My bottle baby doeling is getting bigger, which is great, but some of her cute baby behaviors are now becoming annoying. I've stopped for the past couple of weeks allowing her to head butt me (is that what she is doing? At first I thought she was just nuzzling me, only a little harder), and I tell her "NO" firmly. She still does it, and it's most annoying when she gooses me! :-O
She has also now discovered that when I'm bending over to do anything in the pen, she jumps on my back and just stands there. The first time it's cute, but I know that when she is 25+ lbs, it's going to be painful. LOL
How do I train these behaviors out of her? She is 7 weeks old.
Replies
Thanks Rachel, I'll give that a try. I love to cuddle her, but I can't have her doing the head butt thing to me!
Ha ha--yeah, I totally understand about behavior being cute when they are babies, but not so cute when they are older. We have a 7 month old Vizsla puppy, and we have been training her for quite a while. She's 50lbs now, and some behaviors that we didn't deal with before are MUCH larger issues now (this pup STILL sits on my lap, ha ha, but I actually like that).
Thanks again for the tips!
If I have a goat that butts, I "train" them to stop by stopping the attention they're getting when they do it. I push them away on their shoulder, and then stop giving attention. If they stop for a moment, then I'll come back to them, and give them a scratch, or a nuzzle, but if they start getting too pushy with their heads, I ignore them some more. They are so smart! It doesn't take them long to understand which behavior is causing you to stop paying them the attention they want.
Headbutting is hard, because so many people think it's cute and funny. It is, when they are little!! Once they get some size and weight, those cute little baby games become dangerous. Not everyone has the forsight to see that potential like you did! You'll see a lot of people who have to try to un train that behavior with adult goats because they didn't think about that.
There's another thread in here, where someone mentioned using a spray bottle to discourage headbutting with success. That's a great option if you find that she's not getting the hint being ignored.
Kristi Stone said:
Head butting is a behavior I never encourage. It doesn't fade with age, and will be dangerous when they get older.
The human rides are another story. I don't have ANY full grown goats that hopped up on me (or their mom's) when they were little, who still do it now that they are adults. That seems to be a behavior that they outgrow, or at least know what things are strong enough to do it to. They only jump onto structures that are short enough for them to get onto when they are bigger. They seem to understand that things can't always hold them once they are bigger, and don't try for as many places as they do when they are little.
Like a dog, they respond well to sounds such as "ACK" when they are doing something you don't like ("NO" works too ;). But it's the tone that makes them pay attention. Practically anything you can teach a dog, you can teach your goat. When one jumps on my back (ouch!!) I throw them off instantly and say NO. They don't do it more than twice before they get the idea. I had baby goats chewing my hair and that's a hard one to break, so now when I have new kids, I start off IMMEDIATELY with my displeasure sound when one reaches for my hair. I succeeded with my last two sets of kids-- no hair pulling!
Ha ha, "hijinks" is SUCH a good word for what Willow does. She is my spark plug, she just loves to have fun and life is a constant party for her. So cute, but I would hate it if she were 50lbs doing those things! How did you discourage the behavior?
Thanks Julieanne!
My goats did all that when they were young, and I just kept discouraging it. Eventually they stopped. I think a lot of it is just kid hijinks, but you're right to try to nip it in the bud.