PLEASE HELP... with my aggressive puppy!

Lemony

sarabe wrote: »

The eating before him won't make any difference either way, same for other myths related to 'dominance'. Some are harmful though. See link.

http://networkedblogs.com/p23068659

I'm not sure if I agree with the article. I think a dog needs to know it's place in the household whether it is a 'pack' thing or not. A lot of dog behaviour problems are caused by stress and I agree that punishing or frightening a dog is the wrong thing to do. But that doesn't mean that the dog doesn't need to be taught what behaviour is and isn't acceptable. You have to be the 'leader' if you want to be able to control a dog's behaviour. If the dog doesn't see you as the leader it won't respect you and could even be a nuisance or a danger to other people when out and about. And this probably applies more to some breeds than others as some dogs are naturally friendly and docile whereas others are naturally bossy and fiesty.

I have tried a firm 'NO' when my dog bites but he completely ignores me. I have tried putting him in his pen to calm down for a bit but he just does it again when I let him out. I have tried distracting him with toys but he is more interested in biting skin. I have tried just ignoring the behaviour but it's difficult to ignore something that hurts so much plus won't that just give him the message that it's ok to bite humans?

I do not want to punish my dog, I want to reward good behaviour. Please give me more ideas on how to stop the biting because it is really getting me down. He bit me and my other half this afternoon and drew blood. Another thing he likes to do is grabbing your trouser legs and tugging with all his might, growling as he does it. I try to stand still and ignore it but he accidentally pinches my legs which hurts. I have also tried saying 'NO' firmly but he completely ignores me. Distracting him with toys doesn't work unfortuantely.

Raksha

You don't have to punish to diminish unwanted behaviour - negative reward (withdrawing what the animal enjoys for a short period) is actually more effective. Be consistent, and when he bites just stop playing, remove yourself from the area briefly (and ensure he can't follow) To stop grabbing trouser legs - try wearing trousers tucked into boots. This often works when you have small people in the house, as they love an excuse to wear wellies in the house

Silveralice

I think (although I am mostly on the anti-dominance theory side) that cyberbob has a point - do what works for your dog, because at the end of the day the theories are meant to explain the real world, the real world doesn't alter to fit the theories. Twenty years ago everyone said that any growl was a challenge for leadership and should be disciplined appropriately; now the prevailing gospel is that most dogs are not bothered about hierachy. I've dealt with an awful lot of dogs over the years (I'm a vet) and I have to say that your puppy sounds like a normal high energy high work puppy, as others have said. Hopefully the problem will become less severe once you are able to get him out and more tired: the saying "a tired puppy is a good puppy" has a lot of truth in it! If distraction and redirection don't work with him, how about giving him something more rewarding to bite and chew, like a kong full of frozen peanut butter? Or start clicker training him to do something, such as sitting or lying still? A bit of mental exercise might take the edge off his high energy. I have had a lot of puppies of a high energy herding breed, and they are all very like this. They grow out of it (eventually). Good luck!

sarabe

OK. If I was to say 'pare isso' to you everytime you sat down and every time you switched on the tv and every time you used the bathroom and every time you picked up a book to read and every time you scratched your nose and every time you did anything else that came naturally....

...would you know what I meant? Would you be less likely to do all of those things?

Knowing your place in the pack has absolutely no significance in teaching your dog how to behave. You simply have to train him.

Because people are hung up on the dog being 'dominant' it prevents them from doing things like playing tug which to be honest is all you really need to do to redirect your pup's biting.

Your puppy needs to bite. He has no hands. He experiences touching through his mouth in the same way as a child experiences it through their hands. Add to that everything that his ancestors in his brain are telling him and you have a dog that needs to bite in play.

So get a tug toy, tie some rope to it so that a/ you put distance between dog's teeth and your hand, b/ you can make it really exciting by making it like a snake in the grass and c/ you can keep the game low to prevent jumping up.

You have to put as much into the game as you want your dog to get out of it and don't be hung up on not letting him win.

If you played draughts with your 4 year old child you'd let them win wouldn't you? Would that make the child think that they were more important than you? No it would make the child want to play with you again.

The tug toys have to be valuable, kept out of the dog's reach so that every time you produce it the dog wants to play. Don't wait for the pup to bite you and then produce a toy. You start the game. Let the dog out of his crate or pen and start to play. Bring him in from the garden after and toilet break and start to play or better still start a game out in the garden after the toilet break.

When you don't have time to play then put him in his pen with a chew toy or a stuffed Kong.

Once you have got him biting the toy enthusiastically then put a cue to it such as 'get it'.

Then start to use 'getit' as a reward for say, sitting. Then as you progress you should be able to ask for a sit and the dog will wait for the 'getit'.

At some stage in the near future you will have a dog that will sit on command and wait there through as many 'good boys' as you want to give him before being rewarded with the game of tug.

I have brought up somewhere in the region of 25 puppies in this way. Some have been worse in terms of mouthing than others, in fact two of them became mine because the previous owners couldn't cope with the puppy biting. One of these is now a Champion of Agility and we would never have achieved this without the motivation of playing tug.

tandraig

I dont get why the RSPCA disaprove of tug toys - it was my staffys favourite game!!! sometimes she won sometimes i did and that dog never had probs with ME being in charge.
when my springer was a puppy she used to nip (and for those who read my posts on the other thread, I dont consider puppy nipping to be serious biting) sometimes windmilling her head to nip any part of MY anatomy she could reach. she never did it with the kids or OH so i just thought it may have something to do with mother/pup dynamics. i just wouldnt play with her if she nipped and would get up and walk away. it took a couple of months and i have to confess i had to clamp her jaws shut with my hand a couple of times, just for the time it took me to set her on the floor, but she did stop doing it and she grew into a very gentle dog - but wasnt the sharpest knife in the drawer and tended to be very hyperactive!

Lemony

The RSPCA have not directly told me not to use tug toys. They gave me a book about puppy training and it mentions it in the book. It says you shouldn't play tuggy games if the puppy growls when he's doing it, and mine growls and bites me really hard! He does have tuggy toys which I wiggle about for him to pounce on and chew - I only stop playing when he gets really rough and growls and bites my skin instead of the toy. It is really difficult to know what to do when people have different opinions about training. He is otherwise very well behaved.

Fire_Fox

Lemony wrote: »

I'm not sure if I agree with the article. I think a dog needs to know it's place in the household whether it is a 'pack' thing or not. A lot of dog behaviour problems are casued by stress and I agree that punishing or frightening a dog is the wrong thing to do. But that doesn't mean that the dog doesn't need to be taught what behaviour is and isn't acceptable. You have to be the 'leader' if you want to be able to control a dog's behaviour. If the dog doesn't see you as the leader it won't respect you and could even be a nuisance or a danger to other people when out and about. And this probably applies more to some breeds than others as some dogs are naturally friendly and docile whereas others are naturally bossy and fiesty.

Your way isn't working; Sarabe does this for a living! The article that was linked to was written by a behavioural scientist, not someone just plucking theories out of thin air:

"Rosie Barclay MPhil is a Certificated Clinical Animal Behaviourist accredited by the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. ... Certification is administered by the ASAB Accreditation Committee, which includes representatives from the British Psychological Society, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and the International Society for Applied Ethology as well as members appointed by ASAB Council.
Certification constitutes recognition by ASAB that, to the best of its knowledge, the certificant meets the educational, experiental and ethical standards required by the Society for professional clinical animal behaviourists."

sarabe

Lemony wrote: »

The RSPCA have not directly told me not to use tug toys. They gave me a book about puppy training and it mentions it in the book. It says you shouldn't play tuggy games if the puppy growls when he's doing it, and mine growls and bites me really hard! He does have tuggy toys which I wiggle about for him to pounce on and chew - I only stop playing when he gets really rough and growls and bites my skin instead of the toy. It is really difficult to know what to do when people have different opinions about training. He is otherwise very well behaved.

That's like saying don't play draughts with your four year old if he squeals with delight when he jumps your king!!

One of the reasons you let your dog win is so that you take away the element of competition and I would make sure that my dog won the toy before he got too growly and too carried away.

Does it say who wrote this book and when it was published?

tandraig

right - my staffy appeared to take tug toys very seriously, but i knew she saw them as a game! her growl taught me her 'play' growl.......very different to her 'you are seriously annoying me dog, get away growl' also, she would on occasion 'let' me win, by suddenly letting go! as you get to know each other you will realise which games wind the dog up and which are just fun! if the dog seems to get a glazed look (happened with the springer) i would stop the game.
er - in my experience ALL dogs growl when playing tug-o-war. you need to know which is the serious growl and which is the play growl and how can you do that if you dont play games?

Silveralice

Lemony, the author and dog trainer Jean Donaldson explains the tug toy thing well. Of course a dog growls when playing with a tug toy, because it's excited about "killing" the toy, not because it's thinking about ruling the world (as she says). When other family members are joining in the tug toy game, that makes it a fun shared game between family members. As sarabe says, it doesn't mean the puppy wants to dominate you any more than a child wants to dominate its parent just because they are kicking a football around together. It's just a fun activity and a way for the puppy to let off energy in a way that it's designed to do. If you have a very bitey puppy, surely anything he'll bite which isn't your leg has to be an improvement?