We couldn't do it..

Dogs jump on you because they think that since you are the "alpha" in their lives you have food for them. If you watch any of the animal programs featuring wolves or other dog relatives the babies are constantly jumping on the mom to see if she has anything in her mouth. The behavior carried on to the domestic dogs and is a hard habit to break. I use a lot of sign language in training my dogs. If I want them to NOT jump on people I use a very sharp NO and then reach out about six inches from my body and I have my hand flat and bent at a 90 degree angle signaling the dogs that they need to stay on the floor. It's kind of like a police signal when they want you to stop. I found that the hand signal works super and it is easy for the dogs to recognize. If you think about it, it takes a while for dogs to recognize "sit" and "stay", plus the training is more intense and focused on the basic commands. If you look at training your dog like you are training your children you will soon understand the "why" in the difficulties with getting some commands across to the dog. Children don't always understand the "NO" command and the critters in our lives are the same way. When you are getting the "NO" command, make sure that you are using a firm calm voice. When the dog does something like getting into the cat food make sure that you use the firm "NO" and also state "bad dog" If necessary give him a little shake when you are using "NO" but don't shake him so hard that it can hurt or scare him. If it doesn't sink in, then get a soda can and put some pebbles in it. Then the next time you use "NO", shake the can. Soon he will realize that if he doesn't respond to "NO", then there is a bad noise that is very harsh to his ears. The noise doesn't hurt his hearing but it does get his attention. One huge thing is that you need to be consistent with the training. I tried the turning your back on the dog way of training, it didn't work for me either. So, I started working with the hand signal and the "NO" command. It has really worked, and to reinforce the dog's recognition of the command and when he responds the way you want him to, make sure you give him tons of praise. It has really worked with C.D., he not only doesn't jump as much, but he is much happier because he is getting extra attention when he does something right. In fact the past week I haven't had him jump on me at all! It's been really tough with C.D. (which stands for Crazy Dog...from the day I got him he has been a totally different dog than any I have ever known.) because he is a head strong breed, he's a mini dachshund and the breed emanated from Germany. With tons of love and even more patience and consistency he has started to react the way I want him to. The toughest thing I have had to teach him is NOT to chase the cats. He likes to pull the hair out of the cats... after the second pull the cats haul off and thump him good and hard on the top of his head, which doesn't phase him in the least. But he finally is leaving the cats alone. It just took time. I wish I lived closer so that I could help you with Turbo. But if you would like, I will send you a friend request and after you accept it we can email each other about the problems you are having with Turbo.

How are you working with your dog on the jumping? We are trying to turn our backs to him and ignore him when he jumps and bites (playful bites). Unless he's too riled up from play, this will usually get him to stop immediately.. but as soon as we turn around he jumps again. So we just keep turning our backs to him.. I keep getting different answers about whether or not to say "no" when he does something bad. Some people say attention is attention of any kind. I think I like the idea of saying "no". He seems to somewhat understand it already. He goes to eat the cat food and I say no and he'll back off but a few seconds later he goes back to it. So I think he understands no.. just hasn't mastered it. I mean dogs can learn words like sit and stay.. why can't they learn that no means they're doing something they shouldn't?

See, I never knew the vet should muzzle him.. I just figured the vet should have known what to do.. and believe me I really do trust my vet.. at least with my cats. They did try to take him in a back room so maybe they did try to muzzle him but he's was too worked up already? I'm thinking.. had I known before hand.. I would have muzzled him myself before even bringing him to the vet. We're going to try to vet at the shelter.. when we told them about our vet that's the first thing they asked is if they muzzled the dog. They've checked him out before and given him his shots and all that.. so obviously they can handle him. The problem is.. the vet put it in my head that my dog could be aggressive. Aside from that vet visit I never saw any aggressive tendencies.. but once it was in my head I couldn't stop worrying about all the what ifs. I was a paranoid wreck all day yesterday after we brought him back home. I'm watching him like a hawk waiting for him to do something mean.. The only thing "mean" he did yesterday (aside from biting at play time) was when my daughter got out of the shower last night and came to walk through the room the dog stood up and growled at her and wouldn't stop until I made her back out of the room the way she came. He didn't move to go for her, didn't curl lips or anything. Just stood there growling. Hubby was sitting right next to him and pet him and he didn't snap at hubby or anything.. just growled. He calmed down as soon as my daughter left the room.. Probably just still needs time to adjust!

Me too!

Yes he has.. poor guy.. and he isn't sure what to think of us just yet.

I've been looking at tips online and they've helped a lot!

Thanks! I am hoping it works out too! I think he's just overly playful. Until we went to the vet I did not see any aggression from him what so ever! But of course now that she mentioned that I'm overly cautious of him.. and I wish I weren't. I'm watching him and the kids and cats like a hawk, though over the weekend I was much more lenient with them all. So sad that I have to feel this way and not completely trust the dog anymore. But we're all going to work on it. I think over all he's a sweet dog and in time I'll trust him completely.. as soon as we train him not to play so rough with us!

Yes, we're trying to keep that in mind. We acted out of fear.. which was fueled by a trained vet telling us he probably wasn't safe for us.. and my fear and lack of knowledge of dogs in general. We'll see how it goes.. but I pray it works out.. we really want it to!