Puppy Biting Training

[Baxter Tiberius]

Well for now, Baxter is quite a well behaved little boy. His only two issues are the potty thing, and biting people really hard when he meets new people.

I know how to handle the former. The latter I am a bit confused about. I got a great email from Desertskybulldogs with good suggestions for yelping and pulling away each time he bites.

This is great logic and will teach him how sensitive human skin is.

Here's the problem: Strangers.

When anyone and everyone he meets, grabs his head, face, and shoves their fingers in his mouth while excitedly shaking him.

Then all bets are off.

All training goes right out the door.

Within minutes, he's a raving lunatic biting shaking, grabbing at everyone and everything. At this point children get hurt, because he bites them, and people who approached with "AWWWW!" walk away with a cut on their hand.

How do you stop the general public from encouraging behavior that you've painstakingly been trying to train him not to do?

I guess you can't. While at a restaurant in South Beach, 40+ people walk by and want to pet him. I can't do some speech lecturing them not to play with my puppy. For obvious reasons. And I cant repeat the same speech 40 times. LOL ...

I had one waiter at a restaurant literally shove his finger in Baxters mouth and let him chomp down on it for a prolonged period of time. I just stood there awkward, silent, going "Great" ... to myself.

Kevin

 

[Jennifer Clark]

Kevin Baxter is your baby you are trying to train to have manners Just tell them please don't do that he is in the process of being trained and this regresses his behavior.

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[Jennifer Clark]

Or you could just tell them he is a service dog and should therefore be left alone

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[Marine91]

Harlea did the same thing. In working with her we have started the sit and greet. We have been working on it for the last 2 weeks and she is picking it up well. Basically when a new person walks up to her or in the room she must sit down before being greeted by the new person. If she starts jumping we tell her no and she sits back down to start all over again.

 

[Baxter Tiberius]

[MENTION=8859]Marine91[/MENTION]
What do you do when the stranger gets all over them with the hands, in the mouth, etc etc? Its a nice thought to have her sit and wait for a new greeting but once the "hand assault" comes from the enamored stranger because of the little fat piggy baby in front of them, it seems like there isn't much you can do.

I've actually had friends come over and I constantly have to be the bad guy, asking them not to rile him up so much (he deals with major over-excitement, which branches off into crate problems, etc). Not to pick him up and put him on the couch, etc. People don't like being told what to do. There's actually one girl who I have decided not to invite over to play with him again because inevitably, she will encourage every single behavior I am trying to stop him from doing. She gets him crazy, sticks her hands in his mouth, encourages him to bite, picks him up onto the couch, puts him on my glass coffee table because she thinks its cute, etc. I feel like im training / scolding both the dog and the people half the time

Kevin

 

[Marine91]

[MENTION=8859]Marine91[/MENTION]
What do you do when the stranger gets all over them with the hands, in the mouth, etc etc? Its a nice thought to have her sit and wait for a new greeting but once the "hand assault" comes from the enamored stranger because of the little fat piggy baby in front of them, it seems like there isn't much you can do.

I've actually had friends come over and I constantly have to be the bad guy, asking them not to rile him up so much (he deals with major over-excitement, which branches off into crate problems, etc). Not to pick him up and put him on the couch, etc. People don't like being told what to do. There's actually one girl who I have decided not to invite over to play with him again because inevitably, she will encourage every single behavior I am trying to stop him from doing. She gets him crazy, sticks her hands in his mouth, encourages him to bite, picks him up onto the couch, puts him on my glass coffee table because she thinks its cute, etc. I feel like im training / scolding both the dog and the people half the time

Kevin

What has worked best for us when she gets all sharky after properly greeting someone is have that person stand back up and totally ignore her. She hates it but usually gets the hint and sits down and starts over but will be kissy instead of shark baby.

If she refuses to stop being shark baby after several attempts we will put her in time out in either her play pen or crate until she calms down and then she will come out and usually just go back to eating her antler or sitting at my feet.

 

[Baxter Tiberius]

[MENTION=8859]Marine91[/MENTION]
Geez. No idea how I would pull that off. The setting just isnt conducive to such discussions with people.

For example, I brought him with me to the management office at my condo building today. The two girls there were all over him.

Hands, face, biting, freaking out, etc. Fine.
Then a maintenance guy comes in.
Repeat.
Then two other people from valet parking come in.
Repeat.
Then a resident comes in and asks questions about him.
Asks if he's nice, and safe to pet?
I say "Yes but careful of the nipping, he's teething".
Hands in mouth, on face, etc etc again.
By now Baxters face is bright red because he's all worked up, hyper, and more people are walking by and going "AWWWWWW!!!!"
Now there's 7 people in the room.
I can't even imagine standing up and conducting a "Now please stop and ignore Baxter" scenario with them.
It just doesn't happen.

Oh well I assume he'll grow out of it. Hopefully.
I will keep doing the "bite me - YELP!" thing at home. Over and over.
Maybe if thats done a thousand times at home, he will become afraid to bite people in public.
Here's to hoping.

 

[Marine91]

[MENTION=8859]Marine91[/MENTION]
Geez. No idea how I would pull that off. The setting just isnt conducive to such discussions with people.

For example, I brought him with me to the management office at my condo building today. The two girls there were all over him.

Hands, face, biting, freaking out, etc. Fine.
Then a maintenance guy comes in.
Repeat.
Then two other people from valet parking come in.
Repeat.
Then a resident comes in and asks questions about him.
Asks if he's nice, and safe to pet?
I say "Yes but careful of the nipping, he's teething".
Hands in mouth, on face, etc etc again.
By now Baxters face is bright red because he's all worked up, hyper, and more people are walking by and going "AWWWWWW!!!!"
Now there's 7 people in the room.
I can't even imagine standing up and conducting a "Now please stop and ignore Baxter" scenario with them.
It just doesn't happen.

Oh well I assume he'll grow out of it. Hopefully.
I will keep doing the "bite me - YELP!" thing at home. Over and over.
Maybe if thats done a thousand times at home, he will become afraid to bite people in public.
Here's to hoping.

Ah ok. I understand better now. I apologize as I made the assumption this was all in your home. In situations where we are out and about we still do the whole sit and greet thing but she will have her harness and leash on and if she goes all sharky whoever has her me or my wife will squat down and shorten the leash so she cannot jump and tell her no and calm her down that way. If she still continues we will remove her from the situation as a type of punishment and move to an area away from everyone which she hates as she is such a people pup. This has been working well for us so far.

 

[Ashleym]

I tell people he is in training and to wait until I say its ok to pet him. I put Fergus in a sit and wait until he is calm. While waiting I instruct the person who wants to pet him to let him sniff their hand and then to pet him not over his head but his side or back. Its a pain but it teaches the puppy manner and also teaches the person who wants to meet new dogs. Its not good to get a puppy over excited it can lead to bad behavior when they are bigger and harder to control. If someone doest want to take the time to listen to me on how to greet my dog they dont need to pet my dog.

 

[Lokismom]

I would tell them that he is teething and is still a baby and to avoid his mouth lol we all went thru this I am sure. This too shall pass.

 

[BoscosMom]

Sounds exactly like Bosco!! Except Bosco mostly just bites his family members rather than strangers. For the first two months that I had him he was an absolute terror, and when he got into his lunatic/biting phase, absolutely nothing would stop him. Not redirecting, not saying "no", or yelping - absolutely nothing!

It might be a teething thing, because he's growing out of it now at 4 months - rather than him constantly attacking us, it's gone down to just once or twice a day. What has worked is just gently holding his mouth closed until he calms down. If I let go and he resumes biting, I'll just hold it closed again. Usually after the second or third time he'll stop altogether and find something else to do. I've been doing this consistently for the past week and his biting has decreased significantly. You could try something like that every time he bites anyone. Eventually he'll associate that uncomfortable act with biting and stop.