biting puppy = dominance?

[Naldo]

My pup Bosco who is about 3 months old has a problem with biting my moms ankles, and sandals. My mom can walk by not paying a bit of attention to him and he will just charge and bite at her ankles and sandals. He only bites and pulls on the sandals if she is wearing them otherwise hes fine. His biting seems to only be directed towards everyone in my family but me and my dad. If he is biting one of my brothers or sisters or my mom and either me or my dad walk into the room he immediately stops and sits down right in front of us. Me and my dad are the only ones who train Bosco, so i thought it might be a dominance thing. He sees me and my dad as being dominant over him so he wont bite us, but he sees himself as being dominant over everyone else in the family. Does that sound right? If anyone has any other suggestions, as to why he is like this or how to show him that the rest of the family is "above" him in the dominance ladder please let me know thanks.

[dragontear2s]

I was told when Sharess was a puppy that the biting the ankles was because of their herding instincts. This behavior is the puppy trying to herd your family. Since he is trying to get them to move where he wants them, have them just stop moving when he starts to nip and give him a gentle correction. Good luck, I know this is no fun to deal with.

[Alura]

I am no pro..but from what I have learned here it isn't necessarily dominance per se. He is a young pup and has a lot to learn. For him to be consistent, people in the house must be consistent! You and your dad should not be the only ones training him, everyone should be able to get the same response when using the same commands.

As to what to do about it, all I can think of is REDIRECT. He needs to know it is not OK to bite people, instead give him something else to do with his his mouth.

[Naldo]

When Bosco begins to bite at the ankles my mom will tell him no and give him one of his toys, he'll play with the toy for about 2 seconds and go right back to the ankles, as for the suggestion that everyone needs to be training him, he will just not pay one bit of attention to anyone but my dad and me. Guess we'll just have to keep working on that. His only real issues that need working on is the ankle biting and his food aggression that i asked about in another thread, other than that he is really obedient, he always walks through doors after us, follows his commands relatively well, he does pretty well with strangers after we let him know they are ok and not a threat, after we get these few kinks worked out he will be the perfect puppy Thanks again for your help.