Juno the adorable two-year-old German Shepherd mix is as sweet as can be with one of her owners, but she can’t help but go all ‘Muhammad Ali’ on her other human
No matter how well-trained a dog is, it’s important to respect that they are animals and have the potential to lash out if threatened. This is the case even more so for rescue dogs, especially if they have been abused or mistreated by their previous owners.
That being said, most dog breeds are highly intelligent, curious creatures who thrive on learning and can often be taught good behaviour with the right training. One new pet owner has reached out for help to a team of dog owners after noticing some very odd and concerning actions her new rescue dog has been displaying towards her husband.
Posting to social media, she wrote: “How do I stop my dog from punching my husband in the d***?” Continuing with the surprising message, she added: “We just adopted Juno about 3 weeks ago. She is a 2-year-old German Shepherd mix who is as sweet as can be.
“She is fully house trained and smart as a whip and grasping early training commands pretty easily. One of our only current hurdles is that we are still doing desensitization with her and our resident cat, but that’s not what I’m looking for guidance on today.
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“Juno keeps punching my husband in the d***. I work from home, so she knows me very well and only jumps when over excited. My husband however does not and he works in an outside office. When he comes home she is so excited to see him that she jumps on him.
“I’ve been trying to correct it as it happens but it’s the one thing we can’t nail down. Unfortunately, she is at the perfect height where her paws go right for his crotch every single time while jumping. If he turns to the side in anticipation of her jumping, she will whip around to get to his front.
“Today, she was perfectly fine, watching him happily after he gave her a good neck scratch, and suddenly she went full Muhammad Ali on the family jewels causing him to spill his coffee. This will happen even if he is standing around dead silent, or if he’s just normally walking around. And it’s always the d***.
“We have tried ignoring her, telling her ‘down’, telling her to sit before getting attention, etc. But she can’t stop d*** punching. She doesn’t bark at the door or go crazy when he arrives home so it’s not like he over excites her when he gets home. It’s usually just him being around.
“Even hours later. She also likes to stick her nose in our crotches (totally normal, annoying but not a problem) because she is quite literally at perfect height to just go and do that. My husband is tired of getting Popeye’d by the pooch. What other things can we try to prevent this from happening?”
Naturally, people reading the Reddit post were in stitches and posed a number of questions and solutions to try. One person suggested: “My dog did the same when she was young. I crouched down when greeting her until me coming home wasn’t as exciting anymore (took years though).
“Never give any attention when jumping. Maybe even pushing her away is positive attention to her. I learned a well times side-step so my dog jumped into nothing and then crouch to greet. It seemed to work for me.”
And someone else joked: “I don’t have anything constructive to add…but I do want you to know that I am a practice manager at a veterinary hospital and your post had us *HOWLING* with laughter. I do hope you are able to remedy the targeted jumping.”
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