Hello and Biting Question

[riesiel]

Hello, new member post here. I am sure this community is getting a ton of these from the spotlight, hope you don't mind another. I have owned dogs my entire life and love them to death, I do pretty good with training them but sometimes run into stumbling blocks with specific dogs

Comments

[cottonmanifesto]

did you use the yelp/ignore technique when working with fae to get a soft mouth? i've found this extremely effective. if that's what you used, then just pretend your pants are made of your skin!

also: that first picture is hiiiilarious.

[riesiel]

I did, but it really didn't do much with her. In the end to get her to stop the biting stuff I had to spend hours lying on top of her with her on her back to get it through her head that she was not the alpha. Unfortunately now she has become the most patient dog you could imagine, she will try to out wait you.

She is a stubborn dog and learns differently than Ronan did, so it is difficult to get things through her head.

[cottonmanifesto]

i think you might have better luck if you approach the problem from a different angle

[antikythera]

(Lurker here, I don't have dogs, but I want to read as much as I can from smart people before I ever get one...)

i very much believe that a soft mouth (good bite inhibition) is one of the greatest gifts that a dog owner can give their dog.

My mother's American Staffordshire can roughhouse with you and very gently brush you with her teeth. It's incredibly funny because you can see that she's trying to play rough and be gentle at the same time.

[zombiesauros]

I'm no expert, and my dog is my first real dog (childhood dogs don't count because my parents paid for everything for them), but I have used the yelp + ignore/turn away for biting, and then coming back and praising her for "good girl kisses", and used this for biting clothes on me as well, and it has worked.

As for biting things she shouldn't (I don't think I could rant enough for how upset I am with my parents for teaching her socks = toys while I was visiting them), she reacts well to a simple correction + a "THIS is what you should chew!" while giving her her favorite chew toy.

My suggestion, for clothes tearing, at least, would be the yelp + ignore method.

[riesiel]

I have been working pretty heavily with her on grabbing a toy when she is looking to bite at stuff. When she starts to get mouthy I will tell her "Get a toy" and she runs and gets a toy to play with instead of biting. Maybe I just need to do more of this with her and give more praise when she gets the toy. That way she will bring me a toy when she wants attention and not try biting my pants.

[cottonmanifesto]

sounds perfect to me.

[bloolark]

With my dogs, if they so much as brushed a tooth against me, I screamed like they had killed me and stormed out of the room. Any games that were in progress were stopped instantly.

These days, they can play elaborate bitey face on my feet/around my ankles, and I can stick a hand in the middle of them and only get brushed with a tooth.

[jadecat]

As a curiosity question- when you give her treats, does she take them nicely from your hand, or do you have to kind of toss them at her?

[riesiel]

She takes them very nicely, almost delicately. Ronan we actually have to say gentle to before he takes his treat, otherwise he noms it so fast you almost lose your fingers to his swallowing.

[cottonmanifesto]

then this shows you that she has very good mouth control, so it shouldn't be hard to teach her to use it!