like "Hey! I gotcha to come outside!" she doesn't even want to come in most of the time. She has never shown any other signs of separation anxiety, just the fact that she leaps on the door when I put her outside. She has broken three storm doors in 5 months. She just bangs on it until the glass breaks. I never leave them for more then a few minutes outside, but she will all of a sudden out of no where just throw her entire body weight into the door. How can I stop this??

I'm sorry if this is so long, I just wanted to get the info out there! If you can help me with any of these problems, I would really really appreciate it. Thank you!

Answer
Dear Ashley,

You have a lot of questions here so I'm going to try to be as succinct as possible.

1)  Walking on leash:  Practice with treats and praise with two dogs at a time, varying pups with the 3 year old, all combinations.  Keep one dog on the left and one on the right, and keep doing what you're doing - stop, wait til they're paying attention, and then keep going, inching along if needed at first.  You will get there.  You obviously know what you're doing.  Just keep the faith.

2)  It sounds like Cisco is marking your house.  Go to my housetraining page at http://www.dogdaysusa.com/housetraining.cfm and move to Step 3 which requires you to keep him on leash inside the house.  If you stopped treating him outside when he eliminates, start up again.  Marking in the house is still a housetraining problem; it's just harder but the techniques are the same.  You can also read a marking article which may help at http://www.dogdaysusa.com/9yrmarkingmale.cfm and take particular note of the cleaning the marked areas.  I would just throw out all the dog beds if I were you and don't replace them until the problem is solved, but any carpets that have been marked really need to be cleaned and deodorized thoroughly.

3)  Counter surfing:  Clear the counters of EVERYTHING for the next 3 months.  When you have to prepare food, let them in the room but do not leave anything on the counter when you're done cooking.  If they stop finding stuff up there, they will give up looking eventually, and then you can start living your life again.

During this 3 months, occasionally booby trap them with a pile of soda cans in a pyramid on the counter; put a treat under the pile.  When they go to get the treat, they will have a loud aversive consequence and likely will stay away after that.

4)  Jumping at the door.  Wow.  3 storm doors.  You are very tolerant.  This is pretty serious, and dangerous too.  I'd invest in a "scat mat" from a dog supply house and hang it on the outside of the door.  This will give her a shock when she chooses to touch it, and very likely will end the problem forever, even after you remove the scat mat.  If the shock bothers you you might try to cover the storm door in aluminum foil first; foil freaks many dogs out.  I tell you all this knowing that she may avoid the door altogether afterward but I think her breaking 3 doors in 6 months warrants this kind of action.

Good luck and thanks for writing!
Suzanne Harris, BSc, CPDT
http://www.dogdaysUSA.com