[snhagood]

Let me just state for the record that I have been coming here at least twice a week and doing a search for "biting" or "bite" and reading the postings that I've found. I have applied different techniques, trying one and when it ceases to work, trying another technique that people have advised in this forum. My 6 month old, 60 pound Rottie is still biting, and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

I contacted an obedience school when she was 10 weeks old, and got her signed up for classes. Unfortunately, we experienced flooding, and everything got delayed by months, so she won't start formal training until January, but in the meantime I have taken the lead and began working with her myself. I have successfully taught her to sit, and stay, and to come when called. "Lay" has been giving us problems, but I'm confident that if I'm still having problems when classes start, I'll be shown a better way to teach that command and she'll learn it in no time, she's very bright.

At first, when I got her, she was biting ALL the time. I couldn't even pet her without her biting me. Since she was teething, I tried to overlook it. When I posted here the first time about it, I was given all sorts of advice, and as her teeth began coming out, her biting was almost non existant. Now, she's got her adult teeth, and she's biting again. For example.... today she jumped up on the baby gate. I walked over to her and said "Down!" She lunged towards me to try and bite my shirt/me and I said "Out!" to her in a deep voice. That used to get her to come to a dead stop with whatever she was doing, and she was told "Good girl!" and given some form of reward (petting, snack, etc.). "Out!" no longer works, and she just lunged at me again. I opened the gate, put her in a 'sit' position, placed my hands through her collar, and held her still to get her to calm down. She did. I told her "good girl," let go and she nipped at my hand.

I was almost afraid to post here, because I see a lot of times when someone ask for help, people tend to fill in the things they don't know about the situation and assume things that are sometimes not very helpful. I don't know if I've included enough information, but if I haven't I certainly will in my replies. I'm just at a loss as to why she isn't understanding that biting is not acceptable. I'm always consistent with not letting her get away with it - teeth on skin = "No!", and she's given something else to chew on. I did well with my other dog (who has now passed away) on this issue, to the point where if I played with him and he wanted to bite, he would run around the house until he found one of his chew toys and chew it instead of daring to bite me. I'm just having major problems getting this hard-headed girl to understand that biting is not an option.

At this point, I will try anything. I live with my mother and she had surgery Monday, and now has to have more surgery tomorrow, and my patience level is at an all time low, so I guess that's why I'm wanting help now, because I've gotten to the place where "she'll grow out of it" and "she's just a puppy" mean nothing to me. At 6 months, I personally feel that she should not be doing this. Thank you for taking the time to read this.