Need Help! My dog will not stop whinning.

If your dog is whining to get his way and not because he is afraid, anxious or in pain I would think ignoring the behavior completely would be the best way to get him to stop.Don't even make eye contact.He is probably doing it because it's been sucessful.It may take some time and you will need the cooperation of everyone in the house.

Tena 

 Make sure he's getting plenty of the right kind of attention, too.  Whining can be a sign that your dog doesn't really know what to expect - try setting up a routine for him so he's getting regular walks, training sessions, and playtimes - plus food and potty breaks - pretty much at the same time every day.  Bostons are very active and smart dogs - consider taking a training class with him.  If you've done regular obedience with him, try competitive obedience, or agility or flyball.

We have tried ignoring him but the whinning gets on our nerves. He keeps it up he gets worse or goes and gets into trouble. He has a daily routine,  walks, play, eat,When we give him attention he still wants more. We dont have enogh hours in the day to do everything we need to get done and keep him entertained, his whinnig is because he wants to play. What else can w do?

How much play time does he get? My brother has a Boston and he is "hell on wheels" when he has no outlet for his energy. 

Of course he keeps it up until he gets what he wants. You've taught him to do that. He's like a small child who has a temper tantrum until Mommy gives in and buys him the candy.....next time the tantrum will be worse because IT WORKS.  Dogs do what works for them, and if it doesn't work, they do it bigger, better and harder until it DOES work.

Most dogs do best with some sort of structure to their day.  Regular meal, play, sleep, exercise times.  If they know what to expect and when to expect it, they learn to relax the rest of the time.  Mine know, for example, that when I come home from work they'll get a treat and some loving.  When I come home from work is never a specific time, but rather the event.  You don't need to punch a time clock with your dog, but you do need to establish some routine for him.

Yes, it takes time, yes it takes patience, and maybe even ear plugs if the whining gets on everyones nerves so bad, but until and unless you teach him that whining has absolutely NO reward, that it just flat doesn't work any longer, it will continue to escalate.  The entire family has to be on the same page and it WILL get worse before it gets better.  Make sure you let him out to potty BEFORE he starts whining, and perhaps prevent some of the other things the same way.  Meet his needs BEFORE he starts asking them to be met, and ignore the whining until he figures out that it does him absolutely no good. Eventually the whining will stop.

 I wish you luck and hope that the suggestions work - my dog whines when he is excited or anxious - he is not a barker and I think that is part of it.  Before we went for a bike ride this morning as soon as he saw me in bike shorts he got hyper and whined - it stops or he doesn't get his harness on but I don't need to say this to him he just stands quietly and waits for it to go on.

It isn't because he doesn't know what it going to happen, it isn't an attempt to get his way, for him it is a destressor; a release.  It isn't because he isn't exercised enough it is pure excitement - some dogs bark when they are excited, mine whines.

There were times when he was a pup that he whined because he didn't want to be crated or what have you, and wwe did just ignore it.

Petro is whiner.  It is his way of communicating to me that I missed something.  "Its time to feed me."  "Its time to let me outside."  "I need a little loving."  "I'm a little bored."  When I think of it as the dog is communicating to me, the response should be appropiate and respectful.  "Thank you Petro for reminding me its dinner time, now lay down and be quiet".  Thank you Petro for letting me know you that you have to pee, but it will be in just a minute, now lay down and be quiet for a little bit."

Now if the dog is doing something that would get on my nerves and I request the dog to do something else, like lay down and be quiet, if the dog ignored my request, I would go back and do a refresher course in obedience routines. 

I agree with Glenda. You have accidently trained that whining gets what he wants. Especially with the sporadic response you have inadvertantly used DRO timing which results in a stronger reinforcement than a regular schedule. That is, it has become a slot machine that the dog will always play because the reward is sometimes there and is worth the continued effort of whining.

Find another reward and reward for not whining. Reward for being patient. For desired behaviors of expression.

But the whining may not be a problem. It's not for DPU. If my dog whines, which is often a sub-vocalization (his "inside" voice), it can be a signal of desire and I have never seen it as a problem, so I haven't tried to eliminate it.

I guess the interesting question is then, what is the problem? More importantly, it's a problem if you think it is but there are ways to "remedy" that. As one trainer put it, "it's just a behavior." If you get rid of the whining, the dog may offer another signal, good or bad, to express desire or intent. Unless, of course, you decide on another signal you would prefer and train for that. Say, the dog comes to you and turns two full circles and then sits.

CRAZY Yankee Boston !!!

What is the best way to teach him to be quiet? He whines to get someone to play whith him, to go outside, to get a toy he cant reach. Some times we ignore him and tell him to go play, but some times he wont stop it is very annoying and frustrating.

The only way to stop him is to insure that he never gets what he wants by whining.  Ignore him until he's quiet (if he won't be quiet, get up and leave the room till he is, he'll get the point eventually).  Once he's quiet, wait about 3-4 seconds before you go and decide what it is you want him to get, do, or play with.  JMHO, but this will not traumatize him in any way, and if you don't do it, look forward to a lifetime of whining, because if it gets him what he wants why would he stop LOL?

The one thing everyone has alluded to but hasn't "spelled out" for you is that dogs are pretty quick to link two things together.      As in ... ***instantly*** (which is why clicker training works so well -- it identifies a behavior and rewards it INSTANTLY).

So ... if the dog is whining and then stops ... you have to be ON IT.  You can't sit there trying to 'ignore' the dog and not even realize he was actually quiet for 5 minutes **BEFORE he started whining ~~again!~~**

So you have to dedicate yourself to being tuned into the dog *all* the time.  So you can pick up on that precious minute when he did stop so you CAN reward that. 

In most households that are really not big time dog people, what they thought they wanted was a more convenient but cute dog.  And suddenly this dog is a lot more aggravation and annoyance than they ever imagined. 

But they just aren't used to tuning in on what the dog is trying to *tell them* until the dog picks up undesirable habits.  The whining got your attention -- I can promise you, the dog probably tried 100 other things (such as dropping a toy at your food, putting its chin on your knee, lying down and pulling on your shoelace -- other ... and admittedly quieter things) but the dog didn't get a reaction out of you UNTIL it whined. 

And then the reaction it provoked in you was a negative one, because the thing that got your attention was ... the pitch of the whine.

I have a whiner.  A talker ... an incessant noisemaker!!  Luna.  The hound mix you see in my signature. 

We tend to like all different breeds ... and a hound was something neither of us had had so we went with it.  But 2 weeks after we got her I was POSITIVE we had made **the** most gi-normous mistake of our married lives.

She drove me nuts.  There was something about the pitch of her whine that was like nails across a blackboard to me.  She so drove me nuts I couldn't think.  It didn't just annoy me -- it wound me up nerve-wise to the point where I began to think I'd lose my mind.

And with Luna it was purely communication -- she whines ALL the time -- when she's happy, sad, wanting food, glad to see you, or just plain "talking" but mostly she just wanted some sort of attention -- even if it was just me acknowledging her.

And in her case, what *I* had to do (because her whining had SO set me on edge I was practically ready to hate her!!) was I had to drop back and MAKE time to bond with this dog.  To seek HER out for attention, and just petting and loving.  to ... as Glenda put it above ... ***anticipate*** her needs before she whined about them.

See we humans think diffferently than dogs (boy do we!) -- and in our human-ness the LAST thing we want to do when we finally get 2 blessed minutes of peace is initiate any play with the darned dog who is driving us so crazy!!!  She's finally left me alone -- GO AWAY I don't want to THINK about her!

But think about it -- **you** brought her home.  Now, it's up to you to make her a productive part of your lives.  And a little extra attention now will pay off.  You simply have to out-think her and beat her to the punch. 

But that 'reward' has to be SO immediate ... you can't think "oh yeah, she's quiet ... as soon as there's a commercial I'll go let her out".  No ... NOW.  Not when you're done with that paragraph -- but that very instant. 

Because that *is* how dogs think.  A+B might equal C **if** A and B happen almost at the same time. 

CRAZY Yankee Boston !!!

Some times we ignore him and tell him to go play

Beg pardon, but how do you achieve that?

Ignore means ignore.... not talk to the dog.

I think this technique should work a treat, provided you are consistent.  Even if that means EVERYONE gets up and leaves the room when he starts whining.  At the same time, to be fair to the dog, you have to 2 things - one; attend to his needs PROMPTLY, try to pre-empt his whining.  It's no good ignoring him when he is telling you he needs to toilet for example.  Two; teach him an alternate way to get what he wants (a sit for example - without whining).  You need to do that in SMALL steps - at first let him have the reward immediately BEFORE he has chance to whine.  Build up gradually.

Chuffy

CRAZY Yankee Boston !!!

Some times we ignore him and tell him to go play

 

Beg pardon, but how do you achieve that?

Ignore means ignore.... not talk to the dog.

I think this technique should work a treat, provided you are consistent.  Even if that means EVERYONE gets up and leaves the room when he starts whining.  At the same time, to be fair to the dog, you have to 2 things - one; attend to his needs PROMPTLY, try to pre-empt his whining.  It's no good ignoring him when he is telling you he needs to toilet for example.  Two; teach him an alternate way to get what he wants (a sit for example - without whining).  You need to do that in SMALL steps - at first let him have the reward immediately BEFORE he has chance to whine.  Build up gradually.

Agreed.  And, the "tell him to go play" part might actually have been reinforcing him for whining. 

 So, one problem here is that these folks have already said that they have maxed out on the play time they are willing to dedicate to the dog.  Full stop end of story.  And here what we want them to do is reward good behavior with more playtime and attention.  While ignoring the bad stuff.  "But we are already ignoring it and it's driving us nuts - that's your answer?  More doing nothing about it?  And then we have to make time out of our busy day to play with the dog more when we already play a couple times a day?"  Hey, where's the magic bullet that requires no effort and instantly makes the annoying whining go away, folks?  What kind of trainers are you?

I am, of course, kidding.  THIS is what Anne was talking about, I believe.  

brookcove

"But we are already ignoring it and it's driving us nuts - that's your answer? 

It's the wrong answer!  The OP said they ignore the dog and tell him to go play.... they are EITHER ignoring the dog OR they are telling the dog to go play.  It can't be both.  Like Anne said, TALKING to the dog ("telling him to go play";) is reinforcing him.

brookcove

 So, one problem here is that these folks have already said that they have maxed out on the play time they are willing to dedicate to the dog.

Well, it's quality not quantity when it comes to time with the dog.  So about swapping SOME of that playtime for something else the dog can do which will stimulate him more?  For example... shorter playtime, with a couple of minutes of clicker training at the end.  Or just a couple of minutes with a clicker during the ad breaks on TV... it's hardly any time at all and you can teach the dog loads of cool stuff that way.... it's fun and the dog will probably be zonked out all evening afterwards as it's mentally tiring.

What about giving the dog more ways to occupy his time by himself?  Packed and frozen kongs, activity toys (like Busta cube).  Does the dog have safe access to outside?  Could he be given a paddling pool or a digging pit?

What about organising a play date with another doggy friend one or two days per week.... All you have to do is enjoy watching them clown around and the dog will be happily worn out by the end of it.

My point is that time with your dog should not be a chore..... if you aren't finding it much fun he probably isn't either.  This may be causing or contributing to the whining.  Address his needs and you may find you don't have to train for quiet.... it happens naturally as he becomes more content.

I might have missed this as I have barely skimmed the replies.... but I am wondering howmuch exercise this dog is getting.