| > Cadillac_Lady wrote: The vet told him he was a bad boy while he quickly
> put his thumb in the dogs mouth under his tongue and pressed firmly
> against his gums on the left (or right) side until the dog was uncomfortable.
It sounds like a great method if you want to cause discomfort for your dog and possible your thumb, too. :(
Seriously, there is no need to use punishment or adversives to make the average pup learn not to nip. When Kiko nips, yell "Ouch!!" in a loud, high-pitched voice, as though he just bit your thumb off! Pull your hand away fast. Then immediately turn away, leave him by himself, and ignore him totally for about 3 or 4 minutes. If you do this consistantly, and have anyone else in your family do it too, you should see a noticeable reduction in the behavior within a week, two at the most. When the biting has become infrequent, you can start handling an occasional nip with a stern "No Bite!" and continue to use that command from then on without going through the theatrics.
What you are doing is substituting the fained "Ouch!" reaction and then removing your attention from the dog in place of all the stuff the vet did. The difference is that the Ouch/Ignore method is what is called a negative punishment, while the gripping of the cheek is what is called a positive punishment. In the method I recommend, you are taking something AWAY from the pup to try to stop the undesireable behavior--your attention and presence. In the vet's method, you are doing something TO the pup to try to stop the undesireable behavior--you are hurting it.
100 years of behavioral science from Watson to Pavlov to Skinner has shown that negative punishment works better than positive punishment. (Actually positive rewarding works better than any other response in most situations, but it is hard to apply here.) Although ignoring the pup is a punishment, it does not inflict any direct physical discomfort or pain on the pup, which is unnecessary. What's more, believe it or not, the one thing your pup wants from you more than anything else (a primary need, like food) is you attention and companionship. By removing this for a few moments, you will make a larger impression than by using any physical action.
Finally, the reason for the "Ouch!" is that when pups or dogs play together, if one nips the other too hard, the other pup will let out a loud Yipe! and then withdraw for a moment and stop playing. This is nature's way of providing the offending nipper with feedback, telling it that when it bites that hard, its playmate will yell and stop playing. You will be using the dog's natural way of thinking and learning by imitating this canine behavior with your "Ouch!" and momentary removal of attention. With other dogs, the pup would learn exactly how hard it can bite each dog without causing it pain, and would remember that. The only difference is that in the game you are playing, the pup will learn that NO amount of pain, NO nipping or biting, is your tolerance level.
The one thing your vet did that I also do is after issuing a very occasional no bite command to my pup (now 9 months), I will place my hand or finger right in front of his mouth as though daring him to bite it. This both tests and reinforces the "No Bite!" command. But you should not do this until the pup is trained not to bite and understands well that he should not bite. (It makes no sense to tempt a pup who does not understand that biting is unacceptable to bite you!) Once he stops biting, you change to the "No Bite!" command because still being a pup, he will occasionally slip up, and that's when you start using a simpler command and the "daring" can be added. You definitely should not "dare" during the initial training, the "Ouch!" phase.
It's worked for me on three of my five dogs as pups (the other two were recued as adults), and on dozens of others that I have helped train. And I have never so much as touched any of these dogs to train them not to bite. :)  |