CockersOnline Forum
Cocker Specific Discussion => Puppies => Topic started by: abkb on January 23, 2012, 09:14:42 AM
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Hi all,
We have been and gone through the first puppy biting phase, with those needle teeth all gone now. However, we now have a new biting problem. Molly is nearly 6 months old and seems to (what I can only describe as) bite us as her form of attention seeking.
I've spoke previously of how Molly jumps up at the dining table, as well as when we have anything in our hands on the sofa, and will do a high pitched bark because she wants what we've got. We say 'off' and praise her when she's sat. However, now when we say 'off' she will just carry on jumping up. We try to ignore her but she has now decided to start biting our toes/hands/clothes.
But this isn't where the biting stops. If we call her over sometimes for a stroke, or to play, or if she is sat cuddled up with us on the sofa, she will sometimes have this look on her face and will then let out a squeal and bite us again. It doesn't seem to be an aggressive bark/bite if you know what I mean. And it isn't because we're getting her to do something that she doesn't want to do. For example, she was chewing the footstool so OH called her over by dangling her tuggy toy, and instead of going for the toy she did the squeal and went from his hands.
I was in floods of tears last night over it, and still have puncture wounds on my hands this morning. At the moment, it's literally everytime we touch her she bites. I don't know what to do for the best.
Am I best distracting her before it happens? Or if it does happen get her to sit and then reward? We've tried saying 'no' or 'ah ah' and she just gets excited by it. We've also tried removing her from the room for a few seconds, and she just comes back in and does it again.
Any help is much appreciated; she is my absolute world :'(
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I find this subject quite interesting as beau is quite bitey still. When I took him to the breeder to be clipped I said he can be a bit bitey when being groomed and she was aghast and gave me a long lecture on the subject! She said beau wouldn't dare bite her and none of her dogs would. She said you have to be hard them when little and then soften up as they get older. She didn't say what the consequences are for biting though! All her dogs are happy friendly not head shy great with her 2 year old grandson etc and are shown so used to being handled!!! So I do wonder sometimes about the whole ignoring distracting thing as a lot of them continue to bite using these techniques?!
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Every time she bites could you not tap her on the nose and say "no".
I did read online that if your dog bites then the minute they bite; leave them alone, no attention, no play - end of play. So they associate biting with no play.
It could be that she's just too excited and carried away and not realising what she is doing?
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Every time she bites could you not tap her on the nose and say "no".
I really wouldn't recommend this. :-\ You could end up with a hand shy dog who fears any approach of hands.
Dogs can often mouth more in their adolescence - their molars are settling in so they have a heightened need to chew, and they are testing out boundaries of appropriate behaviour.
The best bet is to give appropriate things to chew, distract and divert biting onto appropriate items, and use of brief time-outs if diverting doesn't work.
Alongside this is it important to teach good play rules - ensure you have a cue word for the beginning and end of tuggy play, and if at any point teeth touch skin, play stops immediately (but briefly).
It's all well and good someone saying you have to be firm when they are young, but if they do that with a pup who is slightly more nervous a "firm" approach (which results in a dog who doesn't dare to be mouthy) can do far more harm than good - and you could end up with a potentially reactive dog who hasn't learned bite inhibition, so when (if) they do bite they inflict serious injury. :-\ It is far more preferable to go for a slower approach whereby the dog actually learns to control their own behaviour...
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Thanks all, I'm much calmer about the whole thing now (everything was getting on top of me yesterday and this morning). Yesterday I thought I had the worst pup in the world, who deliberately wanted to hurt me, which is obviously not the case!
She had a couple of taps on the nose when she was little, but it's something I'd never do again 1 because of what Karma said, but 2 because Molly wasn't put off by it. She is quite a bolshy (in a good way!) pup, who is very sure of herself, and gets excited by us raising our voices so that's out of the question. She is not a nervous dog by any means but even so I wouldn't want to resort to it.
Thanks Karma, I definitely think distraction is appropriate, and keeping it all more positive. I spend two hours with her every lunchtime, and today she only tried to bite my toes a couple of times. But I think distraction was really helpful, we did lots of training, and when I was eating lunch and she was jumping up, I said 'off' and rewarded her.
We still obviously have a long way to go with her, but I think if we are consistent, firm but fair then we'll get there!
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Archie is exactly the same at nearly 6 months. He will even sneak up on me and grab my bottom when I'm cooking. >:D Your post made me feel so much better because I thought I must just be doing it all wrong. He's improving slowly on the ankle biting just with lots of treating when he lets go, plus a really high value treat when he doesn't grab hold in the first place after I say "leave it". Sometimes, even his favourite toy will just not distract him and I have to get up and leave the room. I shut the door behind me, count to 10 and go back in. Sometimes I have to repeat it but usually he will get the message that he ends up by himself if he bites. Glad you are feeling more positive and thanks again for posting and making me feel better too. :D
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Every time she bites could you not tap her on the nose and say "no".
I really wouldn't recommend this. :-\ You could end up with a hand shy dog who fears any approach of hands.
Dogs can often mouth more in their adolescence - their molars are settling in so they have a heightened need to chew, and they are testing out boundaries of appropriate behaviour.
The best bet is to give appropriate things to chew, distract and divert biting onto appropriate items, and use of brief time-outs if diverting doesn't work.
Alongside this is it important to teach good play rules - ensure you have a cue word for the beginning and end of tuggy play, and if at any point teeth touch skin, play stops immediately (but briefly).
It's all well and good someone saying you have to be firm when they are young, but if they do that with a pup who is slightly more nervous a "firm" approach (which results in a dog who doesn't dare to be mouthy) can do far more harm than good - and you could end up with a potentially reactive dog who hasn't learned bite inhibition, so when (if) they do bite they inflict serious injury. :-\ It is far more preferable to go for a slower approach whereby the dog actually learns to control their own behaviour...
I agree with all this + continue to do short training sessions - doesn't matter what - but something to give her brain another task to think about + she will begin to listen to you more and you can be in more control. I find if their bum's on the ground then they're listening to me at this age (usually waiting for a treat or for whatever next am going to ask them to do).
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Archie is exactly the same at nearly 6 months. He will even sneak up on me and grab my bottom when I'm cooking. >:D Your post made me feel so much better because I thought I must just be doing it all wrong. He's improving slowly on the ankle biting just with lots of treating when he lets go, plus a really high value treat when he doesn't grab hold in the first place after I say "leave it". Sometimes, even his favourite toy will just not distract him and I have to get up and leave the room. I shut the door behind me, count to 10 and go back in. Sometimes I have to repeat it but usually he will get the message that he ends up by himself if he bites. Glad you are feeling more positive and thanks again for posting and making me feel better too. :D
It's good to know I'm not alone! Last night she was pretty bad but I think if we keep at it we'll get there.
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Dexter is quite bitey and growly at the moment - I'm hoping it is just because he is young and will grow out of it when his big boy teeth come through! He seems to like to bite me more than anybody else so last night I tried to distrct him with a tug toy and got him to sit and wait until I gave the command to play with it and he did what he was told! :lol2:
When he goes bonkers I have been putting him in his puppy pen for a time out - when he is let out he usually runs and starts nipping my feet again so back in the pen until he comes out and is calm. Can take about 3 - 4 times of repeating to get him to calm down!
Sometimes I wonder how something so cute looking can get so growly and bitey at times >:D
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Karen, you're definitely not alone and I guess selfishly, I was glad to read your post and some of the replies as we've had a similar time with Baxter, now 20 weeks.
We got to the point of contacting the breeder to come and observe to make sure we weren't over-reacting although he then started teething so the biting slowed down a lot for a little while. We re-read all our puppy books, scoured this site, talked to people and just got very confused as we'd done everything suggested, consistently! While some of Baxter's biting was the usual puppy play biting, at other times if he got hold and didn't want to let go, we were literally having to prise his jaws off my legs or arms as he would clamp down and nothing would make him stop. He was consistently breaking my skin to bleeding point and I was covered in bruises as a result and very down about not being able to enjoy time with our puppy. This was happening even though we followed all the advice on diverting, distracting, mental stimulation etc. He has plenty of kongs, we play 'find it', off lead walks, the lot. He had him vet checked too just in case.
We're not over it by a long shot and still have the occassional blip usually when he's overexcited, over frustrated etc. At home he has a pen and a crate which has helped, mainly what's worked has been to have him on his lead whenever he's out of his pen which feels a bit rubbish to not have him able to roam free in the apartment with us but prevention has definitely helped reduce it. This means that if we're having some clicker training, his lead stays on, grooming and handling, lead is on, general bit of play, lead on. Obviously we hope he starts to completely forget this behaviour or learn he doesn't get the same levels of contact with us as he gets older and in every other way he's a funny, wriggly cocker puppy that we love to bits.
Good luck to all of you with little cockerdiles, and thanks to those who posted on this, I think I finally feel like it will eventually end :005:
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Ria thanks sooo much for sharing that info. Lead on is a great idea. I had such a bad day yesterday I was in bits. Archie grabbed my wrist and somehow I managed to pull a tendon while extricating myself. I already have mild RSI and now my left hand is back to square one. It's a disaster because I'm a musician so it means I can't work so no income. Fortunately it's a slow time of year and I have a couple of weeks before I have another gig so fingers crossed. Yesterday evening I just sat in tears wondering where I had gone wrong with Archie. He just seems so unsettled. He was up most of the night chewing on anything he could find and then he did a wee on my bed. I can only assume he is still teething and struggling with a whirlpool of hormones. I keep telling myself that he will get there and that we will eventually have the lovely huggly cocker relationship that I had with my previous boys. Sending :bigarmhug: to all the cockerdile owners.
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Aw Emma, sorry to hear
that sweet Archie :luv:
is giving you strife.
You will get there, he's only
young still and although it's
such a long time since we had
wee pups(2 at the same time :o)
I remember threatening them both
with being taken back to where they
came from ;)
I sometimes had both of them
attatched to me and not in a nice way!
It must be worrying though as it's your
livlihood.
Patience and persistance on your part
will pay off in the end and in the
meantime I hope your immeadiate
injury resolves.
steffxxx
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I cant believe that you all put up with puppies biting you like this. Dogs are pack animals they bite and push boundries all the time its a dominence thing to be leader of the pack tapping a puppy and saying no will not make a dog hand shy they have to have boundries and you have to be the alpha bitch/dog of your pack ie family, Liam is also very bitey now 4 months old they are a very bold breed and if this isnt controlled now it can cause problems I read the same thing over food and toy aggression and you only have to see posts on rescue centres to see most of the cockers that end up there are food agressive toy agressive or have bitten their overs apart of course from the poor ex breeders. Roll up a newspaper wrap an elastic band found it and when the puppy bites a firm tap with the rolled up paper and a firm NO. It wont hurt them and the noise from the paper warns them off. Dont worry if they a bit frightened they soon come back to you and then you make a fuss and give them lots of love reinforcing you are the alpha bitch/leader of the pack. You should be able to take a toy away food away at any stage! none of this its his toy/bone /his space, all my dogs have been happy spoilt lounge on the sofa Ive have never had a timid or frightened dog or one that has ever shown agression in any way just a devoted family friend. Puppies biteing is just a normal thing make sure they have toys but rotate them so they dont get bored, if its play biteing just distract with a toy but they have to have boundries just like children. And they will be a better dog for it.
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For me, boundaries don't equate to me punishing my dog in that way. In the same way (using your own analogy) that for a child, i don't think boundaries have to be enforced by smacking.
Not for me at all i'm afraid.
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No way on this earth would I
smack a puppy with a newspaper
I'm sorry if you disagree and futhermore
I don't believe in your theory of
"being Alpha"
steffxxx
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Liamsmum, you are giving out VERY dangerous advise.
Dominance theory has been scientifically disproven, depsite the number of old-school trainers and TV "experts" who like to tell us otherwise.
Have a read of this page for a very coherent explanation of why it just doesn't work - http://k9domain.org/alpha_theory.aspx (http://k9domain.org/alpha_theory.aspx)
The only time a rolled up newspaper should be used in training a puppy is to hit the owner over the head when they go wrong (that is a rough quote from our puppy training handouts from when Honey was a pup).
I'm glad none of your dogs have had problems caused by your approach to biting and possessiveness - I know our dog is NOT bold at all, and any treatment that you describe would have created a timebomb in her. She has guarding tendencies which are completely managable BECAUSE she trusts us. If that wasn't the case, she would certainly have bitten our daughter by now.
Yes, you need to be able to take things from dogs - but this is something that it is safer to train than to demand...
The dog training school I help at have older puppies/adult dogs coming in all the time with significant behaviour issues, and the most common phrase the behaviourists hear is "I don't understand why he's like this - we've done everything we were meant to do to be a strong pack leader" (or words to that effect). It's not about letting your dogs rule you, it's about working with them to achieve the behaviour you expect.
At no point has anyone on this thread said "just put up with it" - what has been given is kind, effective techniques to manage and reduce any biting/mouthing while allowing the pup to learn bite inhibition.... and if I ever have to deal with a frightened adult dog I would far prefer to deal with a dog who has good control of the strength of his bite but who might growl and warn me how he was feeling well before he even got to thinking of biting me, then a dog who's had his biting/growling tendencies repressed by coersive measures who will bypass the growl and the nip, as that's got him hit with a newspaper before, so goes straight to taking a chunk out of me. :-\
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Thankfully I've never had a pup that was bitey - well Skye did for about 5 days, then stopped, of all the years we've had dogs, not once have I ever tapped, smacked, used a newspaper on them - like I've never smacked any of our children.
Makes me cringe thinking about it. :'(
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I would never hit a dog over the head and I do my dogs do give on command and are trained to do so just as liam is going to puppy school and learnig this now but aloowing you dog to draw blood isnt going to get you any where. IMO which I would not wish to force on any one.
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Is this the same puppy class
where the "trainer" uses choke
chains because if it is I think
you need to change classes.
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No way on this earth would I
smack a puppy with a newspaper
I'm sorry if you disagree and futhermore
I don't believe in your theory of
"being Alpha"
steffxxx
Just have a look at this link from the kennal club of great Britain... http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=3646&d=pg_dtl_art_news&h=238&f=0
And then go down to (training the spaniel) and open(the down load)(it is safe)..once open look down to the third paragrath....And see what it says...
I know its for gun dogs...But after all they are all pack animals......Chris
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Just have a look at this link from the kennal club of great Britain... http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=3646&d=pg_dtl_art_news&h=238&f=0
And then go down to (training the spaniel) and open(the down load)(it is safe)..once open look down to the third paragrath....And see what it says...
I know its for gun dogs...But after all they are all pack animals......Chris
Just because you can find a link somewhere on the huge KC site which makes the (very much outdated) statement that "dogs are pack animals and you must be alpha" does not make this statement right - I'm sure we could all post thousands of links where more modern views are expressed. I'd go to the KC site for many things (genetics information, health tests results etc) but it would not be my first port of call for advice on behaviour or training!
Roll up a newspaper wrap an elastic band found it and when the puppy bites a firm tap with the rolled up paper and a firm NO. It wont hurt them and the noise from the paper warns them off. Dont worry if they a bit frightened they soon come back to you and then you make a fuss and give them lots of love reinforcing you are the alpha bitch/leader of the pack.
I have to agree with Karma that this is not the kind of approach we would want recommended on this forum which has a strong anti-aversive training ethic. Please note these guidelines from our Behaviour Board which applies equally to advice given on the Puppies Board:
please bear in mind that one of the main tenets of this site is to promote humane, positive, reward-based training methods and we are keen that this approach is reflected in any advice given by forum members. Whilst we don't wish to stifle healthy discussion, the welfare of our dogs comes first - so posts or links may be removed that advocate any inappropriate, confrontational or heavy handed methods that could be perceived as being physically or mentally damaging to our dogs and our relationship with them.
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Blimey. Can open. Worms everywhere! ;) Just wanted to say thanks again for the positive advice and also point out that I certainly don't "put up" with Archie's biting. I'm using all the positive methods I can to teach him it isn't acceptable. He has no issues over guarding at all but he is a nervous dog and I don't want to do anything to make that worse. I know he and I will get there in the end, it's just great to know that I am not a complete failure because he hasn't quite got it yet. On the positive side my wrist is feeling better than I expected today and I can see the funny side now - I was, er, in the bathroom when it happened and let's just say he was attempting to "help" me with my tights when the incident occurred. He got my wrist by mistake and it was me pulling away too quickly that pulled the tendon. He didn't actually leave a mark on me.
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Yes, big whoops on the can opening. Totally acccept that training methods will always be a big mix bag of personal preference, different models and theories changing over time etc...one of the reasons I don't post on forums much is due to strength of feeling of what works for individuals which can sometimes get whipped up...albeit not in this case, it has been a really useful debate so thanks again for the responses.
For me and my partner, we agreed when we got the pup that we didn't agree with or want to use aversive training methods and believe me, keeping to that when you have a little cockerdile clamped down on your ankle or hand has really tested that principle :005:
I don't doubt the methods suggested work, and immediately so, but we personally don't want to use them. That said, I'm satisfied we're not just letting him bite us, I'm not a softy, standing there negotiating with him to let go of biting me. Interestingly he can mouth and reduce his force appropriately at other times. He doesn't mouth much now in any case but we worked with him on phasing out appropriately and he responds to 'gentle' or 'lick', reducing /stopping the contact completely. Our problem is that for whatever reason, he just isn't refocusing immediately once he's had a proper clamp down so while it's clearly an extension of normal puppy play/biting, from all the reading we've done, it's obviously at the extreme end.
So for now, we'll continue to keep him on a house lead when out of his pen so that we can reduce the opportunities he has to do it in the first place or at least, when we are able to refocus immediately, even if it's only for a second, we can better control him using the leash so he doesn't get a chance to reclamp. I'm quite sure our progress will be a lot slower than it would be were we to 'tap him with a spatula on the bum' as someone suggested to me, but for us, we'll just continue to take it slow.
Clearly, if this behaviour continues as he reaches full adolescence, we'll be in touch with a behaviourist to work with us in a more focused way but as I say, it's reduced a lot already to perhaps once a week rather than every day as it seemed to be a month back.
Emma, glad to hear your wrist is feeling better...we make sure to look over at him while he's asleep to remind us of his gorgeousness if we've had a particularly bitey episode! :luv:
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I cant believe that you all put up with puppies biting you like this
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I "put up" with Molly's biting. Surely asking on here for advice, asking Molly's breeder, and speaking to the trainer of the puppy classes we went to (who uses positive training methods by the way) indicates the opposite. I am not "putting up" with Molly's behaviour by any means, so I find that quite rude.
Roll up a newspaper wrap an elastic band found it and when the puppy bites a firm tap with the rolled up paper and a firm NO. It wont hurt them and the noise from the paper warns them off.
I don't think you read my post. As I said, Molly is not a nervous dog by any means, she is gorgeous, confident and ballsy, who gets very excited by loud voises e.g no, when we were looking through holiday brochures the other day I chucked them all on the floor; big loud noise and Molly was giddy.
The trainer we went to for Molly's classes said the following re tapping a dog on the nose (this is an example). If you start giving your dog a tap on the nose when they're 'naughty', it may stop them the first couple of times, but then it would'nt be enough. So the next time, you might have to hit the pup a bit harder...until eventually for any type of reaction from your dog you would have to do something even more extreme.
Now I'm obviously not saying that you would do this, because you clearly said yourself that you wouldn't hit your dogs. The reason I've said the above is because it links to your 'method' to stop a puppy misbehaving. You say you would slam a newspaper down and say 'no' when puppy was biting. As I know for certain that this would excite Molly (or maybe work the first time), what would you suggest I do the next time to ensure I got a reaction? Get some cymbals and bang them in her ear and say no?
I don't mean to be rude, but your suggestion that I "put up" with my puppy's biting, and then go on to suggest that the only way I can overcome it is to whack a newspaper down next to her is in my opinion pretty ridiculous. It's almost as ridiculous as the first "dog trainer" we went to, who said the only way Molly would get used to big dogs was by "forcing her to submit" to them.