play biting

[Psalms]

Hi, Friends! I am new here. We have had our 4-/2 month old male Sheltie Sammy for about 3 weeks now. I joined this forum just to discuss this very thing. I am discouraged and depressed over it.

We wanted a Sheltie because we have read so much of their gentleness and intelligence. Well, Sammy is intelligent all right. He's very smart. But his biting has made my life miserable. I feel like I walked into a nightmare, and what's more, I paid for it! I cannot walk across the yard without getting attacked with his flying jaws, at my hands, calves, any part of my body he can get his teeth into. The trainer at Pet Smart saw my hands and immediately offered me a free private training session because they were so bruised and bitten. We have tried all her advice to no avail. That would include the "Ouch!", spraying water on his chest from a spray bottle, ignoring him (impossible to do when you can't move away from his flying jaws), putting him into "time out", etc.

He loves to play fetch. So I throw the ball, he brings it back, drops it, and then goes for my hand for a nice tasty bite before I throw the ball again. I am training him to drop the ball and then sit away from me and wait for me to throw it again. He still tries to sneak in a little bit, though!

I am frustrated!! Thank you for any help you can offer.

Janet

[Calliesmom]

Originally Posted by Psalms

Hi, Friends! I am new here. We have had our 4-/2 month old male Sheltie Sammy for about 3 weeks now. I joined this forum just to discuss this very thing. I am discouraged and depressed over it.

We wanted a Sheltie because we have read so much of their gentleness and intelligence. Well, Sammy is intelligent all right. He's very smart. But his biting has made my life miserable. I feel like I walked into a nightmare, and what's more, I paid for it! I cannot walk across the yard without getting attacked with his flying jaws, at my hands, calves, any part of my body he can get his teeth into. The trainer at Pet Smart saw my hands and immediately offered me a free private training session because they were so bruised and bitten. We have tried all her advice to no avail. That would include the "Ouch!", spraying water on his chest from a spray bottle, ignoring him (impossible to do when you can't move away from his flying jaws), putting him into "time out", etc.

He loves to play fetch. So I throw the ball, he brings it back, drops it, and then goes for my hand for a nice tasty bite before I throw the ball again. I am training him to drop the ball and then sit away from me and wait for me to throw it again. He still tries to sneak in a little bit, though!

I am frustrated!! Thank you for any help you can offer.

Janet

when he bites you while playing- playing stops- all motion stops.
don't say ouch- yip as high pitched and loud as you can

spraying water is not something I would do- then there will be a negative association with that and since most shelties aren't in to being wet, will make future bathing and grooming more difficult.

not sure what you mean by time out- but most puppies don't get that concept.

the biting is a puppy thing- the sheltie part is biting while moving- part of the herding instinct. turn away from pup and don't move- if contact is made, then yip.
it will take some time since he's had a while to get used to doing it..............

[Psalms]

Thank you so much for responding to my question. What's funny is, he seems in the past day or so to have turned a corner. A sharp Yip from me has been preventing his frantic herding. And my idea of making him sit before throwing the ball for him has helped more than I ever would have thought. He is very bright and learns quickly. Oh...about the water...not to worry. I only tried it a couple of times, and he loved it! He really likes water and it was just a game to him. The "time out" was a suggestion I read from some dog trainer which invovled putting the puppy in an empty room for a couple of minutes, as a way of ignoring him, I suppose. This doesn't really work for us because all our rooms have things in them that are very interesting to a mischievous puppy. Again, thanks for your help.

Janet

[Calliesmom]

I'm glad to hear that you are making progress
most shelties do learn fast- you just have to be careful what you are teaching them

[BarbV]

LOL! I solved Bacca's herding by getting him something else to herd....another Sheltie! Worked like a charm!

Seriously though, this is instinctive behaviour and will gradually decrease as pub gets older.

Another technique that works is to touch (NOT JAB) two fingers to the dogs neck and give a loud "SHHHHHT" I don't know why it works exactly, but it does. The Pet Corrector product mimics the same sound, and it also works. (p.s. you could use this product to help eliminate the nipping too!)

[shelldom]

Cali has taken to herding/tackling our cats and using them as her chew toys. They growl and swat at her, finally jumping over the baby gate to safety once they've had enough. It seems as if she is playing, but we worry that sometimes she is too rough with them. We have just been shoo-ing her off of them or distracting her with her toys up until this point. Has anyone else dealt with this?

[Jess041]

Originally Posted by shelldom

Cali has taken to herding/tackling our cats and using them as her chew toys. They growl and swat at her, finally jumping over the baby gate to safety once they've had enough. It seems as if she is playing, but we worry that sometimes she is too rough with them. We have just been shoo-ing her off of them or distracting her with her toys up until this point. Has anyone else dealt with this?

I've been having this exact same problem with my 10 month old puppy and 2 cats... the only thing I do is call her off. The problem is she does it so impulsively, sometimes I'm not fast enough to stop her. She likes to body slam my boy cat... poor guy. The girl cat stays high enough she isn't a victim very often. I don't have any advice, but I would love to hear what others have to say.

[Gracesmum]

We learnt the 'leave it' command at puppy school. Grace now leaves our cat alone as soon as we give the 'leave it' command. She gets rewarded well each time though.

[LaurGold]

We're having a hard time getting Bailey to stop biting (he's about 7 mths old). He play bites, but also he's tried to snap at my nose a couple times. Then when i scolded him, he lunged back at me with his mouth. I'm trying to convince myself (and my parents) he's not being vindictive, but we're worried he will bite someone else. He's always been very gentle with kids and really well-behaved around other dogs. He doesnt even bark back at them when he's playing.

We're not sure why he's being so badly behaved with the biting now that he isn't teething anymore. He shouldn't be snapping at us when we try to close his gate or get him to calm down. The only thing that seems to scare him is hitting the floor with a rolled up newspaper, but we don't always have one right at hand.

Any suggestions??

(We'll be at the sheltie holiday party on Sunday, so maybe I can get some advice from some of you there!)

[celloyogi]

Biting, even play biting, can be tough to deal with. Whatever method you use to curb the habit, make sure you don't inadvertently reward the biting behavior. Example: Dog bites - you say 'no bite' - dog stops biting - you give dog treat. What does dog learn? He bites you and gets a treat! Pick a method that avoids the biting problem, meaning don't let him get in a position to start biting, or change your behavior to reduce his desire to bite. As another poster mentioned, as soon as the biting behavior starts, stop doing whatever you're doing. Really, freeze like a statue. Don't give him a reason to try and herd you. If you know he's going to try and go for your face, don't put your face near enough to let him. It's like anything else, you have start working the behavior out in pieces, and the overall issue will come together on its own.

FWIW, I've had some fight dogs (rescues) with absolutely no bite inhibition that were able to overcome their issues. The main things we have to be aware of are sudden movements and sounds, new "things" - people, animals, objects, and making sure their exposure to these things is very, very gradual. Obviously this is different than play-biting, but I would suggest making sure you take care now not to encourage, even accidentally, the play-biting behavior. Shelties aren't going to be fight dogs but it is sooooo much easier to prevent biting problems than fix them later on.

Every dog is going to have different things that set them off. A bird in the yard might flip out one dog when the rest just go "meh". When your dog is feeling bitey, pay attention to what's going on in his environment. There may be a few things around (besides you!) that contribute to his behavior. Removing and/or changing things might help him chill out.