To Rough For Me

[lbare]

I have read everyones problems with the nipping at the heels, ankles, etc. and biting everything in sight, mostly humans. Mollie is 4 months old and sweet as ever until the evening about 8:30 pm. and when she first wakes in the morning. Anything and/or everybody has to be bitten. The major problem with that is that the Cairns teeth and jaws are very strong and it hurts. Does anyone have an answer to how to correct these periods of activity. Please Help, it hurts. signed OUCH

[bradl]

Dogs are crepescular which means they are by nature most active around dusk and dawn, so there isn't much you are going to do about the fact that those are active times. You can ensure she is very tired from lots of exercise and activity earlier in the day which will take some of the edge of evening romps. Take her for walks, play ball, etc. But at four months they have an insane amount of energy. They usually do gradually get less wild and in a couple years these particularly wild times will be a fond (?) memory.

The biting of a four-month old is particularly unpleasant because they have Really Sharp Teeth. Now is the right time to train her to stop. There are dozens of possible approaches and every puppy-raising book addresses the problem. Probably the easiest and most common is to do many brief 'time-outs' of actually, literally, and physically ignoring her the moment her teeth touches skin. Scream (again, literally shriek) whe she nips and abrubtly stand up, or turn away, and look up off into space and pointedly ignore her. Walk away. You will do this probably a hundred times. It can work as simple as that. (If you and everyone in the house are 100% consistent about doing it.)

You may have to escalate to time-outs in crates, clamping her muzzle shut with your fingers, or last choice, a light quick bop on the snout. One puppy I just kept pushing my finger INTO its mouth whenever it grabbed my hand. It eventually learned that nipping fingers wasn't as much fun since it was losing control of each nip.

[bradl]

More thoughts on training a 'soft mouth.' If you are working on something like this, don't expect to show them twice and then figure they now know what you want and are just being willful. We often have trouble with a puppy, or even a forgetful adult, getting a little snappy when grabbing treats from our hands. If we are trying to get a 'softer mouth' we practice in extremely short sessions (one or two minutes) many many times.

Example. Hide a length of hotdog inside your fist, with just a tiny bit peeking out the top. Let the puppy sniff and try to eat the hotdog. It will almost certainly nip at your hand so you just scream like you've been mortally wounded and yank your hand away. Look away, wait a few seconds and then offer your fist again. You might do this twenty times. Eventually she will figure out that if she uses her lips rather than her teeth she can get closer to the hot dog and begin licking it or nibbling carefully. Praise. If she starts nibbling the hotdog without nibbling your hand, open your fist slightly and let her get a few big bites. As soon as she gets excited and forgets to mind her teeth, close the fist and take it away. Repeat. Praise the soft mouth, yelp like a baby or give a big "Eh! Eh!" noise of disapproval when you feel teeth. The next day, you'll probably start all over again. After a couple weeks, you may have a dog with a much softer mouth taking treats. We often remind them to calm down with an "Eh Eh" before we even stick out our hand if they are acting too excited.

[Scully'sMom]

Scully does the biting thing mostly at night when she's playing OR if you're trying to make her do something she doesn't want to do (like come in the house when she's outside playing and you're trying to unhook the lead). We have squirt bottles all over the place and give her a quick squirt and say "No bite". IIf she sees you pick it up she stops whatever she's doing wrong - so obviously she knows what she's doing is bad. If it's too much we put her in the kitchen away from us. God help me next week - she's going to the groomer for the first time. This isn't going to be pretty.

As much as she has been into nipping, she has always taken treats or anything from our hands very gently. I never understood why she can do one thing so nicely and then turn around and be a little devil dog.