Human chewtoy

[leigh]

Please help!!

My cairn is 4 months old and an absolute joy.

However he is persisting in using myself and

partner as a human chewtoy.

I have tried the holding down on his back telling him

"Dont' bite" in a firm, deepish voice. This sort of works

sometimes or he just leaps back at me with a cheeky

nip. This is generaly not vicious, just for attention and

to be cheeky, but he is persistant in ignoring our cry's

of "leave it' or "dont bite" as he hangs on to pants, shoes,

ankles or toes.

Most of the time I can remove him and distract with a

chew toy and then ignore him for a while. My partner

is having more trouble being firm and is being bitten on

the hand as she removes him from her ankle, pantleg,etc.

Then i have to step in and he will back off.

Will he grow out of this? Or will it become a habit and

something he will get worse with -I am concerned as his

teeth will only get bigger therefore I would like to nip it

(excuse the pun) in the bud as early as possible.

As I said he realy is a joy and the rest of his training is

going well. he sits, stays and will fetch, so he is not realy

having trouble with anything except for this. He is due to

be desexed next month and maybe this will take the edge

of his biting?

I would appreciate any thoughts or tales of experience

on this matter.

Leigh

[PadFoot_Lives!!!]

Leigh, I'm by no means an expert, but my pup, Viggo, who is now about 8 months old, does exactly the same thing. He understands "no bite", and when I say it, he stops what he is doing, but then will go right back and do it again. This is how he likes to play. He is the third Cairn I've had in my life, and neither of my other two ever did anything like this.

Due to this, and other behavioral issues, I had a dog trainer come into my home to help me out. Here is what she said about the biting. She said, a dog putting his teeth on skin or clothing should be absolutely forbidden, and this must be stopped immediately. She referred to it as "the dog must 'come to Jesus' and see the error of his ways!!!" So here were her suggestions. Her first was a spray bottle of water with a few drops of jasmine essential oil in it (20-30 drops). Dogs don't like the smell, but it doesn't sting their eyes. Put the spray bottle on stream and when they bite, spray them right in the face. At the same time, use a sound or phrase that they will associate with the water---she suggested "eh eh!" or something like that. Pretty soon, you don't need the spray bottle, and simply your signal word or sound will make them back off.

My personal experience----this worked, and didn't work. :? Viggo backed off because he definitely didn't like getting sprayed in the face. However, the only time I could do this was when he was playing with my kids. The result? He doesn't want to play with my kids because he associates it with getting sprayed in the face! It's hard for me to play with him, get him to exhibit the behavior, and have the spray bottle at the ready at the same time. Maybe you and your partner will have better luck with this as you take turns being the "player" and the "sprayer".

The trainer's follow-up suggestion when I told her the problems I was having was simply to have Viggo on his gentle-leader, trailing a leash, when he's playing with the kids, so that if he gets out of hand and starts biting, they can grab the leash and control him. I have not tried this yet, but it makes sense.

Good luck! I'm convinced that while the behavior needs to be addressed, it is also something that the dog will outgrow. Like I said, I'm not an expert, but that's my take on it.

[Senator Cody Wilson]

Leigh,

Just another thought from another Cairn owner. Keep in mind that it is right around the 4 month mark that our pups baby teeth begin to fall out and their adult ones grow in (yes, you will begin to find little teeth lying around). It is possible that your pup is simply trying to find some relief for his hurting gums. Having gone through this with our Cody, you will be glad when those sharp suckers fall out and the duller ones grow in. Be advised that as this happens, your pups appetite might deminish greatly as hard food might be too painful to eat. If was during this time (about a month and a half in total for all of them to fall out and the new ones to grow in) that we simply fed Cody more wet food and ran the dry food under warm water in order to soften it). Once his teeth came in, we gradually weened him off of a wet and dry mix to only dry food as everyone said that it was better for him.

A few points to keep in mind as well include:

1) By 6 months old all of his baby teeth should have fallen out, you will know if they didn't as you will literally be able to see 2 rows of teeth one in front of the other (yes, just like a shark :wink: ). Our vet explained to us that by that point if they hadn't fallen out on their own, that they needed to be removed in order to insure the new ones grow in properly and avoid any jaw problems. I think it cost us $11.00 per tooth to have the 2 that were left removed. Our vet did this while he was asleep for his neutering.

2) Some remedies that worked for us included wetting a washcloth, putting a few drops of chicken broth on it crumpling it up and then freezing it. We also crushed up some ice which we fed to him in a small bowl (not his food bowl). We also purchased him one of those hard doggie teething toys you can put in the freezer. These all kept him busy for a while and didn't make a mess either. I think the key is that once you are sure his teeth are falling out, make sure he has firm, clean (we washed some of his favorite toys with water daily) obects to chew on as they will help him cut the new teeth.

3) I would not recommend ever spraying anything in a dogs face (my opinion only). We simply kept the bitter apply spray bottle near by and rather than spray it towards the pup, we sprayed some of it on our hands or simply held the bottle up to his nose when we told him "No Biting!" in a strong voice.

4) Early on, our pup seemed to go for our hands more often that not if we moved them quickly in front of him. Example - when we would throw a toy for him to fetch, he would try and bite our hand first then run and get the toy. Our vet explained to us that all terriers are used to catching and killing rodents and that at times (and especially as a pup), they can react instinctively and try to bite fast moving objects such as your hand moving quickly in front of their face.

Most inportantly, he did grow out of his "nipping" habbits especially once all of his new teeth grew in. I think like with allot of frustrating puppy habbits, the fact that he simply got older and was neutered helped allot.

[PadFoot_Lives!!!]

Good points made Senator. I will only add a quick comment on the spray in the face thing. The trainer who recommended this commented that out of concern for her dogs, and before she started using the technique, she sprayed HERSELF in the eyes with the spray in question (water and jasmine essential oil) to be sure it was not painful or harmful. It wasn't.

My experience has been, the more we used the technique, the less we needed it, if that makes sense. Now simply the site of the bottle in my hand does the trick. I don't have to actually spray him at all.

[leigh]

Thanks for your reply Senator, and Padfoot.

Well things seem to be settling down for my boy and i think

you were right about the just getting older, as he is already

pretty smart and the training is coming along well. I have just

been firm with the training, but have found all he realy needs is

a firm ''ahah'' and most of the time he will settle.

I found a bitter lime spray(on us not him) has worked, sort of,

i could not get the bitter apple here in oz.

I will check his teeth as I have not noticed any lying around,

but have seen that he is starting to loose them.

The chew remedies sound great, he does have alot of chew

toys and loves them.

Well Fergus is off to be neutered tomorrow and i will post an

update on his recovery. How long did it take for your Cody to

be up and running again, from what I here a quick recovery

can be expecetd?

[Senator Cody Wilson]

We dropped Cody off on Friday morning and got a call from the vet that afternoon that everything had gone fine and that he was on his way to recovery. We picked him up on Saturday morning and boy was he happy to se us. Cody was a "licker" so he was given a cone that he had to wear for at least a week. Our vet gave us a clear cone (all I had ever seen were white) which I think helped him getting around. We were told to keep him from any acticity for 1 week to 10 days (yeah, like it's easy to keep a Carin from being active :wink: ). We made sure the cone was on him when he slept and when we were not home but when we were home, we felt so bad that he had to wear it that we took it off him and watched him closely. After 1 week, the scab (it was just 1 tiny one about 1/8 of a inch long) had fallen off and the area was nice and pink again so we left the cone off. We waited another week to bath him and let him return to normal activity.

1) If you are comfortable with your vet, DON'T WORRY, he will be fine.

2) If you can, try and get an early morning appointment for drop off and pick up.

3) Try to keep his jumping to a minimum for at least the first week as the procedure usually calls for sutures which are internal and can rupture if the pup over exerts himself.

4)Take it extra slow on the way home as he may still have some anesthesia in him and his stomach might be sensitive.

5)A nice reward when you get home will help him acclimate to his place again. This was the time when we introduced Cody to a CONG with a little CONG brand liver spread in it. The CONG entertained him for hours as he tried to lick the stuff out of it.

[PadFoot_Lives!!!]

I had Viggo neutered at I think 5-6 months (?) and the recovery was pretty much non-existent. The hardest part was STOPPING him from being his normal, bouncing-off-the-wall self. It did not slow him down one bit. Never saw him lick his stitches or anything. Maybe we were just lucky.

I haven't noticed any change in temperament due to the neutering, although I am thankful that we had it done before he started lifting his leg. He still squats to pee, which makes the still occasional indoor 'accident' a little easier to deal with.

Edited to add: Senator's advice about the Kong is a great idea. A slight variation on the theme---buy the cheapest brand canned dog food at your local grocery or pet store, and stuff that into the inside of the Kong (I bought the third size up---not the mini or the small, but I think the medium), then stick it in a ziplock baggie and into the freezer. I've been amazed at how long it keeps Viggo entertained, and is MUCH cheaper than buying chew sticks and whatnot, after the initial investment in the Kong. I am even thinking of buying a second Kong so that I don't waste any of the canned dog food (it takes maybe half of the smallest size can to fill a Kong, so I end up throwing that much away----I think each can costs maybe 35-40 cents, while the Kong liver paste, at least here in the States, costs something like $7 or $8 per can)

[Guest]

About the biting...

What worked with me was grabbing our dog by his snout gently. Now he will mouthe gently, not bite.

Sometimes I have to remind him and say, "watch the teeth!" and that seems to work.