Re: biting & stuff.

[Gina Heitz <brier@oregonsbest.com>]

At 09:17 AM 6/7/00 -0600, you wrote:
>We found with Acer that yelling ouch and saying NO, followed by sticking
>his chicken nylabone in his mouth, eventually worked. It took several
>months before he was finally over the biting thing, but everything I've
>read seems to indicate that this phase does continue for a while. They
>*are* just babies after all.
>
>Lbs


Yup Leigh has hit the nail on the head.  How may deck nails do you have to 
go anyway?

But the puppy nipping can be controlled and should be addressed. There are 
many methods and not every puppy is going to be receptive to each so lets 
all share what does work to add to the list of ways to combat this for 
future reference.

Also a note on this.  To some degree some of this is also "genetic".  When 
we bred Meg to Triple (not blaming Triple Judy) <snicker> several of the 
puppies in the litter grew to be  what I call holders.  These guys love to 
hold your arm in their wet slobbery mouth.  They great you by taking you by 
the hand in a excited way.   It's a misguided retrieve in a dominant 
way.  Even passive dogs will assert dominance in this area if they have a 
strong desire to retrieve.  Even show bred dogs have strong desires to 
retrieve. To combat this you follow the same steps, be ready with big full 
sized toy and before they get a chance to grab stuff mouth with toy.

Torrey who is unrelated also does or did this too.  I know how ball crazy 
he is.  L&R how many toys is he carrying now at a time?  SeaJay is up to 
three balls and a rope...

Carol,

Please be very careful about where you allow Hunter on this trip.  As we 
have all discussed these guys are very vulnerable to disease not being 
fully vaccinated yet.

Off to work,

G