from Mexico - when will he calm down?

[Davidgor2]

I am a new member with a locally purchased one year old on April 1, 2008 Rottweiler (Hans) who we love. I was surprised at his beautiful conformation and coloring considering that he comes with no papers. He is just a treasure with no bad habits and with ease of training. If I had a question for the forum, it would be that he still makes fast movements with his head and bangs his teeth into my arms and hands. That leaves me with black and blue spots under my skin (hematomas). When will he calm down a little so that stops happening to me? He loves to run and play with my Standard Poodle and so far they are best of friends. Thanks for your advice!
David

[Zumie05]

You need to clarify a little bit. Is your dog mouthing on you, or is he literally running around and then headbutting into you?

If it is mouthing behavior you need to teach the dog that tooth on contact with skin is a huge no no. When his teeth touch you, even if it doesn't hurt or he is just being friendly, yell OUCH and turn your attention away from the dog for about 5 seconds (so try getting up, turning around, stop play time). Pretty soon the dog will learn that all fun and play goes away if his teeth have touched you.

If your guy is just big and clumsy and runs around and then kind of *hits* you along the way, to me that sounds like my puppy lol! By no means is it acceptable though. A dog should know that it is not okay to just knock into you, especially a large one who could easily cause some major damage, even if it was unintentional.

Get this dog into obedience classes right away and start working on forming the foundation of your relationship. You're the leader, dog is the follower. A follower in a pack would never ram into the leader and mouth all over him. This dog needs to learn to respect your space!

[lgslgs]

I had a rescue that was very clumsy with his mouth when I first got him. We spent a lot of time getting him to practice having a gentle mouth by hand feeding him popcorn, one piece at a time.

We started with it tucked in a hand and got a few scraped knuckles in the process. Guinness learned that "Ouch" was a negative word and "careful" meant to slow down and be careful. Once he developed the ability to be gentle with a closed hand we moved on to holding the popcorn in our fingers.

It took a while for him to learn to be calm and to learn that he was supposed to be gentle and aware of where his head is. In his case it was never a question of him being aggressive or dangerous, he was just a very happy, eager to please dog who's first home didn't train basic manners and then was very heavy handed in punishing a dog that just did not know what was expected of him. I did get a few tooth bruises on my hand the first couple of times he waved his head around like a fool - but all it took was hearing "ouch" a few times before he learned to be more careful. Once he figured it out we kept practicing almost every day for several months until he was always super gentle. Then for the rest of his life we'd do the practice every few weeks just to keep him very skilled at using a gentle mouth.

Several years after I got Guinness he got one of those big, hard plastic treat dispensing cube-shaped toys stuck in his mouth - with his canines stuck in a couple of the holes and his mouth wedged wide open. Our mouth handling work with the popcorn allowed the vet to very safely handle him and try to get the toy loose. Guinness stayed calm through it all, and didn't wave his head around like he would have when I first got him. After about 5 - 10minutes of trying to remove the toy the vet actually had to anesthitize him to get it loose because it was so firmly stuck.

I was really glad to have a dog that was so gentle with that many people's hands in his mouth that night.

So try the popcorn - calmly and patiently teaching him to be more aware of and gentle with his head and mouth.

Lynda

[Davidgor2]

Thankyou so much for your reply. The information you sent me will be of great value to me and I will try to do as you said. Hans is a love and is hurting me accidently because of his size and young age and also because I have delicate skin! I guess we are both still learning.
David