Willow and nipping
I am having an issue with Willow that never came up with Buddy so I am not sure how to handle it or how I should be handling it. She is also a girl and that is new to me too so it could be part of being a girl and the girl attitude. It has only happened outside so far. When we are outside and I am ready to go in the house and she will not come over to me I will walk up to her and pick her up and she will nip at my face. She also has done this when she is getting into something she shouldn;t and I try and stop her. She has even done this to my daughter. I have tried changing the way I walk up to her so she knows that I am coming over to her and will be picking her up, so she is not startled but it still has happened. When she nips she does it more than once in a row. It is not a full bite but a nip. It is not every time but it has happened enough to where I want to stop it now. I don't want to have a nippy full grown sheepie, especially with kids. Any advice on how to handle this would be wonderful. 
Thanks so much, Christina |
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| This is your young puppy, right?
Oh, just for the record, girls are not more prone to nipping. Some are more independant than the boys though. It's hard to say exactly without seeing what's going on, but at that young an age even if something peculiar is brewing, you have the perfect opportunity to explain to her how life really works. There are probably dozens of ways you can deal with this but this is where I would start: I'd put her on a six foot lead and not let her go outside loose/alone for now (she is used to walking on a leash, right?) That way she can't get into things and you don't have to go to her to bring her in. Use the time outside to a) potty her on leash (if you aren't already - and since this is not the same in some dog's minds as pottying off lead, may as well take the opportunity to teach her now rather than stand outside at misc reststops between WI and NYS begging her t...oh, I'm sorry, I digress  ) Same housebreaking rules apply. Lotsa praise when she produces.
b) let her explore - on lead - but always have some good treats on you and periodically call her away from something she finds enticing and have her come to you to "check in". Reward her big time when she comes - good puppy!!!!!! quick cookie - and then release her with a quiet OK (she's still on lead, just free to return to what she as doing). Since she's nippy I wouldn't be playing tug or even really playing with toys too much with her right now. A quick, small, treat that she doesn't have to spend much time consuming and then move on. If she won't leave some stinky pile or whatever it is she's getting into, call her in a high pitched voice and pretend like you're running away from her a few steps. That should trigger her chase instinct. Chase is good! Chase is fun. Let her catch up to you quickly and pop a tiny treat in her mouth. Do this before she grabs some part of your clothing or body and thinks the game involves chewing on you. It doesn't. She comes, quick treat and praise. Then happily and in a low key way release her (pick a release word - I use OK, this can backfire but a lot of people use it. Whatever you choose, keep it simple and short.
What you're doing is bringing yourself back into the picture in a positive way. So far, at a guess, I'd say she thinks of you as the fun police. Make yourself fun instead by participating in things you don't mind her doing, but sneak in some basic obedience training while you're at it. (Maybe add a quick sit in front of you in addition to coming once she gets really good at leaving the pile of smelly leaves to come to you when asked) It's important to release her back to something you don't mind her doing. She doesn't have to trot after you mindlessly. But you should be able to distract her from say, digging up your bedding plants and entice her to maybe instead examine a boulder or whatever catches her fancy. By rewarding her for coming and then quickly releasing her (though she's still on lead so you don't have to get into a battle with her at this stage and hunt her down and risk her nipping at you) you are establishing two things in her mind: 1) you are not the end of all things fun 2) you actually ARE fun. I really don't like the fact that she's nipping in that manner, but at a guess it's worked for her on some level and that has to stop. That means all interactions with puppy and any children are strictly supervised. Often, depending on age and experience level, they are the source of bad puppy behavior. They egg them on or annoy or just generally encourage bad behavior on the part of a puppy whether it's intentional or not. If your daughter is 20 and has three well trained dogs of her own, I grovel  Just something to keep in mind with younger kids, depending on the kids.
I would start there and evaluate what effect that's having for starters. If you see improvement, you know you're on the right track and you can get much more creative from there. You are handling her a lot, I presume. Evenings when she's in a calm mode is a good time to sit on the floor with her and gently massage/pet her, handling every part of her body while you're at it, very gently and calmly. Don't let her mouth you. If she's puppy mouthy, wait until she's truly tired and try again then. Once she proves she can tolerate the behavior she was nippy about before, she can gradual regain freedom. Since she does need to expend energy, you'll have to be more creative in how you do that and yet not let her get herself in a postion to nip. How is she exercised now? Just a few thoughts. How was she raised, how long was she with her dam/litter mates and sorry if I've missed posts on this but what has your routine been up till now. I.e. what's her day like?
kristine |
| Wow!! What a great responce. I will have to read this a few times. I am going to try and answer all your questions and give you as much info as I can.
She is 11 weeks old now. We brought her home at 8 weeks which was a little different for us as we brought Buddy home at 12 weeks. I didn't realize the difference would be so much. Looking back I wish I would have waited. I bought both mine from the same breeder. After doing some research on here I think she would have been what you all call a back yard breeder. I didn't realize there was a difference other than puppy mills until reading on here so much. She has the same father as Buddy but a different mother. The breeder from what I could see takes very good care of her dogs. She breeds a few different breeds. After doing some long thinking I think she had a hard time bringing up this litter as she had 2 OES litters and a boxer litter all around the same time. She was raised on a farm with lots of room to run. The breeder does have a small child who handled them all often. If it helps I Buddy is 1.5 and I have a foster here who is 3 Here I have my 2 children who are 6 and 8 but they don't pay too much attention to the dogs and are never alone with them. In the morning when we wake up I bring the dogs out right away to go and then as soon as they are done I bring them in so I can get the kids ready for school. Once the kids are off to school we go outside for play time. I usually sit for a while and let the dog play together while I watch and then I play tug of war with them or fetch. Then we go in and they all take a nap.....why I do not know. They just all take a nap. I take them all out about every hour to go potty throughout the day. They all go out at the same time. About 3 times a day I take them out for play time which lasts anywhere from 20 minutes to and hour deppending on the weather, what I am doing and how they are. After I get the kids to bed I take them out for one more play/potty time which usually lasts 30 minutes to an hour. I do not let them play in the house as with 3 they get way to wild. I do let them all play together and only seperate them when they get too wild and someone is going to get hurt. We have not been going on as many walks around the block now that we have Arthur here. It is too hard to walk all 3 and I feel bad leaving one out. We did go on a walk today and she nipped today. The only time I put her on a leash is when we are on a walk.
Now that I am thinking about everything you wrote and looking at how our day goes I wonder if she is getting too much rough play time with the big boys and not enough one on one time with me. I know she is not getting enough one on one time now with Arthur here but he needed help so I did. Maybe I should be bringing her out alone more. I never let her mouth us. This is something she would love to do but I always stop her. Do you think all the rough play she has been getting with the boys may have something to do with it? Maybe because they let her? She is actually rougher than them. I hope this helps a little. I am going to try what you suggested and see how that goes. She loves food and is totally food modivated so that should help. Sorry it took so long to get back to you. The hockey game is on.......the wings are going to win it
Thanks again, Christina |
| Eight weeks when you got her is pretty normal. I was just wondering if you had gotten her younger and perhaps she had a problem with bite inhibition for that reason - her mom and her siblings tend to be the ones who would have instilled that in her and puppies who leave home too early can miss those lessons. As for kids, it's not just that they were handled by children that matters, it's how they were handled. But if she left at 8 weeks old, that probably wouldn't have had much impact one way or another.
She's lucky to have someone home so much and the fact that you have older dogs works to your advantage if they'll reprimand her when she gets out of line. At that age, she still has her puppy license (puppy license means your older, well adjusted dog will put up with things from an 11 week old they wouldn't tolerate from an older puppy/dog). My bitches will still reprimand them - in fact I was watching Belle just a couple of weeks ago when she met a friend's ten week old. She'd egg him on so she could carefully put him in his place. She takes puppy rearing very seriously  In other cases the resident dogs are too tolerant of the resident brat, license not withstanding, and if she's also a very confident little bitch, she may be getting an inflated sense of her own importance by playing with them Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see that than your maladjusted dog who can't tolerate puppies at all.
Their excessive (but pretty normal) tolerance with rough play with her may very well be translating into her thinking she can warn you off in the same manner when you ask her to do something she doesn't want to do. Thinking back, I've never had a puppy who would snap at a human like that - with one exception: when you first start grooming them they may grab for the brush. Quite frankly, knowing full well I'm not hurting them, I have no problem taking them gently by the scruff and growling a deep "no", then praising them when they relent. But I have pretty soft dogs who just naturally seem to respect humans. Escalate that way with a tough minded one and it could backfire on you (you up the ante, she ups the ante), especially with kids in the house, which is why I suggested things aimed at redefining your relationship with her and letting her understand that she has limits, rather than direct confrontation. Either way you're absolutely right, you need to address it now. If it starts to escalate rather than get better, get a behavioralist involved sooner rather than later. Right now she's still at a very impressionable age where the things you do - for better and even worse - can have a huge impact on her. You could extinguish this behavior from her repetoire in a matter of a couple of weeks at the most, or make it more entrenched - the latter meaning that if she gets her way and snapping means she doesn't have to do as you tell her, she's learning that if she doesn't want to do something, all she has to do is resort to using her teeth. Right now, her behavior is still relatively mild, but if it works for her (she starts to intimidate the kids or even you into backing off) and you end up trying to "fix" it later, it's harder to extinguish; meaning things would get worse before they get better ("hey! this always worked before! Maybe I just need to bite harder!" And by then she's bigger and scarier and you get the picture) Quietly and quickly changing the parameters of the game without letting her get to a point where she tries the alligator routine means you're not letting her get into that habit of teeth first, questions later. And, yeah, working more with her one on one means you're making it more apparent to her that the rules of engagement with humans is very different than it is with Buddy & friends. I wish I could send you Belle for a while so she could help set her straight. Never underestimate the power of a great bitch. Now, to turn yours into one... Kristine |
Mad Dog wrote: Eight weeks when you got her is pretty normal. I was just wondering if you had gotten her younger and perhaps she had a problem with bite inhibition for that reason - her mom and her siblings tend to be the ones who would have instilled that in her and puppies who leave home too early can miss those lessons. As for kids, it's not just that they were handled by children that matters, it's how they were handled. But if she left at 8 weeks old, that probably wouldn't have had much impact one way or another.
She's lucky to have someone home so much and the fact that you have older dogs works to your advantage if they'll reprimand her when she gets out of line. At that age, she still has her puppy license (puppy license means your older, well adjusted dog will put up with things from an 11 week old they wouldn't tolerate from an older puppy/dog). My bitches will still reprimand them - in fact I was watching Belle just a couple of weeks ago when she met a friend's ten week old. She'd egg him on so she could carefully put him in his place. She takes puppy rearing very seriously In other cases the resident dogs are too tolerant of the resident brat, license not withstanding, and if she's also a very confident little bitch, she may be getting an inflated sense of her own importance by playing with them Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see that than your maladjusted dog who can't tolerate puppies at all. Their excessive (but pretty normal) tolerance with rough play with her may very well be translating into her thinking she can warn you off in the same manner when you ask her to do something she doesn't want to do. Thinking back, I've never had a puppy who would snap at a human like that - with one exception: when you first start grooming them they may grab for the brush. Quite frankly, knowing full well I'm not hurting them, I have no problem taking them gently by the scruff and growling a deep "no", then praising them when they relent. But I have pretty soft dogs who just naturally seem to respect humans. Escalate that way with a tough minded one and it could backfire on you (you up the ante, she ups the ante), especially with kids in the house, which is why I suggested things aimed at redefining your relationship with her and letting her understand that she has limits, rather than direct confrontation. Either way you're absolutely right, you need to address it now. If it starts to escalate rather than get better, get a behavioralist involved sooner rather than later. Right now she's still at a very impressionable age where the things you do - for better and even worse - can have a huge impact on her. You could extinguish this behavior from her repetoire in a matter of a couple of weeks at the most, or make it more entrenched - the latter meaning that if she gets her way and snapping means she doesn't have to do as you tell her, she's learning that if she doesn't want to do something, all she has to do is resort to using her teeth. Right now, her behavior is still relatively mild, but if it works for her (she starts to intimidate the kids or even you into backing off) and you end up trying to "fix" it later, it's harder to extinguish; meaning things would get worse before they get better ("hey! this always worked before! Maybe I just need to bite harder!" And by then she's bigger and scarier and you get the picture) Quietly and quickly changing the parameters of the game without letting her get to a point where she tries the alligator routine means you're not letting her get into that habit of teeth first, questions later. And, yeah, working more with her one on one means you're making it more apparent to her that the rules of engagement with humans is very different than it is with Buddy & friends. I wish I could send you Belle for a while so she could help set her straight. Never underestimate the power of a great bitch. Now, to turn yours into one... Kristine I bet your Belle would set her straight. Buddy lets her get away with a lot. He is very tolerant of little ones which is a good thing. I know he will not hurt her or another little one but I do wish he would put her in her place. She is very very confident and very cocky! I swear she is not afraid of anything. She acts as if there are no limits and she can do anything she pleases to anyone, dogs and cats included. My cats are all also very tolerant and let her get away with a lot also sometimes I wonder why they just dont swat her one. I think they know she is a puppy and they don't want to hurt her.
What I have been doing is when she nips I tell her no in a very deep loud voice and then I bring her in the house. She has only nipped probably 5 times but it seems to me that she is not getting the fact that it is not acceptable behavior. I never have backed off nor showed fear when she has done this, but when she did this to my daughter the first week we had her home my daughter immediatly dropped her. It was my fault, I asked her to grab Willow so she wouldn't run into the street, she was closer than I was. Maybe with my daughter dropping her right away, which is what she wanted made her think she can always get put down if she nips. Thank you for the great advice. I am going to change the rules here and start working with her one on one more. Hopfully she will someday be a great girl like yours. |
buddythesheepdogliveshere wrote: Thank you for the great advice. I am going to change the rules here and start working with her one on one more. Hopfully she will someday be a great girl like yours.
Ah, well, here's the kicker: I can't take any credit for Belle. I'm told she was born perfect But I do think she has a positive influence on the other OES in her life. Plus she's taught me a lot and made me expect a lot more than I might otherwise from dogs in general. Once in a life time, maybe, you get blessed with a dog like her, whether you've earned it or not 
It sounds like you're on the right track with Willow. Do you have any classes in mind for her down the road? If she's your typically too-smart-for-her-own-good girl dog, that might help settle her some too. Kristine |
Mad Dog wrote: buddythesheepdogliveshere wrote: Thank you for the great advice. I am going to change the rules here and start working with her one on one more. Hopfully she will someday be a great girl like yours. Ah, well, here's the kicker: I can't take any credit for Belle. I'm told she was born perfect But I do think she has a positive influence on the other OES in her life. Plus she's taught me a lot and made me expect a lot more than I might otherwise from dogs in general. Once in a life time, maybe, you get blessed with a dog like her, whether you've earned it or not It sounds like you're on the right track with Willow. Do you have any classes in mind for her down the road? If she's your typically too-smart-for-her-own-good girl dog, that might help settle her some too. Kristine She sounds wonderful I hope someday I get as lucky as you are with her.
I have never taken any classes with Buddy. He was so easy to train and continues to be. Also I don't show them or anything. I have been thinking a lot about it with Willow though. She is so different than Buddy I think some sort of classes would do her good. I am going to do some research on the subject and see where to go from there. I took her for a walk today all by her self and she did wonderful. I also used treats to get her to come to me and go in the house and that worked great as well. Today the weather is not great so I have not been able to spend a lot of time with her outside but plan on it when it clears up. |
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