[Cobalt]

Last night Mia was puppy mouthing and biting. It was bedtime and she was over tired, had a big active day yesterday.

I put her on our bed so I could brush my teeth before putting her in her kennel in our room and she kept biting my husband and jumping at him. He tried No, he tried picking her up and holding her in front of him until she settled.

I came over and she started with me too. I took hands away, ignored etc.

So I GENTLY took the back of her neck in one hand and put her carefully down on her side. She howled and squirmed and would not settle. It took about 2 mins for her to finally settle down. I then praised her and put her in her crate.

I felt bad about it all night. This used to be what we were told to do with our dogs when I got my last dog 16 years ago. That dog was very easy and I didn't have to do more than look at her to control her.

This AM Mia got a treat because she gave kisses and she's not done any mouthing.

Questions

1. Was my correction appropriate? It seems I do have a rather dominant puppy after all.

2. If this is appropriate, should I practice this "take down" with her and if so when? Only when she is biting or during normal training times?

When she was doing this I was trying to tell my husband how much fun 2 dogs would be. I think I lost that argument!

Thank you!

[Shalva]

Originally Posted by Cobalt

Last night Mia was puppy mouthing and biting. It was bedtime and she was over tired, had a big active day yesterday.

I put her on our bed so I could brush my teeth before putting her in her kennel in our room and she kept biting my husband and jumping at him. He tried No, he tried picking her up and holding her in front of him until she settled.

I came over and she started with me too. I took hands away, ignored etc.

So I GENTLY took the back of her neck in one hand and put her carefully down on her side. She howled and squirmed and would not settle. It took about 2 mins for her to finally settle down. I then praised her and put her in her crate.

I felt bad about it all night. This used to be what we were told to do with our dogs when I got my last dog 16 years ago. That dog was very easy and I didn't have to do more than look at her to control her.

This AM Mia got a treat because she gave kisses and she's not done any mouthing.

Questions

1. Was my correction appropriate? It seems I do have a rather dominant puppy after all.

2. If this is appropriate, should I practice this "take down" with her and if so when? Only when she is biting or during normal training times?

When she was doing this I was trying to tell my husband how much fun 2 dogs would be. I think I lost that argument!

Thank you!

I have an article about biting and chewing on my website.....

I personally think the whole dominance word is over used.... I have in my life met a handful of dominant dogs.... and seldom were they puppies...... the thing is that your dogs knows that you are dominant over her..... the thing is that think about how your puppy played with her littermates.... I am watching my 4 week old pups bite each other and pull tails and do the bite face thing.... and now she comes and lives with you and you are saying you don't want to play like that.... it takes a while for her to learn that. I personally disagree that this is dominance..... I would lean more towards a playful puppy that a doesn't know when to stop (like human children) and b. doesn't know how to play any other way......

I would not do the take down..... I would not buy into the dominance stuff its old school and I would forget what you learned 16 years ago... alot has changed......

We have retrievers.... as you know .... and they are very very mouthy... they were bred to be mouthy..... I would read the article on my site.... I guess there is an article linked here about the bite stops here..... I have had very good luck with 6 retrievers.... yellling NO loud enough to startle.... a sharp loud noise and then walk away..... for a few minutes.... coming back to pet nicely and praise nicely when they don't bite..... but take a look at the article.....

I would not do the take down thing.... all you are doing is impacting trust.....
S

[Cobalt]

Thanks so much. It didn't feel right.

I am going to print your article if you don't mind and take it to work.

[Shalva]

Originally Posted by Cobalt

Thanks so much. It didn't feel right.

I am going to print your article if you don't mind and take it to work.

help yourself

[lovemygreys]

I agree with Shalva on this one.

A great book you may want to read is The Other End of The Leash by Patricia McConnell. It's not too long and is very readable. It's not a "dog training" book, per se...more like a book to help humans understand why we do and don't do things around our dogs and how we can modify our behavior to our dogs can understand us better. She addresses the "dominance" controversy a bit as well.

[poodleholic]

I agree with Shalva, too.

[Cobalt]

What would I have done without you guys??? Thanks so much.

Mia is biting much less already. She does not like to be ignored. lol