Help! My puppy wont stop biting me!

In My Humble Opinion
21

I have not looked at any of the cites you were given above, but I can tell you what I did.
First, I’ll give you a little background. I worked for two animal hospitals for a total of 4+ years. I know about dog behavior.

In 1994 I became the owner of a Great Pyrenees. If you’re not familiar with the breed, look it up. Females can easily reach 120lbs. I got her when she was 8 weeks old. She was playful and grew fast - by 6 months old she was almost 80lbs. She started charging me and trying to play-bite constantly. When we were in the backyard playing fetch with her ball, she would sometimes stop, stare me down for a few second and then break into a trot then gallop straight at me. When she was just a couple of feet away, she’d lunge and try to make me fall back so she could get on top of me and play/fight/bite/gnaw…whatever you want to call it. It’s a dominance thing. She wanted to be Alpha.
My approach was simple once I figured out how to break her from it – and her behavior stopped almost immediately. I straddled HER, instead of the way around. I wrestled HER to the ground when she tried to do it. I then growled and bit her ear and muzzle - exactly like another dog in the pack would in order to establish dominance. I didn’t bite hard enough to hurt her, but definitely with enough force and dominance to make a point. It stopped the same week that I had to result to being like her - a dog - essentially. She got it. She realized that she wasn’t going to be Alpha and that her place in the pack, between me and my husband was last - Omega she remained. Had I let her continue, she would have hurt me. At 80+ lbs “Tonka” was quite a brute.

22

I hope not to read any “you abused your dog” comments on my previous post. Dogs are tough. They may be domesticated, but that pack mentality instinct is still very prevalent on many breeds. The way I did it worked like a charm. The only inconvenience was having to spit some fur out of my mouth a couple of times.

23

You’ll get none from me. I hadn’t gotten around to it yet, but I’ll second that pinning a dog or otherwise physically dominating it makes sense. It’s the way dogs work things out with each other, there’s no reason we can’t use the same tactics.

I don’t agree that we’re teaching the dog to function around humans…we’re teaching it to function around other beings, who it will treat as dogs.

I shoot my big cat with a Nerf gun when it gets on the counter or picks on the little cat, too. Sue me.

24

bath in bitter apple spray. works for furniture and electrical wires at least.

25

Wrong. He is not a kid. He’s a dog.

26

I would recommend getting a video by Ceasar the Dog whisperer. I don’t think he uses tecnique as much as he uses communication. He reads the dogs signals, lets the dog know he understands them and then effectively communicates back to the dog what his desires are. This is not as hard as it sounds. You will see animals in nature do this all the time instinctively even when they are of a different species. We just need to pay attention.

27

Yes, the key is communication. But what you’re trying to communicate here is, “Stop it - that hurt” - not, “Me Alpha! You fear me!” Dogs aren’t complicated thinkers. You have to focus on reinforcing and shaping the behavior you want instead of getting sidetracked with other issues.

Luckily, in the case of biting too hard, the dog’s mother and littermates have already done the basics of teaching your dog the signal for “don’t bite so hard”. If your puppy bit too hard, they yelped and moved away. This is how females teach their puppies not to gnaw on their nipples. If your dog bites you too hard, and you yelp and move a little away, ignoring him briefly, he will remember the lesson he learned as an infant.

Don’t let your dog get overstimulated in these sessions. He won’t think about anything doing those times. But do try the yelp method. It’s free and it’s simple. It’s even more primal than the dominance stuff (which is mostly a waste of time, imo.) It’s well worth a try.

28

Actually, the newest research shows that dogs do not form packs like wolves do, and that most of “dominance” theory is totally bunk. Have a look.

To the OP, do not hit your dog. Do not attempt to stare him down, or scruff and pin him. Do not bite him. Do not hold him down. This will only convince your dog that you are a psycho and give him a reason to think he needs to defend himself. If your trainer suggested that, she’s living in the dark ages and you need to find a new one.

Your dog is probably biting because he is getting overstimulated and doesn’t know how to contain himself. He isn’t trying to dominate you, he’s trying to play. When you see him getting over excited, redirect his behavior. Ask him to sit, give him an appropriate chew toy, take him for a brisk jog around the block. He needs lots of exercise and consistency. We are always trying to tell dogs what we don’t want them to do, but we don’t tell them what we *do *want them to do instead. Give him an alternative behavior to biting and it will taper off.

Try this.

29

Do you believe everything you read about the "“newest research?” Do you or anyone you know live in a household with multiple dogs? I’ve known plenty of people who have more than one dog. There is most certainly a hierarchy order; all you have to do is pay attention and you’ll see it. The method I used on my dog back then worked fast. She wasn’t just play-biting when over stimulated, she was trying to take me down with her power and weight and establish that she was boss. I was the only person she did that to. I loved her dearly, but that was not going to happen.

30

Yes, I have five dogs. Positive reinforcement works and is less likely to result in fear or aggression problems in dogs. Your methods may work for you, but they are risky and outdated.

31

I’m happy to read that your methods work for you.

32

Guess what! There is no single right way!

Some dogs react to a stern look, others, nothing short of a mallet between the ears will create a reaction. At the age and weight of your dog, you are into some serious misbehavior territory. I will not presume to identify a dog behavior problem’s basis from this distance but I will offer a few general observations:

Keep it simple. Don’t get into his deep motivations, or what your moral philosophy of dog training should be. Just figure out what will make him stop. He will stop at the point when the behavior isn’t worth it any more. He does it because it is fun. Make it a lot less fun. There are a couple of dangers to try to avoid, one on each side of the problem.

1.Escalating slowly. The time for this is long past. It will just harden him. Make it very less fun fast.
2. Terrifying him so much that he freaks out and bites you for real. Old-fashioned dominance techniques (see: scootergirl) will cause this in a a significant number of dogs. I am not questioning that it worked for scootergirl though (see: mallet, above).

Leadership is a very real thing to dogs. You are not your dog’s equal, but his master. Sorry, that is actually the only way it works, in a dog’s mind, however it may work in a human’s. If you watch dogs together, much is conveyed in evil looks. If an evil look doesn’t work, then bad things happen to the ignoring lesser dog. Not so much painful as scary. Scary is more effective than painful, in terms of communication.

The important thing is that there is a clear cause and effect perceived by the dog. Dogs are not capable of much in the line of abstract thought, and cause and effect needs to be made very, very concrete and obvious to be perceived correctly. Also, it must be over FAST. A few seconds is what you are aiming for. If the behavior repeats, you repeat. The whole cycle.

It should look initially look like: unwanted behavior (small warning/evil look, annoyed ‘hey’) ->YOW! --> all better, happy day, buddy!

Very soon it should progress to unwanted behavior (evil look, ‘hey’) --> troubled confused look on dog’s face --> all better, happy day, buddy!

If it doesn’t, you didn’t make the YOW big enough.

Also, grabbing a dog by the face and staring straight into their eyes in a mean way is a huge domination/punishment to any dog. If you are sure your dog won’t freak out and bite you in the face, that would be a big enough YOW.

Don’t yell, that’s how us monkeys communicate, doesn’t help with dogs.

Cesar Milan’s methods work best for Cesar himself. It pretty much consists of body language that says, watch yourself buddy. You can trust me, but watch yourself. He knows how to say this to dogs without words, the way dogs talk to each other. Turn off the sound when you watch his videos if you want to learn from Cesar.

33

Positive Reinforcement as it is popularly known (not at all the same as the behavior mod term it derives from), is amazingly effective in teaching behaviors that a dog would not ordinarily come up with on its own, like walking on a leash, sitting on command, pooping outside, etc.

It is much sketchier when it comes to eliminating unwanted behaviors already established. That’s because the behavior is already being rewarded – that’s why they are doing it – and you have to figure out how to trump that reward every single time, which can range from tricky to totally impossible. I could bore you with many illustrative stories.

34

When my pitbull was a mouthy pup from the pound (about 9 months), the method that worked for me was the ignore method. We’d play in the back yard, and he’d get into his little puppy “zooms” and get a little mouthier that I’d prefer with me. I would just walk away, close the gate, and go into the house. He’d stop and whimper by the gate. I’d wait until he stopped whimpering, then wait another minute or so, and go out and play. He’d do it again. Repeat.

It took only a few days for him to knock the mouthing off. I was astonished at how effective it was (I originally tried being more forceful with him, but that only escalated play), but pitbulls can be a bit emotionally needy and wanting of human companionship, so obviously the punishment of being away from his human was unpleasant enough for him to knock off the mouthing. If your dog is more independent, it may not be enough, and you may have to find another “trump.”

And, no, alpha rolling a 95 lb lab/mastiff mix sounds to me like a Bad Idea unless you know exactly what the hell you’re doing–that is, being a trained professional–(and even then, I wonder.)

At any rate, I pretty much agree with Ulfreida’s advice–every dog is different and you have to figure out what motivates him.

35

Agreed. In my original post I was simply just sharing what worked for me. I agree that with some breeds/temperaments it could be risky. Hopefully the OP will figure it out. Good luck!

36

I’m not trying to say that there’s only one way, but that hitting/pinning/staring dogs down is inhumane and could trigger fear aggression in a dog of any age. This is why I don’t like Cesar Milan, because his methods may work for him but they are likely to get the average Joe a trip to the emergency room.

Also, it isn’t positive reinforcement training itself that will stop the biting. The biting is a self-reinforcing behavior that the dog engages in when he is overstimulated. Actively reinforce the dog for engaging in some other behavior when it is excited, and the biting will stop. For example, throw a ball and start a game of fetch.

37

The above strategy can very easily teach your dog that when he bites you, you’ll throw a ball for him.

Even if it doesn’t, the problem remains that what you really want is for the dog to stop biting you AT ALL, not just when you have time to distract him with something else. That requires the dog to understand that 1. you don’t like it, and 2. Unpleasant things will happen for him unless he stops.

For a whole lot of dogs, ignoring works. Yiping works too. But it works best on puppies who are just feeling out what behavior is acceptable, and on sensitive dogs that are trying hard to be harmonious with you, not so well on nearly-adult dogs who have been engaging in that behavior their whole lives so far.

38

If the dog actually bites, you don’t throw the ball. If the OP doesn’t have time to not throw a ball, I can’t help that.

39

The smart dog may understand the muzzle is an object of shame, and connect it to biting.

The stress of having to wear a muzzle may be enough to trigger a maturing of the dogs attitudes …to act like a human, don’t try to make the human act like a dog.

40

I definitely second the recommendation to check out Dr. Dunbar’s suggestions. I had the pleasure of meeting him at my trainer’s center last summer and learning bite inhibition was one of the things he talked* about. This link was pretty good and explains it very well.

*He is a very funny and engaging speaker. I highly recommend anyone interested in dog training take in at least one seminar.