How to Keep Dogs Off the Couch?
I'm looking for suggestions on how to best train dogs that are normally on the couch day in and day out, not to jump on the couch and to instead use their beds on the floor. Not that I mind my dogs being on the furniture, in fact I quite like to curl up with them while watching tv! The problem is we have four dogs and one of them, Blue, has some severe back problems and we're supposed to attempt to keep him from jumping on and off of furniture in hopes of preventing any further damage.
So the predicament is, do we train them all to stay off of the furniture, or do we just train Blue to stay off the furniture (that hardly seems fair, though). Any suggestions on deterrents that will help us with this training? Or any opinions on the fairness of training one to stay off rather than all four? We have enough dog beds for all of them to have their own, plus they share beds sometimes too, so that's not an issue.
I'm trying to avoid piling items on the couch to keep them off (which is what we are doing right now). I've heard of getting the office mats for carpeted floor that allow office chairs to roll and placing them nubs up so that they are prickly and uncomfortable. Anyone know of any easier/cheaper tricks? We have 2 couches and 3 chairs to contend with. All suggestions appreciated!
My mother trained her Boston Terrier's to stay off of her Formal Living room set buy using Mouse Traps...
She would use 4or 5 on her couch and about 3 on her loveseat..
She would set the traps and lay them in a row across the couch and loveseat, and after about 2.5 weeks the dogs learned that if they jumped up on the couch or L.Seat that the traps would go off The dogs associated the noise and traps shuting and stopped jumping on her furniture all together !
I also taught my dogs not to jump on the furniture by this method... It Works
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I don't have any advice or suggestions that you didn't already mention. I do think it seems unfair to keep only Blue off the couch, though, but then again, I don't think dogs sit there and rationalize whether something is fair or not. We do it for them! :)
Good luck with this! The office chair matts sound like something worth trying, but I worry that if the dogs try to get on the couch even with the matt and it slips off, it could result in further injury to Blue. I'm certain my golden retriever would quite enjoy prickly matts on his area of the couch... some dogs you just can't win. Hehe.
We try to keep the dogs off the couch for the hair factor, but they still sneak up there when we go to bed or when we're at work. Sometimes, after freshly vacuuming the couch, we move the coffee tables and chairs against the couch so they can't jump up there as easily. This has worked the best, but once again, a very stubborn golden will still climb over the chairs and tables to get to his corner of the couch.
Let me know if you find something that works! Maybe you just need to make a platform for Blue to step onto, and then step onto the couch, so he doesn't have to jump.