Bitting

[nicholas]

Hello everybody,

It has been quite some time sionce my last visit as i have been enjoying my living with Tristan. It seems that he is now healthy enough to enjoy life. Unfortunately there are some minor issues that remain unsolved (like soft stoll or sometimes eating the stools) but those are the left overs form his giardia problem. I was told that he must have some damage to his intestine that causes these problems and this cannot be solved.
At least he has grown to a handsome friend.

My problem is that when anybody tries to pet him he turns his head to bite. I do not mean in an aggresive way, he jsut wants to have in hios mouth the hand. I have tried almost eveyrhting to make him stop unsuccesfuly. Do you have anything to suggest?

Thanks
Nicholas

[tikaani]

try puttin penut butter on palm of your hand and then clench it, when your dog goes to it say lick then open your hand so he can lick the penut butter of, do this quite a bit, after a while hopfully he will recognise the comand lick, then when you go to pet him say the comand hopfully he will lick insted of bite, good luck with him....

[michaelundinaeichhorn]

This is quite normal. Grap his upper jaw remove it from the hand and say no everytime he does ist. Be sure to positivly reinforce greetings as long as he doesn´t grap the hand.

Ina

[rogue_cris]

How old is your puppy? Mine did the same up until he was about 3-4 months old. He is now 5 months old and anybody can pet him without having their hands chewed up. The change happened rather suddenly, but he is now teething, so the mouthing has not fully disappeared yet. Keep in mind that this is normal, up until about 6 months of age, when his adult teeth have fully emerged. However, I tried to inhibate his biting of human hands (lol) by saying a firm 'No!' and then offering him one of his toys in his mouth or rawhide bones and such - these were his favourites. Good luck and lots of patience, it's worth it!

[Rona]

Originariamente inviata da rogue_cris

How old is your puppy?

His puppy is now about five years old

[André]

Originariamente inviata da Rona

His puppy is now about five years old

And the habit disappeared? I'm curious to know.

[rogue_cris]

Yeah, I only realised the post was from 2007!!! only after I wrote it, lol! But anyway, did the habit disappear? If so, at what age? Hopefully Nicholas will answer us.

[Silvester]

Originally posted by André:

Originally Posted by Rona
His puppy is now about five years old
And the habit disappeared? I'm curious to know.

Originally posted by rogue_cris:

Hopefully Nicholas will answer us.

Hmmm - more probably that Nicholas has disappeared....?? Or some of his fingers ????

[Rona]

Originariamente inviata da André

And the habit disappeared? I'm curious to know.

I'm not sure about Nicolas' pup. Mine had this "habit" extremely strongly developed, probably also because she has always been very lively on the one hand and quiet on the other. She hardly ever made any sounds and we understood this was her method of communicating, asking for attention, showing affection, etc. With time we managed to teach her to grab our hands very gently, only when welcoming us or asking e.g. for a walk, and NOT to grab hands of people from outside the immediate pack. But I must admit it wasn't easy at all and the process took us about one year.

We found very helpful teaching her the command "plug" - carrying a soft toy when welcoming a visitor made her mouth busy and prevented her from grasping hands. In fact she is deeply convinced now that a well-mannered dog welcomes a guest by running around him with a toy in the mouth

[rogue_cris]

Awwwh, that is such an extremely cute habit!!!

[avgrunn]

Originariamente inviata da Rona

We found very helpful teaching her the command "plug" - carrying a soft toy when welcoming a visitor made her mouth busy and prevented her from grasping hands. In fact she is deeply convinced now that a well-mannered dog welcomes a guest by running around him with a toy in the mouth

I believe this is the best method, we've introduced it a couple of months ago and it is much better now. Besides, he is looking very proud when he is carrying his toy around, showing it to every guest.

[André]

Originariamente inviata da avgrunn

I believe this is the best method, we've introduced it a couple of months ago and it is much better now. Besides, he is looking very proud when he is carrying his toy around, showing it to every guest.

I also have the same problem. I "only" say no and open her jaws. It is much better now because she stops to bite after the first minutes of contact with a stranger... but the first impact is the same.
I think if I give her a toy she will drop it down to bite the guest
I believe this is something related to wolfdogs - they use a lot more the mouth to play and some of them to grab attention...

[avgrunn]

Originariamente inviata da André

I believe this is something related to wolfdogs - they use a lot more the mouth to play and some of them to grab attention...

Yeah I believe so too, but after some time this is just tiring. At first we've said no, we;ve told him to sit but when the guests arrived or when we came back home after longer period of absence he was just too happy and energetic and at that particular moment also deaf .
The toy helps him to ease this energy, you just have to try with something big. At the beginning we used a round pillow, something like that http://www.mikpol.pl/product/image/1...05c895e668.jpg
He just clenched his teeth on it and it was ok, now even a small toy is good enough.

[Rona]

Originariamente inviata da André

I think if I give her a toy she will drop it down to bite the guest

Tell your guests to keep turning their backs at her when she does not carry a toy. As long as she holds it, they should show attention and praise her. Toy dropped = attention lost. Sooner or later she will catch what the desired behaviour is. When our girl was a little, ADHDish puppy, our trainer advised us to keep her in crate for the first 5-10 minutes on the visitors arrival, and only let her out when the first excitement was gone. It worked OK and was a good occasion to train "go to crate" command.

Originariamente inviata da André

I believe this is something related to wolfdogs - they use a lot more the mouth to play and some of them to grab attention...

So did I think until I met litter G Atropa Bella Dona. They're all gentelman- and lady-like and don't bite.

I think it's an individual personality trait; some CSV have it more, while others less stronly exhibited. When comparing with other CSV pups I'm aware now our Lorka was an extreme case , but we managed!

[avgrunn]

Originariamente inviata da Rona

Tell your guests to keep turning their backs at her when she does not carry a toy.

This may have worked on Lorka, but when it comes to Uro it is very dangerous to turn your back on him when he does not have anything in his mouth He just loves to pinch people's buttocks

[Rona]

Originariamente inviata da avgrunn

He just loves to pinch people's buttocks

We had this problem whem running with our dog until she was about a year or so.

[André]

When did your dogs learn the good way?
We are struggling a bit with this behavior. She is very sociable with dogs and people but with strangers she can't control the bite (not agressive, just excited).
I will try the toy...

[Rona]

Originariamente inviata da André

When did your dogs learn the good way? .

Hard to say exactly when, but around two she seemed to have made a huge progress in controlling herself and then another big improvement step at three. At that time we managed to teach her very quickly to lick the extended finger of our 18 month old grandson, instead of licking his face up and down

Re the toy - first it's good to teach her without visitors around. Just put the toy into her mouth with the command "plug" and praise as long as she holds it. Give her a treat for keeping it for a few seconds first, later gradually extend the time, just like with "stay".

[Elentia]

Originariamente inviata da André

When did your dogs learn the good way?
We are struggling a bit with this behavior. She is very sociable with dogs and people but with strangers she can't control the bite (not agressive, just excited).
I will try the toy...

Misty's brother, Marrok, has also the same problem so maybe it is genetic trait.

Whatever is the source of this behaviour, Marrok use the mouth very often, in play (dogs don't like it), and also in greetings. But I see it is getting better in time. Of course we try to control the situation when strangers appears, we use NO together with learning the command "lick". But the best way was to keep dog attention for the first minuites, it could be exactly the toy or doing other command (for example sit) for food rewards but we still are looking for better way, because it doesn't always work.

[rogue_cris]

I did the same (sort of) with Drogo. When he was a bit younger, he ALWAYS bit our clothes when we arrived home and he did the same thing with strangers when they tried to pet him. However, it did get better in time - naturally, mostly, and with a bit of our help. When I arrived home, I would show him a yumy treat and made him sit and wait. Then, I would put the treat on the floor and let him wait some more. After I allowed him to eat the treat, he would no longer be super-excited to see us, as he would be busy smelling the floor for some more treats, lol. Now, he has a tendency to jump on us, so this is our new challenge. BUT he no longer bites our clothes, yey!