# ball obsessed and excited demand barking!



## shepherdpal (Oct 8, 2013)

Pippin turned one year old last week. He is my dream dog! He obeys the basic commands, walks well on leash, is good with other dogs, but he is completely ball obsessed! 

He will play non stop fetch with the chuck it, sometimes jumping 4 1/2 to 5 feet to catch it! On a typical day he has an hour walk in the morning on a path where I can have him off leash and allow him to chase his ball. He gets another hour of playing fetch in the afternoon at the park. How much is too much? I am afraid he will have a heart attack, because he doesn't seem to ever want to rest . Pippin is my first Golden and my GSD is not like this. When he has had enough he lets me know and lays down. We get together with the owners of his 6 litter mates and they are not like this. They say I got the maniac!

Usually when I feel Pippin's had enough I just take the ball and we go home and he is mellow in the house. Today I wanted to stay in the park to visit with friends and he kept demand barking for me to throw the ball, even trying to pull it out of my pocket!

Also when we first get to any park he starts excitedly barking non stop for me to throw the ball.

He is being tested to do Therapy work in a few weeks and because the test is in a park I am afraid he will start barking the minute we get there and fail.
I take him to many stores and he doesn't bark and is very well behaved, but to him the park means " play ball" and he becomes a maniac.

Any suggestions on how to stop the excited barking? He only does it when he wants to play ball and not other times. Should I just withhold the ball for a few days and take him to the park? I tried that yesterday and he began rhythmically circling and zigzagging with his nose to the ground trying to scent a ball!

Should I limit his exercise? How much is too much? I am worried he will keel over


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## SwimDog (Sep 28, 2014)

I love that enthusiasm! I wish my dogs were like that.

You might want to try to find another location to do a test.

If I wanted to change the park behavior, I would go and take food treats and work on settle training and when I get about 50% calmness, give a play word and then do ball. And do that each time I go to the park. And eventually require more calm. We don't want to take away the ball craziness - we just want your bow to learn to be calm so that he can play.

I had to work through this for pond swimming and then field training - it was hard but so, so worth it for the self control.


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## Romeo1 (Apr 19, 2008)

I have an 18 month old female and she is Frisbee-obsessed and does demand barking as well, so I'm interested in the responses here as well.


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## Carmel (Feb 9, 2015)

Ha my Golden was like that. As he got older he settled down and got more subtle about pestering people. My favorite time was when my Dad was over having a cup of coffee with me and was throwing the ball for Carmel. He stopped throwing and we told Carmel "that's enough now." After a few minutes Carmel placed the ball on my dad's lap, and I told my dad to just ignore him. But Carmel was not to be ignored so within a few minutes he just gently placed his ball into my dad's coffee cup! :lol: It's this kind of stuff that make's Golden's just completely adorable and priceless!


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