# Puppy acts differently when husband comes home



## amb1144 (Jun 30, 2015)

Hello! I'll try to keep this relatively short, but will answer any questions needed for more information. I have a 6 month old GSD. I'm a teacher, and so have been home all day with my puppy for a couple weeks now. We have a nice routine during the day: play fetch, nap, train, nap, go for a walk, nap, play with toys, nap.... For the most part, he is a very well behaved puppy during the day. 

But, when my husband comes home around 7pm he is a very different puppy. He constantly bites the furniture, goes crazy running all over the place, and bites my husband and I. He's been getting a little better with biting us (we're working on no, leave it, and kisses instead. And we leave the room as a time out when he bites us). 

I don't think it's that he doesn't like my husband, because he bites me when this happens as well. Could it be that he associates my husband more with play time and gets really excited when he gets home? Is this normal behavior? Any insight would be really helpful!


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## Baillif (Jun 26, 2013)

Probably. If your husband comes home and "turns on the disco ball" for him so to speak then yes he will classically condition that your husband is a cue for crazy time in a similar way to how pavlovs dogs salivated when a bell was rung. To decondition that your husband needs to be more low key around the puppy and make the puppy practice calming exercises of some sort.


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## Stonevintage (Aug 26, 2014)

amb1144 said:


> But, when my husband comes home around 7pm he is a very different puppy. He constantly bites the furniture, goes crazy running all over the place, and bites my husband and I. He's been getting a little better with biting us (we're working on no, leave it, and kisses instead. And we leave the room as a time out when he bites us).
> 
> I would suggest you don't leave the room, your dog leaves the room for the time out. Block him off in a separate room, you and your husband do your greetings and transition, then comes the dog, until he learns to mellow out until it's ok to cut loose. Can you exercise him about 1/2 hour before your husband gets home? Another important thing I learned on this site, you should be able to walk in your door and do your settling routine, then devote a few minutes to focus on the welcome from the dog.
> 
> This has worked out well for my pup and I. She's wagging her tail and walking in slow wide circles while I set my stuff down, put stuff in the fridge, change into comfy clothes. Thru habit and repetition , she knows when I'm done and that it's all about her for the next 20 minutes GSD's are awesome about settling into daily habits. , mine have always loved structure to their daily life.


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## wyoung2153 (Feb 28, 2010)

I agree with Baillif, that this is normal if you husband cues a lot of playtime when with the dog. 

Titan is very different when it's just me than when he is home with my husband. With me it's very calm, we have our routine. He's not so pushy to play or to have attention. Just likes being with me. With my husband in the vacinity there's not a moment that he isn't up pacing just waiting for him to come out and play with him. My husband didn't believe me when I had the day off and I told him Titan and I were lazy that day. 

We countered this with making my husband more low key when we need Titan to calm down. Even though it's all backfiring now that I am gone because my husband feels bad and is playing with him extra and giving him all kinds of attention that he normally didn't. We will have to recondition when I get home.

Point being, this is normal, IMO, and if you want it to change then you have to change how your husband interacts with your puppy. I started having Dan (hubs) do more training before play and ignoring behaviors inside. That helped a lot.


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

Agree with bailif: everything they do is because it works for them. Had to deal with the same issue but now I managed to have trained my husband (need applause for that as that took about 30 years) to ignore the dog when he comes home and put Deja in a down stay until everything is back to normal; basically when he puts his brief case down and life resumes.


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## wyoung2153 (Feb 28, 2010)

wolfy dog said:


> Agree with bailif: everything they do is because it works for them. Had to deal with the same issue but now I managed to have trained my husband (need applause for that as that took about 30 years) to ignore the dog when he comes home and put Deja in a down stay until everything is back to normal; basically when he puts his brief case down and life resumes.


Man.. I am on year 3 of training and still a work in progress, are you saying it will take me 27 more years!? :wild:


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## ILoveBella478 (Mar 13, 2015)

I agree I'm on the opposite side though lol. Bella is beyond the most calm dog with me, she has her moments when she will tell me lets play. Majority of the time she waits for me to engage anything other than that me and her are laying together dozing off and on lol. Now when my wife gets home all H E L L breaks. She's a little fire cracker, I'm constantly yelling at my grown wife "NO RUNNING IN THE HOUSE !" We don't have carpet we have tile so it's bad on Bella legs and hips when they do that. Not only that we stay in a apartment on a military base so she's constantly hitting something with her huge tail and trying to cut corners to chase my wife it can be really a pain in the ass.


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## River-girl (May 8, 2015)

My girl is the same way. She's 13 weeks old and relatively calm and easy to control when its just me and her (which is 90 % of the time) She never jumps on me or bites me whatsoever, only will cuddle and want me to pat her. But as soon as my husband comes home or appears in the room it's like he was resurrected from the dead: she jumps all over him, bites his feet and circles him like a maniac. I've tried keeping her on a leash and holding her back but it is pretty frustrating and she calms down eventually...Perhaps if he had more patience to spend time with her it would get better lol


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## robrymond (Sep 7, 2014)

We had a similar issue except it was when my partner returned home he would go hyper. Thing is, it was me he was hyper with from that point on. He would bark and bite, but it was naturally in his head that 'mummy is home, now we play'.

This behaviour has slightly changed but is still evident. He very much is mouthy play with me but won't with others. I have to be careful though as his jaw is getting strong!


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