3mo and still nipping

[klausy]

Ok...now we have a small "nipping" problem. At 3months old he listens to me quite well however, with my wife he tends to go ballistic. He nips at her hands constantly, nips and tugs at her pant legs and seems to not listen. When I'm present this behavior seems to diminish. At first we worked with the bite inhibition and that worked well. His nipping is not "hard biting," but we still want to get a handle on the nipping behavior now. I've read...sour apple etc...but haven't tried it. I read once where someone said that as soon as he nips, instantly force your thumb or fingers into his mouth pushing down on his tongue at the same time giving a firm "no." With me this seems to have stopped his nipping for the MOST part. My wife however, still has a difficult time with getting this to stop. We've also read...squeeze the snout shut, tell him "no bite"...this seems to make him think it's REALLY time to play! Hmmm.... Comments? Suggestions? Greatly appreciated! thanks.

[luvarott]

Originally posted by klausy:
Ok...now we have a small "nipping" problem. At 3months old he listens to me quite well however, with my wife he tends to go ballistic. He nips at her hands constantly, nips and tugs at her pant legs and seems to not listen. When I'm present this behavior seems to diminish. At first we worked with the bite inhibition and that worked well.

The bite inhibition training techniques take time, but are well worth the effort. This behavior is so instinctive in herding breeds, that you have to keep working on it. The "rougher" one shot type biting cures do not teach the puppy how to control his mouth and it is better to teach him to gradually reduce bite pressure, until he is just mouthing and then eliminate even that. At 12 weeks old he is just viewing your wife as a big playmate and dogs bite their playmates, just for fun. She should substitute a different form of game so the puppy can still interact with her, but on human terms, eg.tug of war with rules, puppy retrieves.....
I will yelp OUCH if puppy bites harder than I am allowing at that stage.....if puppy persists he gets a brief time out in the crate.
Run a search on "Puppy Biting" at http://www.google.com and you will come up with tons of great info (pay particular attention to the Dr. Ian Dunbar Sirius Puppy training links)

[Michael C.]

What works best is "Bitter Apple Spray". Petsmart sells it. When your dog nips at you, spray it into your dogs mouth and say "NO BITE". If our dog is misbehaving, just the sight of the bottle makes her stop!

[Doc]

I am moving this thread to Behavior.

[This message has been edited by Doc (edited November 20, 2000).]