Adrienne Farricelli

Hi there! Welcome to the forums! Yes, here are some exercises for a more gentle mouth: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/train-dog-take-treats-gently/ Use gloves initially if your pup has a really rough mouth, and when you don't have time to train reward by simply tossing the treats rather than hand feeding them. Once you have a softer mouth, using your hands like a Kong, can help further emphasize that licking is rewarded, while rough mouthing is not: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/my-hand-made-kong-trick/ Happy training! Best, Adrienne Disclaimer: behavior modification comes with risks. If your puppy or dog shows signs of potential aggression (lunging, barking, growling, snapping, biting) for safety, please consult with a dog behavior professional who uses force-free behavior modification techniques (no shock, prongs, or physical corrections) for direct in-person guidance. Articles, videos and general info found in the forums or course (or any online source) are not meant to replace in-person training/instruction. By using this course and forum, you are waiving any liability claims or other type of claims related to any dogs' behavior against you or others.

Hi there, Welcome to the forums, Yikes! This sheer panic in this case, makes this likely a case of intense separation distress. Working on this issue takes times, and likely meds from a vet to lower the anxiety so that he's capable of learning how to better cope with the whole situation of being left alone. If this turns out to be truly a case of separation-anxiety/distress, then in the meanwhile, steps will need to be taken so that he's not alone. This is not a long-term thing, it's just to give the dog enough time to learn how to better cope as the meds start kicking in. If your dog does OK with anybody, options would include: -Taking him to daycare -Having a dog sitter keep him company -Having a friend or neighbor stay with him -Having a family member stay home If he doesn't do OK with anybody, and is primarily attached to only one person, then options would include: -Taking the dog along -Staying with the dog I am glad you have a camera set up to monitor him, this is one of the most helpful tools used to gauge how behavior modification for this kind of issue is going. Here are some examples of several exercises used to work on separation-related distress and some helpful reads. Your dog will likely need accompanying meds from your vet, to keep him under threshold during the process: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/general-guidelines-for-clingy-dogs-dogs-with-separation-anxiety/ https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/signs-of-separation-anxiety-in-dogs/ https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/tips-for-tackling-your-dogs-separation-anxiety/

Thank you for all the information, it’s all very much appreciated. We’ve already started working through your behaviour training and the preschool brain games, and already there’s such improvement in her trust of me and willingness to participate. Your are very welcome! I am glad to hear that you are seeing signs of improvement already. Establishing trust is vital for these newly adopted dogs, especially when they have some "baggage." I think we had a little bit of a breakthrough yesterday regarding the humping, as I let it go on a little longer than I had been to give my 14 year old a chance to voice her displeasure, but after the initial jump on the back, shiloh got off and was attempting to play with her. It’s still not good of course, since the 14 year old doesn’t appreciate being jumped on, but I’m glad to see it seems more of a play behaviour than a stress or dominance issue. I’m glad she’s getting comfortable enough to attempt to play with the other 2 considering how timid she was when she first came, but we’ll work on her cues to leave them be when they aren’t interested. Be careful with this. Being older, your 14-year-old dog may not be able to communicate effectively her "leave me alone" signs or she may not be able to move away as quickly as needed. This may lead to negative feelings, and possibly, a snap or bite that may seem to come out of the blue. An older dog may also have a "shorter fuse" when it comes to patience. In general, adult and older dogs (especially dogs over the age of five) may no longer be interested in engaging in rambunctious play as they used to in the past. Some older dogs may even suffer from orthopedic problems, and the last thing they want to endure is being pestered by a dog with poor social skills/ too much energy. It's therefore important for older dogs to have a "safe zone" to retreat to without being constantly pestered by an energetic young dog. It may be best to allow interactions only once the young dog has already been exercised so that there's no bouncing off the walls. Things can get particularly stressful for older dogs who haven't been socialized much with younger dogs in the past or who simply haven't been around young dogs for quite some time. Hence, the importance of establishing some boundaries. Boundary-wise, there are several options. You can use a baby gate, x-pen, or a room to allow safe separation and allow your resident dogs time to relax and unwind from the overstimulation. You can also keep your new addition tethered (using a harness, not a collar) to something stable and safe so that your older dogs are free to decide when to interact and then be free to leave. Of course, do this only if she's been acclimatized to wearing a harness/ leash. Depending on several factors, these may be temporary or permanent solutions. Once the dogs seem more and more comfortable around one another, they can share some time indoors, but indoors requires more caution considering that some locations or tight passages may lead to noisy squabbles or even fights. Not to mention, there may be guarding behaviors if toys or other resources are left around, which brings us to the next topic: the importance of keeping these out of reach if they lead to problems. During the introductory period, it's important to minimize the chances for squabbles. This means keeping toys out of the way, feeding dogs at a distance or in separate areas, not allowing the younger dog to steal your older dog's favorite sleeping spots, not giving attention to the newest dog when the older dogs can see or hear all the fuss. These can lead to competition and we don't want to add more stress to an already stressful situation and cause the new dog to assume negative connotations: "Not only is this new dog invading our home, but she is also trying to steal our toys, resting spots and is getting more attention than us!" Some time is needed for the older dogs to habituate to the new addition. Each dog is different, and therefore it's best to work at the dogs' pace. Generally, it takes more time for older dogs to acclimate to young dogs compared to younger dogs. It may take weeks or even months for dogs to start feeling comfortable around each other. Make sure you maintain your older dog’s regular routines. If your older dog appears tense or has a history of anxiety with changes, it may be a good idea to invest in some calming aids such as DAP collar or DAP diffusers. These products work best if introduced days prior to the new dogs' arrival so that they have time to become effective. As the days go by, there should be less tension among the dogs. If the older dogs initially showed signs of stress such as growling when the new dog moved around or vocalized, these episodes should be reducing with time. Feeding your older dogs treats or kibble every time they hear Shiloh move or vocalize when behind a baby gate or other barrier, may speed up the acclimatization process as they associate the new dog with good things. The same can be done with Shiloh if you have a helper. Definitely going to do some separated play time now, thank you for that suggestion. Shiloh likes the idea of toys but hasn’t quite figured out what to do with them, so maybe some peace will give her a chance to explore comfortably. It's not unusual for some rescued dogs to appear to not know what to do with toys. Some may even find them a bit intimidating. Using easy food puzzles may encourage them to interact as does praising any signs of investigation/interest towards the toys. I asked a friend of mine who has a pack of 7 dogs herself about resource guarding treats and what she does, she she suggested giving a longer lasting treat with all dogs present in the room, though not directly next to each other, with me in between all 3 so that if any try to approach shiloh while she’s eating, I am there to intervene. She said it’s a good way to show shiloh that I will intervene on her behalf, and that she does not need to react. What do you think of this idea? I regularly have all 3 girls in a line right next to each other to get bite sized treats and there’s been no issues or aggression, and there’s no aggression at feeding time, so I wonder if this is a good technique for showing her that she can comfortably have her treats without fear the other dogs will touch? We need to be caution with such approach. Here's the thing; with resource guarding dogs, they need to feel safe and it's fundamental keeping them under threshold. Every dog has different threshold levels. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/ A longer lasting treat, is often perceived as very valuable (the dog often needs to lie down and may feel also vulnerable doing so) so this may up the chances for a dog to be protective. This is the opposite of what is done with systematic behavior modification procedures. In these cases, one starts by giving lowest value treats working up to the higher value ones very gradually. On top of this, with systematic behavior modification procedure for tackling resource guarding, it's imperative to have great control over the situation. If the other older dogs approach while she's eating, she'll likely feel the need to protect herself and this allows her to feel tense/threatened. In a good systematic behavior procedure, we try our best to prevent these negative feelings. Sure, you are there to intervene, but we don't know how she may perceive your intervention. It could come across as '' the other dogs are bad, and my owner backs me up" which can trigger in her more defensive behavior and a sense of helplessness (even taking the matter in her own hands) when you are not around. In some cases, backing the dog up in this way, may lead to a dog who guards the owner ("when the other "bad' dogs approach us, we are both a team so I will back up my owner when they approach). Usually behavior modification protocols for resource guarding in multiple dog households entails lots of management and the use desensitization and counterconditioning. Desensitization consists of systematic, low level of intensity exposures that do not evoke the problematic behavior.https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/desensitization/ Counterconditioning consists of creating positive associations with the other dogs approaching (in other words, every time a dog approaches, I get something good so it's nice to have dogs nearby, rather than every time a dog approaches I feel threatened). https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/counterconditioning/ The goal is creating what's know as a positive conditioned emotional response, where the dog looks forward to other dogs near rather than dread their approach and feel stressed. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/conditioned-emotional-response-cer/ Of course, by all means, we need to have a plan in place in case something not under out control happens, and it's therefore helpful to have the other dogs trained to respond to a cue ( like "leave it/off") that reminds them to leave the eating dog alone. However, this approach is more of a back-up plan for an "oops moment" rather than the heart of behavior modification. On top of this, we need to make safety top priority. If something were happen that is out of our control, we are right there in the middle, and if we try to separate fighting dogs by yelling or grabbing collars we are at risk for a redirected bite. In other words, if this was a real case of resource guarding that would need to be tackled, it would likely be tackled as follows (this is just an example, every case requires an individualized plan). 1) Minimizing the chances for the resource guarding dog to practice the behavior and therefore preventing strengthening those feelings of stress. Resource guarding is often triggered and exacerbated by stress. Poor management in a multi dog household increases stress and may lead to conflicts. Management, such as feeding times with the dogs separated and at a safe distance enough to prevent unnecessary stress (using baby gates/exercise pen) is priority. 2) Adding layers of protection (physical barriers, tethers, muzzles https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/video-archive/train-your-dog-to-wear-a-muzzle/) 3) Working initially using low value treats/items (that is, from the dog's perspective, not ours) then moving gradually towards higher ones only once the dog has been reliably manifesting signs of improvement. 4) Taking small steps in a systematic matter so rather than both older dogs being present at once, one would start with one dog at a time, preferably starting with the one the guarding dog seems to manifest more affiliative than defensive behaviors. 5) Ensuring the dog is under threshold and therefore the other dog would be at a distance, keeping the resource guarder under threshold 6) Having a good knowledge of subtle signs of stress so to consistently gauge the dog's body language and quickly recognize signs of the dog going over threshold so to make adjustments. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dogs-dont-bite-blue/ 7) Creating positive associations with the presence of other dogs through systematic exposures. This may start by having two dogs on leash. The resource guarder is provided with something that is low value. Every time the other dog is walked by at a distance from which the guarder doesn't react, she is given something great to eat. Implemented correctly, this helps change the guarders' attitude, from dreading the other dog coming near to looking forward to it. Basically, from "Oh no! I don't want you to steal my toy, go away!” the guarding dog should start thinking something along the lines of “Hey you! Come a little closer, would you? I adore it when you come closer to me and my toy because that's when I get baked liver!" Once obtained a lovely positive conditioned emotional response, one can begin to move the dogs very gradually closer together (always ensuring threshold levels are respected). 8 ) Having back-up plans and cues to rely on, such as teaching the non-guarding dogs to move away/leave it/ hang out in a different location when the resource guarder is in possession of a resource. This can prevent altercations in the event that the guarder finds a food item unexpectedly and the dogs aren't separated as they should during feedings. 9) Acknowledging that while desensitization coupled with counterconditioning may work to an extent, without management and the dogs demonstrating a good level of deference/fluent response to verbal cues, there is always some level of risk. Management therefore remains the top primary recommendation because it's the safest option, but some training comes handy too because real life happens. It's nice to know that should somebody accidentally drop some food on the ground, the other dogs are trained to come to you instead of getting in the way of a potentially guarding dog. For management when given long-lasting treats, dogs can always be tethered, crated or placed in separate rooms when being fed. Dogs can be fed these in the bathroom, inside crates or tethered to a couch leg. Feeding separated is therefore the best and safest option unless committed to doing lots of micromanaging and counter conditioning under the guidance of a professional. If separation to other areas isn't possible, tethers (always under supervision) can help add a layer of protection so that no dogs are put into the position of making mistakes and approaching each other. It's important to understand that every time a dog growls, snarls or snaps at another dog, there is some level of learning going on. The growling dog may learn to feel more nervous (this confirms to them there is really a threat) and since the other dogs may back away, they also learn that the behavior worked. If we get angry and scold the dogs, we risk further exacerbating things, proving to our dogs that every time another dog approaches when they have their chewie, bad stuff happens. So there are several elements of risks in allowing dogs to rehearse problematic behaviors, (and even if a dog no longer growls, they may still feel stress internally) so if we want to work on the issue using behavior modification, this requires a certain level of skill and finesse in reading the dogs for signs of stress, knowing when to progress and how much, and doing all in the name of safety. Progress made can be easily lost when moving from a lower value item to a higher value one, or a farther distance to a closer one, is not enough precaution is taken. This is why behavior modification should be conducted under the guidance of a dog behavior professional for safety and correct implementation. Management therefore remains a valid alternative to behavior modification although it can be also used in conjunction with behavior modification. Through management we prevent mishaps, prevent rehearsal of problematic behaviors (when we can control thing such as access to foods/ toys/ resting spots). A Word About Feeding Dogs Together When dogs are fed together, it's important that there is enough space among them and no stress. It may be stressful for older dogs to share their space with new younger dog, especially if not respectful of space or intolerant of other dogs near the bowl. It may be best and safest to reserve initial feedings to separated areas (using baby gates/exercise pens). Since the new dog can still see/hear the other dogs nearby past the barrier, this time fed separated also offers a good chance to assess/observe behaviors when being fed. When dogs are more comfortable, it may be possible to then use tethers that allow freedom to move, but without the dogs being able to reach each other. There should be no posturing or attempting to steal the other dog's food. If any dog thinks about approaching another dog, it should be prevented immediately with a "leave it". This needs to be taught at a very fluent level to each dog individually and then in presence of another dog and then in a group. If a dog tends to finish a meal earlier, there are chances he or she may be tempted to walk around. This can be perceived as threatening by the other dogs who are still finishing eating. It may be helpful to therefore either provide the faster eating dog with a food bowl designed for fast eaters (slow feeder bowl) or training him to hold a down stay and wait for the rest to finish. All dogs can be taught to actually hold a down stay after finishing eating and they can then be each individually rewarded with a treat as their bowls are collected (this is also a good way to *prevent* empty-bowl guarding behaviors towards humans as the bowl is swapped for a treat). All dogs deserve to feel safe when they are eating. Giving space and not allowing any interferences is paramount. Dogs should be taught that eyeing or thinking about stealing another dog's dinner is not allowed. Close supervision is important and well- trained dogs quickly learn that such infractions are not allowed, and will get the message by us just giving them a certain look, but in some cases, we may need to step in and use a body block to discourage any advances. If there are cases though of resource guarding, it's best to simply play it safe and feed each dog in separate areas or safely tethered, out of reach from one another. It's not worth it to put convenience over safety and take any chances. I hope this helps, keep us posted. Happy training! Best, Adrienne Disclaimer: behavior modification comes with risks. If your puppy or dog shows signs of potential aggression (lunging, barking, growling, snapping, biting) for safety, please consult with a dog behavior professional who uses force-free behavior modification techniques (no shock, prongs, or physical corrections) for direct in-person guidance. Articles, videos and general info found in the forums or course (or any online source) are not meant to replace in-person training/instruction. By using this course and forum, you are waiving any liability claims or other type of claims related to any dogs' behavior against you or others.

You are very welcome! It's great that she's in such a thinking mode and perceives the training as a fun game. That's what we want. Elizabeth is very lucky to have such a committed and patient owner. Working at the dog's pace is so important. Keep us posted on how things go.

Thanks for sharing that, Rosinete!

Thanks for the extra details, they are very helpful! Coming from a hoarding situation with other dogs, she must have learned to guard/compete for stuff in order to get her space and food allotment. These situations are sad because affected dogs aren't given the opportunity to flourish and develop to their full potential. I am glad to hear that she is no in good hands and finally getting the level of attention and care she needs. So to answer your question, ( wondering if others had the same experience) you'll find on the forums several situations similar to yours. The addition of a third dog isn't without some sort of challenges. Often the challenges involve squabbles over some type of resource like food, toys or sleeping areas. In these cases, we need to practice management and take steps to to prevent dogs from being put into the position of feeling stress. Management-wise, you would want to remove access to toys when your new dog is around and provide toys only privately. In other words, in an area away from your other dogs. Dogs who tend to guard stuff rehearse the problematic behavior over and over, and practice makes perfect. Since growling/stiffening works to keep the other dogs away, dog who guard will feel the need to always do that, and the behavior tends to also escalate over time, especially if the other dogs don't move away. Management therefore helps prevent Shiloh from rehearsing the problematic behavior, and also prevents her from being tense due to the presence of other dogs, protects your other dogs from feeling tense too, while also keeping them safe. You also need to train fluent cues so that your other dogs learn to respect Shiloh's need for space when she's resting (for example "leave it"https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/take-leave-it/). Leave it can come helpful too when you notice your new dog starting to engage with your dogs in problematic ways (humping, pushing other dogs) however, this takes time to train fluently, and if you have to say it repeatedly because she's very persistent in pestering your dogs, it may be simpler to keep her separated and give your dogs a break (it can get stressful for them and persistent pestering will only create negative associations in the long term). It's also far easier to simply separate your new dog so that she can take her naps undisturbed. Lack of sleep is one of the most significant causes for crankiness and persistent nipping, humping and other undesirable behaviors. Several more tips on this are covered here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/introduce-dog-new-dog/ If she's persistently trying to get attention from you, here is a guide, but it's mostly for very mild cases :https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dogs-fighting-over-owner/

OK, gotcha, thanks for sharing those details. It does sound like she's over threshold, https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/. Many littermate dogs risk becoming overly dependent on each other and may feel anxious when they are exposed to things alone. On the other hand, whining can also be triggered by over excitement and frustration when there is a delay or impediment to something they perceive as gratifying/reinforcing. In any case, distance from triggers is one way to help lower threshold levels, training alternate replacement behaviors, and yes, calming aids can help take the edge off for the most mild cases. More significant cases may require prescription meds from a vet. As to over the counter calming aids, here are some choices, but it may take about 6 weeks to see results and as with new treats, they can cause temporary upset tummies. -Virbac Anxitane -Composure by Vetriscience -Zylekene by Vetiquinol -Solliquin by Nutramax -Purina Calming Care (a probiotic product) -Vet's Best Comfort Calm

She is very smart and knows all the basic commands and how to heel. Exception is if she sees another dog or perhaps a rabbit on the walk. We use a choke collar but not a pincher and a material leash with a short metal section. We really want to be able to walk her without fear of torn clothing or being pushed over. That's very good, it sounds like she has a good grip on heeling, but struggles applying it in overwhelming situations, when her arousal goes way too up. Once again the goal here is, once she's acting calmer when seeing her leash, working with her under threshold, preventing her from being exposed to too overwhelming situations (distance is your best friend), using super valuable foods (baked liver etc). Here are some tips for mellowing down the instinct to chase: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/chasing-things/ More tips for dogs who pull/lunge to chase critters or who are reactive upon seeing other dogs on leash: 1) Prevent Rehearsal of Problematic Behavior As with the hyper behavior displayed upon seeing the leash, you'll need to take steps to prevent rehearsal of the problematic behavior. Just like actors get better and better in their recitals, the more they practice, the more your dog's pulling and lunging behaviors establish and become more and more habit-forming, courtesy of repetitions. As the saying goes, "practice makes perfect." Here's the thing: even if your dog gets to pull and lunge occasionally, as she doesn't always encounter his triggers on walks, those occasional rehearsals maintain the behavior alive. Preventing rehearsal can therefore mean taking a little from walks until your dog is better equipped with coping skills and has demonstrated the ability to tolerate low-intensity exposures toward triggers. Taking your dog off the reactivity fog will allow both of you to get some relief. No worries, this is not a permanent solution and there are many ways to keep your dog active, and happy in the meanwhile through brain games, food puzzles, clicker training, fun games in the yard (treasure hunts, use of large herding balls for dogs), sniffing adventures, canine sports, hikes in areas where you are absolutely sure your dog's triggers won't show up. 2) Become a Pro In Reading Your Dog In order to tackle reactivity correctly, it's important to familiarize yourself with your dog's body language. Recognize when she is at an emotional baseline level and when she's starting to rev up. If you have recordings of your dog's reactive behavior, watch them in slow motion and watch carefully the precursor signs. There may have been a quick lip lick or wrinkling of the skin on the forehead or she may stop panting—focusing on something in the distance. A good behavior modification plan will have your dog orienting towards the trigger, but without causing her to react. You therefore need to pay extra attention so that your dog doesn't go over threshold. 3) Train Replacement Behaviors The goal is to gradually train an alternate behavior for your dog to engage in and obtain a fluid response so that it can be then eventually prompted in face of the trigger. This training should be started in the comfort of the home away from distractions. With cases of reactivity, I have found more success in using dynamic behaviors than static behaviors (like sits, downs and stays) because I find that dogs struggle more to stay still when they are concerned about their surroundings. One of my favorite dynamic replacement behaviors to train is attention heeling (where the dog looks at me while walking past distractions).https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/heeling-attention-heeling/ You can train this starting in the hallway using kibble, then move to the porch and yard using high-value treats, and then on brief walks back and forth in front of the home when you are sure there are no triggers. I would also recommend working on conditioning your dog to respond to a smacking sound. Train this by making the sound and then tossing your dog immediately a treat. Smacking sound/treat, smacking sound/treat. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/the-airplane-game/the-smacking-sound/ Practice in low-distraction areas, gradually adding in distractions (not the actual trigger though). You want your dog to immediately orient towards you for her treat upon hearing this sound. A great game to play before going on walks is the Look at That game using a window, skip the leash initially until she's calmer being around it. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/university/look-at-that/ 4) Use minimally aversive equipment When we use training tools that work by creating discomfort (like choke chains, prong collars and shock collars) we risk that dogs may start associating triggers with these unpleasant sensations which further aggravate the dog's reactivity. Not only, dogs may also come to associate our presence with such discomfort along with their neck areas and whatever is nearby them. However, it's important for us to have a sense of control. By having a better sense of control, we may feel more confident in walking our dogs For more control, I recommend using a front attachment harness, where the leash attaches to the front ring of the harness. For security, I like to attach the leash to the dog's regular collar and the harness's front ring so I have a backup in case of equipment failure. For cases where I am particularly concerned about safety, or there are particular struggles in walking the dog, I may even invest in a head halter. Consider that this requires an acclimatization process like the muzzle. 5) Start With Easy Systematic Exposures Once you have learned how to read your dog's body language, how to keep your dog under threshold, acclimatized your dog to her new training gear and practiced a replacement behavior, it is time to start working with systematic exposures. These are again low-intensity exposures where you can control the intensity of the trigger through set-ups (like volunteers walking a dog back and forth at a distance your dog doesn't react). 6) Use Fun Games A helpful game that aims to distract the dog and help her make good choices when triggers pop up is the " dynamic Treasure Hunt game." Upon noticing the trigger at a distance, toss a handful of treats and say "find it!" in a happy tone as you point towards the treats. A Treat Toss game instead consists of the dog noticing the trigger at a distance, I then make the smacking sound then tossing the treat a little ahead on the road for the dog to catch. I have found some dogs respond better to tossed treats rather than hand-feeding as it stimulates their prey drive and allows them to release some energy too. If you need to keep your dog busy when another dog is walking by, or when you stop talking to a friend, you can try my Hand-made Kong method: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/my-hand-made-kong-trick/ 7) Have a Plan for Setbacks If at any time, your dog becomes reactive, take that as a sign that you have progressed too fast or the trigger was at a too intense level. End the session on a positive note, feeding treats as your dog sees it from a distance that doesn't evoke a reaction, and call it a day. Once home, make a mental note of presenting the trigger at less intense levels. It could be the trigger was presented too close or for too long or was too animated. Each of these elements should be presented one at a time, too many elements presented at once can easily push a dog to the edge. It could also be that your dog has endured other stressful events at home and due to trigger stacking and her threshold for feeling reactive has temporarily lowered. Maybe she is not feeling well, or the exposure was just too many various elements at once. 8 ) Improve Dog's Emotional Wellbeing (And Yours Too!) On top of working around the reactivity, it's important to not forget to also tackle the dog's overall emotional well-being. Improvements can be made by decreasing the overall stress in the dog's life, increasing the dog's confidence and helping the dog develop coping skills. Particularly beneficial may be adding enrichment under the form of brain games and food puzzles, adding an exercise regimen, promoting positive experiences, shaping, clicker training, impulse control training, letting the dog explore the world at his own pace, building frustration tolerance, splitting exercises into easy steps, teaching the dog to relax. Another important aspect is controlling our own behaviors. Most likely if you own a reactive dog, you are emotionally charged as well. Learn to feel more relaxed, breathe deeply and avoid tightening the leash the moment you notice a stimulus that your dog reacts to. This reflex-like action will alert your dog of danger, traveling all the way down the leash and making him reactive as well. By taking baby steps, to some extent, you are also "rehabilitating" yourself as well along with your dog and learning how to "read him better" and be more in control of certain situations. Hope this helps, Happy Training!

Hi there! Welcome to the forums! So sorry to hear about the loss of your Pry. These losses deeply impact us and our dogs. Many dogs get overly excited when they see the leash. If this is a new behavior, there's likely also some element of anxiety as well considering all the recent changes. I hope she has good bite inhibition, when dogs "miss" and end up biting us in this highly aroused state, the may not be as good in gauging the pressure of their bites. Please make safety your top priority. If she's rough with her mouth use a bite-proof basket muzzle for extra safety, (https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/video-archive/train-your-dog-to-wear-a-muzzle/) and if you notice aggressive behavior, please don't hesitate to work along with a dog behavior professional for safety. Now, let's think like our dogs for a moment. A leash on its own may be a neutral stimulus and something that our dogs could care less about. In fact, a puppy who has never seen or worn a leash before may even perceive it as annoying, entertaining, or something to chew on. As your puppy or dog gets used to having the leash clipped on and taken for a walk, the leash then starts to represent some strong, positive associations. It turns into a conditioned stimulus (previously a neutral stimulus), and your dog develops a conditioned emotional response to it. This conditioned response may consist of a variety of emotions depending on how walks are perceived. For some dogs who are fearful of the great outdoors—those scared of noises, seeing people, or other dogs—their emotional response may be based more on fear than excitement. For others, it can be great emotional arousal from going on the hunt for critters, new intriguing smells and meeting other dogs and people. Some others there may be elements of mixed emotions, anxiety, fear mixed with excitement for all the things that can happen. Trying to tone down the excitement/anxiety by scolding or pushing away can often makes things worse, and even if the dog maybe stays still for a bit, it's more a result of us suppressing the dog's emotions which can lead to side effects. For example, in sensitive dogs, it may lead to further anxiety of going outside. So rather than getting frustrated we can tackle this excess excitement/anxiety in two ways: 1)Using the leash to our advantage to reinforce desired behaviors and 2) reducing the saliency of the leash. It's worthy to skip walks for a while so that you stop reinforcing all the excitement package taking place when your dog is in this hyper/aroused state. Because if every time we go out for a walk, Elizabeth is rehearsing all these problematic behaviors just prior, soon a new routine establishes and we're reinforcing it, sort of like letting a toddler go play with his friends outside after throwing a major tantrum. If the tantrum works in having mom and dad let him out, he'll be likely to repeat this scene over and over. So here are some tips: -Use a Chain Leash Since you mention your dog chewing the leash, I would suggest for a while using a chain leash. Most dogs don't like to chew on chain and will give up chewing it after some time. With a new leash you also have an object with "less baggage'' in other words less rehearsal history. -Prevent Rehearsal of the Problematic Behavior If every time you grab the leash, your dog gets hyper excited just by seeing it, you will have to start changing things, or you may be stuck with a dog that lacks impulse control. On top of this, your dog may adopt these impatient these behaviors in many other aspects of her life. So we need to tone down things and prevent her from practicing all these hyper aroused behaviors. We therefore need to take several steps to keep her better under threshold. Here's the thing: when dogs get into too aroused states, they tend to get nippy, jumpy, humpy, and yes, they may chatter their teeth if anticipating something. So the primary goal is taking several steps to keep your dog under threshold: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/ -Try My "Unpower the Leash" Method Here's the thing: dogs live in a world of associations. The leash therefore becomes particularly salient to our dogs because it's presented at distinct times, that is, always right before the walks. For sake of comparison, we can say that the leash becomes super salient and highly predictable such as the noise of the food bowl announcing dinner, or the treat bag announcing a fun training session, or the door bell announcing guests, or our car keys announcing our departure (and triggering anxiety in dogs with separation-related issues). The contingency leash=walks therefore becomes particularly strong. So how can we break up this contingency? By removing the power from the leash and making it less salient. We will therefore present it throughout the day so to desensitize her to it -Casually keep the leash around I would skip grabbing the leash in front of your dog for now because she'll likely get all revved up, and maybe even more nippy because she may get frustrated that it will be presented when she's not going on walk. So let's start easy peasy, when she's out in the yard or in another room, away from where the leash is kept, get that leash out and place it on the couch or hang it to the door knob. Then, let her find it on her own. Because the leash is lifeless at this point and not in your hands, she shouldn't get overly excited about it. ***If at any time she tries to grab the leash/steal it, say 'leave it" and toss a kibble away. If she knows "leave it" already, even better. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/take-leave-it/ -Add Movement Have the leash on the couch or hanging by the door knob, and casually during the day, move it a teeny bit. Your dog may show interest at this point, twitch an ear or come running towards it, so be ready to toss her a kibble or treat every time you move it. The kibble or treat should keep her from thinking about nipping you and keep her mind busy on something else. It also reinforces any other behavior than the nipping. Do this several times. -Add Sits If your dog knows how to sit, start practicing this exercise: Move the leash a little bit and then ask for a sit and toss a kibble/treat to reward that. Rinse and repeat several times, the movement/noise of the leash should become a predictor that a sit must follow. The treat toss should keep her busy and prevent her from thinking about nipping. -Start wearing the leash If your dog did well with the above exercise, start "wearing" the leash. In other words, walk around with the leash clipped to your belt. You want your dog to start getting used to seeing it around more and more without getting excited. Every now and then, stand in front of your dog, lift the leash a bit, ask for a sit and toss a treat. -Desensitize to the clipping noise Every now and then, as the leash is clipped to your belt, stand in front of your dog, lift the leash a bit ask for a sit, make the clipping noise by opening the snap hook thingy and toss a treat. Rinse and repeat several times, lift leash-ask for a sit, clipping sound- toss treat. -Start practicing clipping on the leash Start practicing clipping on the leash to your dog's collar, when your dog is sitting calmly. Lift the leash a bit make the clipping noise by opening the snap hook thingy, ask for a sit, clip it to the collar, feed a treat. Then, unclip it and give another treat. Rinse and repeat several times. The leash comes on only when you dog is sitting calmly. -Work by the door Do the same exercise this time by the door. Lift the leash a bit, make the clipping noise by opening the snap hook thingy, ask for a sit, clip it to the collar, feed a treat. Then, unclip it and give another treat. Rinse and repeat several times. The leash always comes on only when you dog is sitting calmly. -Walk Away From Undesirable Behavior What if your dog breaks the sit or starts getting nippy right when you are about to clip on the leash? In that scenario, stop trying to clip the leash, turn around, and walk away. By doing this, you are informing your dog that their excited behavior sends you away. Come back and try again. If your dog is still wiggly and bouncy, make an about turn and try again. At some point, your dog will tire out from acting excited and will get the message. You should, therefore, start seeing some calmer behaviors. At that point, ask for the sit, clip the leash on, and go out the door a brief second and then back inside, unclip the leash and feed a treat (you can toss several small pieces, treasure hunt style) -Don't Be Afraid to Repeat the Technique What if your dog sits nicely when you clip the leash on but pulls towards the door, jumping and acting hyper again? In that case, once again, turn around. You don't want to reinforce this behavior. Make sure you exit the door only when your dog is in a calmer state of mind. It may take some time to get out of the door the first few times, but since you keep going towards the door and then turning the moment your dog acts hyper, your dog will get tired; you will eventually start to see a calmer dog. Things get better once your dog understands that calmness equals walking towards the door and getting out. If you are consistent, you will notice an improvement. -Watch for Frustration If you notice any signs of frustration building up, or reverting back to nipping/jumping, take that as a sign that you have progressed to fast. You may have raised criteria too fast and need to back to a few steps in the process. Make sure to use treats that are valuable enough to your dog so that it's easy for her to make good choices. -Implement Impulse control games Dogs who get overly excited and struggle coping with their emotions, benefit from learning more impulse control. Training is ultimately teaching dogs to better cope with their emotions and develop better frustration tolerance. They must learn that patience pays and only calm behavior leads to what they want. Here are several impulse control games: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/10-impulse-control-games-for-dogs/ Once the leash has lost its salience and you are putting the leash on and walking towards the door only when your dog is calm, you are tackling the issue on several fronts: -You are no longer reinforcing excited behaviors -You are rewarding calm behaviors -The leash will have assumed less importance so that you can help your dog succeed -Your dog is learning how to tone down her emotions The above techniques are more tailored for dogs who act super excited when they see the leash. Remember, if your dog is super excited, this may be a sign that your dog needs more training, enrichment and mental stimulation during the day. Make sure you provide enough brain games, training, food puzzles so that you will have a calmer and better behaved dog. Now, you have mentioned some issues on walks and these will need to be tackled too, as they're part of the arousal problem package. I will be discussing this later today in the next post. Disclaimer: behavior modification comes with risks. If your puppy or dog shows signs of potential aggression (lunging, barking, growling, snapping, biting) for safety, please consult with a dog behavior professional who uses force-free behavior modification techniques (no shock, prongs, or physical corrections) for direct in-person guidance. Articles, videos and general info found in the forums or course (or any online source) are not meant to replace in-person training/instruction. By using this course and forum, you are waiving any liability claims or other type of claims related to any dogs' behavior against you or others.

Hi there! How old are your border collies? Are they littermates? Can you provide more details on what seems to trigger the whining? Does it happen when your other border collie isn't around? Since when has she been displaying this behavior? The earlier this is tackled, the better. The trainer seems vague, did she mention whether it was something you are supposed to get from your vet? or from a pet store? or online?

Glad to hear this evil person was found and hopefully steps will be taken so this never happens again. Shiloh was very precious, and you are right, like snowflakes, no dogs are created equally. Wishing you happy holidays as well.

Hi Adrienne: Thank you so much for your input. To answer some questions, I did nothing that I know of to stop the biting, etc. One day she just didn't do it for 2 or 3 days, then it began again. This has happened twice now. But she has been back at it for the last week again. Hi Penelope, thank you for these extra details. I was wishing to see some pattern, although I must admit that hearing about this calming effect for 2-3 days may be somewhat promising considering that it shows us that she has the ability to exert some self control at the very least. There may be chances that as she matures, you may see more and more days like those open up, and the nipping dwindling as she learns new ways to interact and her attention shifts to more reinforcing activities. And there doesn't have to be any interaction for her to do this. I can be sitting at my computer, trying to get some work done, or standing in the kitchen doing nothing related to her and she just walks up and bites me. I have resorted to pushing her away because she just keeps coming at me with no let up and I can't even stand up. I feel as if I'm being attacked because she won't stop. I understand that it makes it worse (my thinking is she thinks I'm engaging and playing with her) but I didn't know what else to do. You may be surprised, but actually this scenario is quite common and if you have followed several threads on the forums, you may have noticed how this issue actually pops up quite frequently. Many adolescent dogs struggle with us sitting down on the couch to watch TV, read a book or just work on the computer. And you are correct, any form of interaction from you such as pushing her, looking her way or just talking to her, will make the behavior worse because it qualifies as "engagement" from her perspective. The good news is that predictability brings you power. In other words, if you know what actions/behaviors bring up a nipping episode, you have the power on controlling the behavior. So you know with almost certainly that she'll come nipping when you sit at the computer? Great! Pre-empt the behavior. In other words, prevent it from happening. You can do this in many ways: 1) Keep kibble in your pocket/treat bag (or in a bowl on the computer desk out of her reach) and as soon as she approaches, ask for a sit and toss the kibble. You can do this without even needing to get up. I know this can be annoying initially, but by doing this, you are sort of "rewiring her brain circuits" and establishing a new pattern. If she's too aroused to listen to your cue to "sit," just toss the kibble without her sitting. I know this may feel odd, because we're so used to using treats/kibble to reinforce behaviors, but in this case, we're ultimately reinforcing any "other behavior" that occurs other than the nipping. In behavior terms, this is known as "differential reinforcement of other behaviors DRO" and it's commonly used by many behavior professionals world wide. As she seems calmer, you can then progress to asking for a sit prior to tossing the treat. After some time, once we have established a new replacement behavior routine, with her choosing to sit on her own rather than nip, with us tossing the treats to reinforce that, we can start gradually making these sessions shorter and ending them with access to a stuffed Kong so she can focus on that and chill. 2) Alternatively, you can just strategically coordinate your sitting at the desk with her chewing chill times. In other words, right before sitting at your desk, provide her with a frozen stuffed Kong for her to enjoy so that you can work on your computer undisturbed. Most dogs will choose working on the Kong over coming to nip us. 3) A saying goes "desperate times, calls for desperate measures" so how about rather than placing her in the exercise pen when you need to work on your computer, erecting the play pen around your desk? Still, provide her with something to chew so that she doesn't start barking, but at least you can rest assured she can't come over to nip you. Alternatively, you can place something bulky between you and your dog so she can't reach you. 4) Nipping when standing up: toss kibble when she shows self control and resists not jumping up/nipping. I had an English setter over not too long ago who would try to initiate engagement by nipping and struggled resisting hand movements, long hair dangling or necklaces. I played the 'resist anything" game. In other words. I would start with training a solid sit/stay: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/stay/ Then, he would have to watch me move a hand slightly and resist the urge to bite, and I would click treat for keeping his place and resisting. Then, I would gradually increase criteria, by moving my hand more, click/treat for staying nicely put. Then I progressed to dangling my hair near his face, click/treat for staying nicely put, then dangling a necklace in his face, click/treat for staying nicely put, then dangling my sleeves in his face, click/treat for staying nicely put, then other impulse control exercises such as resisting running after me when lying on a mat: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/video-archive/train-dog-go-to-mat/ Important: use a muzzle if she bites hard just in case. A basket muzzle may be best for your case and you can still insert treats easily. Here's how to acclimate to a muzzle: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/video-archive/train-your-dog-to-wear-a-muzzle/ Also, be quick to reward when she's nicely put, good timing helps her associate her sitting behavior with the reward, and prevents her from making a mistake. If at anytime she happens to nip, consider lowering criteria as the task may be too challenging for her. Make the hand movement less tempting or do with from a farther distance. Also, make sure to not reward a sit taking place right after nipping, so to prevent a behavior chain. I know we are supposed to wean them off of the treats and she typically won't do anything without a treat but I have been trying to use positive touch and good girl alternatively with treats. So maybe I need to continually use treats with her for now? We shouldn't wean the dog totally off treats. We provide them intermittently. If we wean them off totally, behaviors we have taught risk extinguishing, -unless we provide some other type of reinforcement to maintain them. On top of this, we provide treats intermittently only once the behavior has become fluent. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/polishing-up-training/fading-continuous-rewards/ However, the process of weaning is mostly for when we're training and our dogs have proven to us the ability to respond to our cues at least 80 percent of the time. In your case, such as with the positive touch, we're doing more behavior modification (based on classical conditioning,) than training (which is based on operant conditioning), although training and behavior modification often overlap. Without going too technical, I wouldn't be concerned about weaning at this point. We really want to work deeply on the issues and do everything in our power to help her make good decisions. If we would wean her off at this point, she would quickly revert back to her usual default ways of interacting which we are tying to solve. Nothing is more important at this point than stopping her bad habits immediately and not allowing her to rehearse them. What we want to avoid though is bribery. In other words, showing the treats *before* she performs the behavior. I would keep some treats in your pocket/ closed fist so you can give them promptly. I spend so much time exercising her because I've been told repeatedly she has a lot of energy and needs to work it out. I do training exercises with her and she has puzzles and chew toys that I spread cheese or peanut butter in, freeze them then put frozen sliced fruit, like a few slices of banana, inside too. If it's ok not to run her around as much then I can scale back. If it causes her to become more energetic then it's backfiring on me. It's not easy to find the perfect balance so I hear you. What we know though lately is that too much of the adrenaline-pumping activities such as repeated fetch risk increasing arousal plus the dog's stamina, so that they require more and more exercise to wear them out. I am mostly concerned though about the lack of day sleep as this can turn out being a huge welfare issue. We know that dogs denied adequate levels of sleep often pay the consequences under the form of behavioral problems and impaired learning abilities. I wouldn't be surprised if her lack of sleep is ultimately what is causing her behaviors from the get-go. Dogs of her age should sleep at least fourteen to sixteen or more hours per day. At a minimum, for the average middle-aged dog, 8 hours should be spent sleeping at night when everybody is asleep, and then an extra 4 to 8 hours should be spent snoozing during those down times at other times of the day. Your dog being young needs sleep on the higher end. She may therefore be too aroused/anxious to relax and get that so important REM sleep so reducing her stress would be paramount. When in this state, stress hormones keeps on circulating and as mentioned, the dog is then stuck in a vicious cycle. So I would aim to give her a little "cortisol vacation" and replace high arousing activities with activities that promote calmer states for a week or two, then see how it goes. As mentioned, these activities can help; Training which allows her to "think" like shaping Impulse control exercises https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/10-impulse-control-games-for-dogs/ Treasure hunt games, food puzzles Licki-mats/snuffle mats Brain games Sniff walks on a long leash in quiet places Use of exercise pens or other barriers (providing something to chew while there) to encourage relaxation Capturing and reinforcing calm behaviors Chewing activities (bully sticks) Calming aids/Prescription meds (check with your vet) Calm massages (use treats/kibble to reinforce calm and form positive associations with touch) Ditch the food bowl and offer kibble for engaging in calm/relaxed behaviors throughout the day Adhere to a routine (schedule activities and chill times/nap times and offer at the same times each day) Some dogs need cues to know when they can/cannot interact with their owners. Like "let's play" when we interact and "all done" when we are done. The "all done" helps the dogs gain some closure. Jazz up and settle can be a game that may help her find her 'off button' https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/high-school/jazz-up-and-settle-down/. When starting say "let's play" when done completely say "all done" as you toss a a few kibble across the room, put the chair and toy away and remove yourself. Now, I understand this may sound like a lot, especially initially as you'll have to offer quite a lineup of activities, one after another, to keep her busy in a non-hyper-aroused way using her brain, but as time goes by, you may notice that she'll start going from a dozen of these activities before starting to finally settle, to gradually less as her stress hormones lower and she learns how good it feels to relax. Destructive behavior - I removed or blocked off as much as I could early on. She will walk up to the couch and just start clawing or tearing at the fabric. Or clawing the carpet or wood floor. Or chewing on the cabinets. Unless she's in her pen, I can't sit still for more than a few minutes without getting up to stop her. Chewing and clawing are natural dog behaviors, we can't really stop those totally, but we can provide our dogs with legit outlets using sturdy toys and activities. Provide plenty of those, especially food puzzles. If she's climbing up to claw and tear at the fabric of your couch, you can try these mats: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B099WHTS48/ Provide her with a Kuranda-style dog bed: https://www.amazon.com/Elevated-Breathable-Washable-Textilene-Portable/dp/B09NSLVS5K If you have a safely fenced yard, provide her with a digging pit using some sand and bury her toys under to find. This game can keep her happy too: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/elementary/the-ball-pit-game/ And of course, the leave it cue can help prevent her from rehearsing problematic behaviors. For chewing on cabinets, a taste deterrent like Bitter Apple Spray may work in some cases, but be warned that some dogs may actually care less about the taste and some like to too! She still won't stay out of the kitchen when I'm not in there (I can't block it off - I did put a table on it's side across the opening and she just kept shoving it out of the way) but she has begun to lie down just outside when I am in the kitchen for short periods of time so there is improvement there ( I reinforce with treats) Nothing is really safe from her because she can put her paws on the counters, tables, washer/dryer etc and reach all the way to the back of whatever. Great to hear some improvement! Keep reinforcing her for not going past the boundary. Do the same with tables, washer and dryer. Never let her find anything appealing/interesting on top of these and reinforce for resisting the temptation to jump up. You are right in that she doesn't appear to want to miss out so she is very vigilant which prevents her from resting or sleeping during the day. She is very comfortable in her pen so I don't think that is the problem. But I will check with my vet about the anxiolytic. You mentioned she might have anxiety which I agree with. When she was spayed, the vet put her on Trazadone and Gabapentin to keep her calmer while she was wearing the hood and recovering. They kept her overnight and were worried because of her energy level. She managed to chew the first hood up within 5 days (and ate pieces of the plastic) and then she had the second hood destroyed within 2 days (both when I had gone to the store for a brief time) and passed more plastic for days. She used her paws to fold the hood and chew it. Fortunately she didn't bother her incision so no more hoods. And the meds didn't even slow her down. The vet was puzzled about that. Yes, great idea to check with your vet. Mention her behaviors, her lack of sleep and they can help sort whether there may be anything medically going on and then may suggest whether some meds can help. Trazadone is a situational medication, and is used more for short-term anxiety management. There are several other med choices that can be prescribed at the vet's/vet behaviorists' discretion. Of course, meds don't work on their own, they should be ideally accompanied by behavior modification ideally under guidance of a veterinary behaviorist. There are also new exciting products that are not meds that can help too. For instance, there are special prescription dog foods and probiotics that seem to help dogs relax. Then there are calming supplements (with L-theanine, L-tryptophan, Valerian Root, hemp etc), calming aids (like pheromone-based DAP collars, DAP Diffusers etc.) And I'm not thinking of getting another dog. My youngest son and daughter-in-law have her sister, a 2 1/2 year old from a different litter but the same parents. I was asking because she is very focused on their dog when they visit and seems calmer when they are here. If she has to be rehomed, they will take her. I was just wondering if there are dogs that are happier when there are other dogs to interact with, not just being with me. And the fact that when around other dogs, she spends most of her time jumping on their heads and necks, is that normal ? Will she grow out of that and learn to run around with them ? I can't afford to take her to day care, even for a few hours, to be around other dogs more. Thanks again for all of your help, Penelope Gotcha! Sorry, I misunderstood. I wouldn't call jumping on other dogs' heads and necks abnormal, just rowdy adolescent dog play. My Rotties have always played with each other by neck biting. They were though respectful with dogs they didn't know and self-handicapped with the smaller ones. I would watch how the other dogs react to her playstyle. If you remove them from play, do they seem eager to go back to playing with her? If yes, then most likely they were having a good time 🙂 If they are walking away, trying to avoid, hiding and don't go back and actually seem to feel relief, then it was likely too much for them. Some dogs may be accepting of this playstyle. Some carefully screened adult dogs can teach them that jumping in their face is rude using just a deep growl/snark, but the wrong type of dog may even react aggressively-so great care is needed. Many dogs are super happy to play with other dogs, but things may change once they reach social maturity, then, they become more aloof and some even may no longer tolerate certain types of interactions with dogs. P. S. Even thought she has been such a challenge, it has been so encouraging for me to be able to communicate with you and hear the advice you provide. Thanks again, Penelope It's my pleasure, I know how frustrating it can be living with an adolescent dog who needs so much guidance. I am always here if you need support or want to do troubleshooting.

Hi there! Welcome to the forums, There is such a thing known as the "honeymoon period." During this time, a newly adopted dog acts in his/her best behavior, and then as he or she gets more comfortable, they start showing their "true colors," so to say. Safety is paramount, so during this acclimatation period, you may want to keep your dogs separated. Here are some general guidelines when adding a new dog: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/introduce-dog-new-dog/ What breeds are your dogs and what are their ages? What breed and age is your new dog? What do you mean when you say she comes from a bad background? What pushy attention-seeking behavior are you seeing? Is it towards you or your other dogs? When your new dog guarded resources towards your other dogs and your other two dogs were humped, how did they react? Are your other two dogs trained?

Hi Cheryl, Answering this question is not easy. As with other dog breeds, there are well-bred ones with awesome temperaments and the not-so-well bred ones who can have lots of issues (sadly there's an influx of these lately). There are also superbly-bred ones who can be "too much" for some families because they are more meant for work than being family dogs. So a lot depends on the breeders. Do you know if they have always bred this breed? For how many years? Or are they rather new in breeding? Have you been able to meet the parents of the pups? If so, how were they temperament-wise? Do they test their breeding dogs for health and good temperament? Where are the puppies being raised? Are the breeders willing to take the puppy back if things don't work out (more reputable breeders will)? Afterward, you'll also need to carefully think about puppyhood. Is cleaning up messes/bending down frequently an issue (they are peeing/pooping machines in their first weeks)? Are you OK not getting a good nights' sleep for some time in the first weeks of potty training? Do you have the time to take the pup out for socialization purposes? Nipping can be quite pronounced in German shepherd puppies, so will need to factor this in as well. And then adolescence providing exercise, training, walks, brain games etc, but you are already familiar with all this, but the commitment may double with some dogs. How much time do you have to think this over carefully? Are the pups ready already to go to new homes? Would you consider an adult dog? Adults offer the advantage of an already established temperament and you can skip the challenges of puppyhood and adolescence. A good shelter can help pair you up and possibly give you the option to foster/trial a dog. There are basic ways to assess for temperament, which shelters often do, but they're not super reliable, and with puppies, it's not easy to predict things as issues may not pop up until later on. Knowing the parent's temperaments can help gather some ideas in case of aggressive tendencies being passed down genetically (but even here, we have cases of poor temperaments jumping generations and popping up in others and even within a litter there can be significative differences between one puppy and another).

Those links aren't working for me either. Here are some newer links tackling countersurfing: Feel free to post on the forums if you need help with anything, Happy training! Best, Adrienne

Hi Penelope, Please see my observations under your bolded quotes. Sorry to bother you again but Molly began jumping, clawing and biting me again right after I sent you the email that she stopped 😞None of the training techniques I use with her seem to make any difference. She is 7 months old now and almost 80 lbs. I'm writing with a little more info in the hopes you might be able to understand what is going on with her and how to break this habit. No bothering at all! I am glad that you are reaching out and sharing more details. I am looking back at our previous communications to see the flow pf things and the history you have shared. At 7 months, Molly is very young and has lots of energy, and as it was mentioned in your first post back when she was 6 months, you're right at peak adolescent stage where things are more challenging. My question at this point is: what did you do exactly that you were able to get her to stop clawing, biting and jumping albeit temporarily? What seemed to evoke a return of the behavior? If you can think back in time and recall exactly what you did that worked, and then what caused a setback, that would be extra helpful so we can do some deeper troubleshooting. I feel as if she thinks I'm a dog and this is how she plays. I've seen her with other dogs and she doesn't just run around with them, she spends a lot of time jumping on their heads and necks (no matter how big they are). With me she will just begin biting me (not mouthing me) out of the blue and if I try to push her away, give verbal commands or get away from her she just escalates and gets more aggressive. This sounds like rather typical rowdy play we see in adolescent dogs. I don't think she really thinks 'you are a dog," but simply that's her play style and we see that in German shepherds a lot. I outlined your words "If I try to push her away," because this is a main trigger that causes dogs to often escalate. Going back to your original post, please note that I recommended not to do this: "When training and doing behavior modification, it is best to avoid touching the dog as much as possible. When we use our hands for collar grabs, to push them away, or even to remove burrs from their fur, they come to form negative associations with our hands and this can trigger more nipping. Puppies need to learn from a young age that our hands are good, and that there's nothing to fear when we touch them, handle their paws etc. " I know how hard it may be to resist the temptation to push away or grab the collar or any other physical intervention, but it seems to cause more problems along the road, not only due to negative associations with our hands, but also because it may qualify as a form of engagement, and it can increase arousal levels (either due to play, arousal or defensiveness). When you give verbal "commands" be careful of your tone and body language. In modern dog training, we no longer use much the term commands, although it can be still used because that's what most of us are familiar with, but due to negative connotations with the militaristic-like training methods of the past, we now use the word "cue" more. *I may still use the term commands still here and there for easy comprehension, but the ultimate goal is to really teach dogs cues more than commands. "Cue" denotes more dogs being trained as willing participants. They don't "obey to please us," they are doing so by personal choice because it leads to positive consequence and not any form of threat or negative consequence. As willing participants, in private lessons, when safe and possible, I always aim to train dogs without a leash because the dog sticks nearby us by choice as a willing participant. So when we have a dog who is not responding to us, we need to carefully gauge what may be going on. Was the cue trained at a fluent enough level? Are there too much distractions going on? Are the treats high value enough to outcompete other stimuli? Is the dog in a too hyper aroused/anxious state? More about this here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/ignoring-commands/ If moving away triggers her more, we need to find some astute ways to prevent her from physically engaging with us and getting to that hyper-aroused, state. How about training her to not bite us by initially using a baby gate or a tall exercise pen? How about sticking nearby the door by the yard, so at the first sign of trouble, we can quickly enter and close the gate. We don't want her to rehearse problematic behaviors, because the more she does, the more she'll want to engage that way. By removing ourselves, we prevent full-blown rehearsals. When she is doing something destructive and I try to stop her (telling her no, distracting her with a toy or gently trying to lead her away by the collar) she escalates and really goes at me. This is not playing, it's "leave me alone or I'll make you leave me alone". She tears my clothes when she claws and bites at me and doesn't typically draw blood anymore but I have a lot of bruises, that's how hard she bites. Do you have any advice for me ? Have you worked on making collar grabs less aversive by creating positive associations with treats? There is really no "gently leading her away by the collar" if this leads her to a place where she doesn't like to be or there is a history of using even 'slightly aversive" techniques. It's unfortunate but even what we may consider "slightly aversive" such as grabbing by the collar for a timeout, pushing a dog away or giving a prong collar correction, can make dogs sensitive by the collar area. Any actions that aim at creating a "pack leader" relationship can do great damage that is difficult to overcome at times. This is why we see more and more warnings by animal behavior professionals to avoid using any physical corrections and training methods that are based on even light forms of intimidation. I am quoting you the results of an important survey conducted by board certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Megan Herron. "Several confrontational methods such as “hit or kick dog for undesirable behavior” (43%), “growl at dog” (41%), “physically force the release of an item from a dog's mouth” (39%), “alpha roll” (31%), “stare at or stare [dog] down” (30%), “dominance down” (29%), and “grab dog by jowls and shake” (26%) elicited an aggressive response from at least a quarter of the dogs on which they were attempted. Dogs presenting for aggression to familiar people were more likely to respond aggressively to the confrontational techniques “alpha roll” and yelling “no” compared to dogs with other presenting complaints. * I highlighted here some actions to show how even some things that we may consider quite innocent (like saying no or staring at the dog) can lead to problems. * "Owners also attempted to improve their dogs’ behavior by use of indirect confrontation. As with direct methods of confrontation, several indirectly confrontational methods elicited an aggressive response. Methods that elicited an aggressive response from at least a quarter of the dogs on which they were attempted included the ‘‘stare down’’ and growling at the dog While the use of confrontational training methods to subdue hypothetical dominance is commonplace, the current scientific literature suggests, instead, that canine aggression and other behavior problems are not a result of dominant behavior or lack of the owner’s ‘‘alpha’’ status, but rather a result of fear (self-defense) or underlying anxiety problems, important for an understanding of the motivation and treatment of aggression (Guy et al., 2001a,b; Mertens, 2002; Luescher and Reisner, 2008). Techniques such as forcing a dog down by the collar or by pushing on its neck and back—as, for example, in the ‘‘dominance down’’—are associated with increased physiological stress (Beerda et al., 1998). Frightened animals are often self-defensively aggressive; it would not be unexpected, then, that dogs respond aggressively to such provocative handling." We already discussed the drawbacks or telling a dog no, in your previous post: So I would suggest to stop ALL physical interventions and anything that can be potentially perceived even as slightly intimidating (this is not from your perspective but your dogs'). I would then take steps to prevent her from rehearsing any biting and jumping behaviors so to establish new routines to replace these undesirable behaviors. At this point, I would primarily focus on the following: -Your own behaviors. After all, this is what we can ultimately control the most. Basically, make it a point, that YOU will have to make her succeed using your force-free strategies using brains over body. This is not a battle: it is YOU guiding her into making good choices. Envision her succeeding, because YOU make it easy for her and extra worth it. Provide her the smallest possible margin for error by using an errorless approach because from now on, you will be journaling her success and you want to see these jumping, biting and scratching episodes decrease over time. Make a commitment, that starting today, you will help ger make only GOOD CHOICES. Because the GOOD CHOICES are easy peasy (interactive toys are readily available and access to things she should not have is blocked) and the rewards offered for good behaviors are far more reinforcing than jumping and biting on you. Think of this as a videogame, but not you against Molly, but rather, you HELPING Molly. The goal of the game is to make Molly less interested in jumping/biting. You are in control of helping her make good choices. Every time you have a setback, become proactive rather than reactive, in other words, don't get frustrated or feel resentful about getting Molly, rather think about the setback as you needing to be more careful next time, by making adjustments. So fill up a treat bag with your dog's portion of kibble mixed with some treats and NO MORE food bowl. Wear this treat bag ALL day. You should have at least 50 to maybe 100 pieces of kibble for each meal if she is fed twice a day. That's 100 to 200 opportunities for reinforcing good behaviors. You should know by now when she is about to go into nipping mode, but you'll preempt that this time. You'll be dodging her bites as in a video game with your superb timing, by intervening *before* she gets to that point. But because we want to get Molly to succeed, we'll help her further: we will be using our kibble to do a few sessions so that she gets a hang of this game. So with your treat bag full, any time Molly is nearby walking, ask her for a sit (she knows that well already, right?) and toss the treat at distance. Rinse and repeat several times. At some point, she should make the equation: "any time I approach and sit, my owner tosses me a kibble." Molly being super smart, she should grasp this quickly, and soon she'll be on the way of offering that sit voluntarily. Now, you'll be on your way of having her yo-yoing back and forth and the behavior should become more and more fluent. Note: You can also swap sits for other things such as hand targets, or other tricks you have taught her, but let's start with sits. Next, start practicing this when she is likely to get a little aroused. Such as when greeting you in the morning, or in the evening after meals when dogs get hyper and then practice in the yard. Stay sill, don't move and ask for the sit and toss the treat. In the yard, you may have to use higher value treats. Turn this into a new routine and your goal is to set the stage for less nipping by tossing that kibble. Kibble is given for free anyway in the bowl, so why not let her work for it? When she is doing something destructive and I try to stop her (telling her no, distracting her with a toy or gently trying to lead her away by the collar) she escalates and really goes at me. This is not playing, it's "leave me alone or I'll make you leave me alone". She tears my clothes when she claws and bites at me and doesn't typically draw blood anymore but I have a lot of bruises, that's how hard she bites. Do you have any advice for me ? As part of the recipe of 'setting Molly for success" you'll have to also find ways to make her less prone to being destructive by keeping things out of reach. Block off areas she is prone to chewing, keep tempting items out of reach. Then, practice the leave it cue, using the kibble/treat toss starting with low value items. She is approaching something tempting? Say leave it, and toss the kibble/treat the opposite way. Remember to use treats that surpass in value the item left. Don't forget to practice drop its as well. You want your dog to become a pro in leave its and drop its. These can save your dog's life one day. When you don't have time to play the kibble toss game, keep Molly in a quiet area where there's nothing of value to you that she can destroy. Remember, dogs aren't really in a quest to destroy stuff. They just think our things are the coolest toys ever. It's in their genes to want to disassemble things and shred things apart. We need to outsmart them by providing them with toys that meet their needs for "degutting stuff" by offering stuffed Kongs, Topplers, food puzzles etc. And I've tried to get her to nap but she won't - just gets agitated. When she isn't in her large pen, she typically just constantly roams around, clawing and chewing on things constantly. Rarely lies down anywhere. . And she has many toys that should keep her happy but she rarely plays by herself - she always needs me to be interacting. I find a lack of napping worrisome. She's not getting enough sleep which is restorative and key to good mental physical and mental wellbeing. I think she is super-super aroused and anxious and this is interfering with her ability to relax. You need to teach her that it feels good to be calm. Capture calm behaviors and reward them quietly. Like if she lies down nearby you, lower you hand and place a kibble in between her paws and continue doing so randomly. If she gets up, wait for her to lie down again and keep repeating so that she lies down for longer and longer. Make sure she has a quiet place to sleep. Perhaps she struggles in the pen because she has fear of missing out and wants to be aware of your whereabouts. Has the pen been used too much for timeouts? If so, she may not be comfortable there, try to create a sleep-inducive environment by trying to not move around much if she's the type who will attend to the smallest movement/noises. With dogs like this, you need to pave the path for little naps and then you can gradually make these naps longer and longer. You may need to mention this to the vet, there are calming aids that he or she may suggest if she's unable to relax due to being too antsy. A vicious cycle then establishes where the less sleep she gets, the more antsy she becomes. I know of a dog like yours who was put on an anxiolytic and this helped her get the sleep she needed and after that, she calmed down as a result. Good behavior comes from good sleep. Lack of sleep leads to cranky, even neurotic behaviors. I have been walking her 1 mile each day and we play ball in the backyard for 15-20 minutes each time, 4 -5 times each day. So I feel as if I am giving her the exercise she needs. Playing fetch 20 minutes a day for 4-5 times each day means she's potentially getting over an hour and a half of repetitive, adrenaline pumping activity. This repetitive jumping, running around, with the heart pumping fast, can cause a state of hyperarousal, and this soon becomes the norm. I am thinking she's an adrenaline junkie and needs to learn how to relax. I would try to swap the fetch with more calming activities such as searching for her kibble, sniffing adventures, canine nosework, brain games, obedience training, play with other carefully screened dogs of similar energy levels preferably under guidance of a trainer. And she has many toys that should keep her happy but she rarely plays by herself - she always needs me to be interacting. Well, with toys, if they're just stationary toys with no incentive they tend to get boring. It helps to rotate the toys so that she'll regain interest, but most toys are bleh for dogs unless they are somewhat interactive. So try to use more and more toys that are interactive such as treat balls and activities such as digging in sand boxes, searching stuff, and several brain games. Do you think she is a dog that has to have other dogs in the family to interact with ? This week I've gotten to where she spends more time in her pen to give me a break and I really don't want to have to do that. Thanks so much for your help, Penelope Another dog may or may not help. If you end up with another easily aroused dog, you risk double the trouble. You'll have two dogs to train, two dogs to watch, two dogs to tell to not chew stuff, two dogs who react to triggers, two dogs to walk separately (unless you have a helper) two dogs roughhousing in the house with possibly damaging things. Worse comes to worse, two dogs who don't get along. On the other hand, this other dog may divert her attention from you to the other dog so that they'll play most of the time together, sometimes up to exhaustion where they'll flop and then sleep side-by-side. It's really hard to predict how things may turn out. You can always try fostering another dog and see how it goes. If so, you could take Molly to the shelter and explain the situation and see if they have a dog that she can be matched up with based on her energy levels and play style. Statistics tells us that a male may work better, versus same sex dogs, although there are always exceptions.

Hi there! Welcome to the forums, Jennifer has given you great tips there! One question that comes to mind is: "how closely are you keeping the dogs when practicing group sits? Are the younger ones breaking their sit/stay to snatch the treats you are offering your older dog, or are they just stretching their neck? If they are stretching their neck, then you can easily solve this by giving them more distance. This can help weed out the chances for any misinterpretations in case they are thinking the treat is being offered to them. If they are breaking their sits, they may need more training individually as Jennifer has pointed out and also working with a helper keeping them on leash at a distance and then gradually closer. This can also turn into a great impulse control teaching moment, where they learn that "patience pays." Basically, when they stay nicely put, you will proceed to feed the older dog first and then immediately afterward they get their treats. If your dogs try to snatch the treat you are giving your other dog, your hand will close and you will move away (which is pretty much what you have done already). They should basically, learn that their pushy behaviors, yield nothing. This is a good lesson in impulse control training and also creates indirectly some positive associations with the other dog being fed (every time, the other dog is nearby, he/she gets fed, and then right afterward, I get a treat right -it's nice to have him/her nearby!). In terms of human comparison, think about this as being on plane, being extra hungry to the point of your belly growling and anxiously anticipating meal service. You go to ask the flight attendant if they can make an exception and feed your meal early than the rest of the passengers, but they say they don't offer any special treatments, and that they must follow the rules and serve everybody food at the same time, following a special order. When you finally notice the flight attendants get the food cart out, you feel good, even if they are feeding other people in the seats ahead of you first because you know your meal will soon be coming. Moral of the story: Pushy behavior yields nothing, patience pays. Now, consider that sometimes, there is competition among dogs over treats. So if there are cases of resource guarding, you need to practice caution and play it safe. In these cases, group training can turn risky especially if you happen to drop a treat in between two dogs or two dogs bunch up trying to access it. If there is very, very mild competition though, the positive associations created by the contingency of "I get fed if I stay seated nicely, and the other dog is fed" can help with that since treat delivery becomes contingent upon the other dogs being fed first. For the biting on fingers, this can be due to high arousal levels, the treats being very salient and competition with the other dogs (are they less rough when trained solo?). Here are some exercises to train a dog to take treats more gently: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/train-dog-take-treats-gently/ In this case, "patience pays" applies as well, basically treat delivery is contingent upon gentle mouths. The dog should therefore learn the contingency that: "my owner releases the treats only if my mouth is gentle, if I am rough, the treat is never delivered." Patience pays! Happy training!

Oh no, so much going on! I hope your hand heals quickly and your next appointment goes smoothly. I am so sorry to hear about Abbi, sounds like her poor body has given up. She had a wonderful life with you guys. May the good memories keep your hearts warm. Love and strength to you and your hubby at this difficult time.

Thank you for your replies on my posts! I have been following your suggestions on your original post. I have made pretty good progress so far. He has stopped barking/whining while watching me pour his food in the bowl. You are very welcome, I am glad to hear you are starting to see results so fast! He still does some jumping up and when he does this I stop. Random question but I just want to clarify: do I stop in my tracks and go silent or am I suppose to say ‘no’ or ‘down’ in addition to stopping what I’m doing? I will continue to do this as I’m confident he will continue to make progress. You should stop in your tracks and even do an about face (turning), leaving the area if he persists. I like to be quite dramatic in my display when, after the pup has been quiet for some time, I resume meal preparation. I basically walk tentatively to let the puppy know that I am watching him carefully and that any pushy behaviors such as barking or jumping will make me stop at a moment's notice, and possibly, even leave. Puppy should learn that it's his choice whether meal preparation continues or not. I find that it's not necessary saying anything as what we do "speaks volumes." Some people like to use a negative verbal marker such as 'eh-eh' or 'oops' to signal when a mistake takes place, but I think in this case, it may obfuscate a bit the training especially if those cues don't have a clear meaning. Like, for instance, it gets confusing to dogs if we use the cue "down" to have a dog lie down, but also use "down" to tell a dog to not jump, and "no" acts more like suppressor without the dog knowing what we would like them to do instead. It seems like the barking is occurring more when he is not in on the action. For example he will be quiet in his pen while I’m watching tv on the couch (because the couch is right next to the pen) but when I go to the kitchen or the other room he will start barking. I don’t know if it’s a case of separation anxiety? But the weird thing is we have a home camera and whenever we walk out of our front door to leave him home alone for a bit he doesn’t bark. It’s basically just barking whenever we are home but in another room (more like attention seeking barking). Is there anything I can do about that specific problem or should I just ignore him when he does this? Also just thought I should add that we don’t keep him in his pen all the time. We try to have him out with us whenever possible but we also don’t want to just give in because their are times where he needs to be in the pen or crate. He’s not trusted yet to be in the carpeted rooms because he tends to pee on them. Thank you! If this barking is also happening in other contexts (besides meal preparation and in other rooms other than the kitchen), you may be seeing clingy behaviors, which are quite normal in young puppies. In the wild, at this age, puppies are still very vulnerable and will cry out when separated from members of their social group. It is therefore an adaptive behavior, that is, barking when being left alone, although if not tackled and the puppy endures lots of stress and inconsistencies, it may culminate into separation anxiety. From the sound of it, this sounds more like attention-driven behavior, possibly frustrated behavior. If this happens when he hears you around the home and he's prevented from following you, there can be some form of barrier frustration going on which can lead to barking in protest. Experts now say though that separation anxiety has some elements of frustration going on, so its best to tackle this sooner than later. We can take some steps to gradually help pups become less clingy. Here are some exercises: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/exercises-to-prevent-separation-anxiety-in-puppies/ The good news is that, on top of implementing exercises that foster more independence, as puppies develop, they also go through a flight stage where they start getting more explorative and self-reliant. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/flight-instinct-period-4-8-months/ Coupled with training to foster independence, brain games and confidence building training, we can lower the chances for problems later on, at least to a certain extent (there can still be genetics/early negative experiences at play). Happy training! Keep use posted with how things go with sweet Ollie!

Hi there, Yes, I remember about Ollie barking for his meals! That fresh food must be super duper valuable for him considering all this commotion it creates! Remember to make it super easy for him by preparing the meal if possible in advance so there's less preparation commotion and then gradually start adding more steps ahead of that. For example, in the first days, have a helper keep him in the yard, when meal is ready, hold the bowl behind you back, call him ask for a sit and lower the bowl telling him to "go" if he holds the sit. If he gets up before you say "go" lift the bowl and ask for sit again until he's able to hold the sit until you put the bowl on the floor and he waits for you to say "go." Repeat for several days. -Next days, a helper has him in the yard, keep the pre-measured fresh food and kibble in a baggie. Call your dog, ask for a sit, let him watch you pour the content of the baggie in the bowl. If your dog doesn't bark and stays seated, walk towards him and lower the bowl. If he barks, gets out of sit, move away and try again once quiet for a few seconds. Repeat for several days. -Next days, a helper has him in the yard, keep the fresh food in a bag and kibble in another. Call your dog, ask for a sit, let him watch you pour the content of one baggy in the bowl and then the next. If your dog doesn't bark and stays seated, walk towards him and lower the bowl. If he barks, gets out of sit, move away and try again once quiet for a few seconds. Repeat for several days. -Next days, a helper has him in the yard, keep the fresh food in a baggie in the fridge and the kibble in a baggie ion the counter. Call your dog, ask for a sit, let him watch you grab the baggy from the fridge and the other from the counter and pour in the bowl. If your dog doesn't bark and stays seated, walk towards him and lower the bowl. If he barks, gets out of sit, move away and try again once quiet for a few seconds. Repeat for several days. Repeat until you can do the whole sequence of meal preparation with him calmly watching. Of course, consider that he's only 12 weeks so he can't hold a super long sit, so make best to prepare the meal in advance as much as you can until he's a bit older and capable of holding longer sits. When he's older he can also learn to lie on a mat for several minutes during meal preparation. You can also practice the above out- of-context, in other words, in non-meal times, using a few kibble in the food bowl. If you don't have time to train and must concentrate, it may be best to have a family member keeps him away from the area like taking him on a walk, or doing some fun games in the yard or a distance room during meal preparation. I am thinking at this point, why not use that delicious meal he so badly wants to create positive associations with the crate? Once the meal is ready, call your dog (if he was out of the yard), when he approaches, ask for a sit and then place the meal in his crate nearby with the door open. Day after day, you should see some positive associations with it, especially if you toss treats in there too randomly and let him find toys in it. Here are more ways to create more positive associations with the crate https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/video-archive/love-the-crate/

Hi there, Welcome to the forums, I am so sorry to hear you have been struggling with your chocolate Lab. I hear you, because an 11 month old black Lab I once fostered for the shelter and that needed deep rehabilitation, showed similar behaviors. She used to get really, really frustrated when on leash especially when she couldn't go meet and greet another dog or person. When this happened, she would redirect her frustration on me, nipping me non-stop and causing me lots of bruises. If people were to see the scene, they would have thought I was being viciously attacked! Like you, I sometimes struggled and the leash would slip away as I attempted my best to protect myself. She would then try to play hard to catch, so all I could do was run away and hope she would follow me (which she eventually did and I got her back home by tossing random treats), but it was very scary because we had a public road nearby and she had received zero training prior to seeing me so calling her was out of question. Apparently, from her history, she was found wandering in rural areas and was never put on a leash before. She must have lived on a farm or escaped and was set free to roam as had this thing of eating bugs (she ate crickets and cicadas as if gourmet snacks). And just like you, I sometimes would break down crying because I felt so overwhelmed by her behavior, and knew she needed help as she was from a kill shelter. If she returned there this way, her chances for adoption were very slim. However, after the "crisis," I would then get into "proactive mode" and start implementing changes to prevent her getting into this "wild state" and creating some daily goals with small steps. Biting out of frustration is common among puppies and adolescent dogs. The classical poster child of frustration is therefore often a young, adolescent dog who gets frustrated about something when on leash and vents his frustration on the owner. The dog may start by biting the leash and then from there, go on to biting the owner's arms and legs. The biting from a hugely over aroused dog often entails repeated and sustained teeth grabbing which makes it look like the person is being viciously attacked. Often times, these are the only dogs in the home, versus dogs living with other dogs. So with these cases, it's important to use management, positive reinforcement training (no physical corrections/intimidation), use impulse control games (starting very easy) and having back-up plans to have handy if worse comes to worse. To reduce frustration biting in puppies and young dogs, you will often need a multi-faceted approach, tackling the issue from a variety of angles. I would first start with a vet visit, just in case he has some form of pain going on. You mention both incidents happening when your dog was trying to grab something on the ground and you tugged on the leash and when you stopped walking to wipe your tears. A common denominator here is pressure on his harness/not letting the dog go where he wants. Perhaps he has neck pain or some other type of pain that is triggered by pressure on his harness/collar? This is more likely if this behavior is fairly new. Important questions: Has he always been this way? How long have you had him? Are there any children in the household? It could also be that he doesn't like the sensation of pressure on his harness/collar when you stop or try to move him away. Is he new to wearing the harness? What seems to have triggered the attacks towards your mother and brother? These are just some general management guidelines. 1) Identify Triggers What triggers exactly your dog's biting? For some dogs, it's seeing other people and dogs, for others it's the boredom that sets in on unstimulating walks, and for some more it's frustration of walking back home. Write down all circumstances you know that appear to trigger this frustration biting. Recall past events, don't attempt to induce frustration just for the sake of compiling the list. In this case, let's imagine a dog who bites out of frustration when on leash. The biting may often appear when: The dog wants to go in a certain direction and is prevented The dog is trying to access some food on the ground and is prevented The dog sees an animal he would like to chase and is prevented The dog wants to meet another dog and is prevented *Feel free to share with me all triggers you have recalled so far. 2) Implement Management Management entails taking steps to prevent the dog from rehearsing the problematic behavior (biting). The more a dog rehearses a problematic behavior, the more it puts roots, establishes and becomes habit-forming. With frustration-based behaviors, when not tackled, we risk the dog getting frustrated earlier and earlier and for smaller reasons. It's therefore important taking many steps to prevent the dog from being exposed to full-intensity versions of his triggers. In other words, you want to keep your dog under threshold as much as possible. Here is a guide on threshold levels in dogs: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/ Management may therefore entail: avoiding walks until he is better trained and avoiding situations known for triggering the behavior. Once he's better trained and more trustworthy, it may be possible to resume walks, but always avoiding situations known for triggering the frustration such as walking at a distance from temptations and using the emergency U-turn https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/emergency-u-turn/ or leave it cue https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/take-leave-it/ followed by a treat. These measures are in general temporary, at least until the dog is capable of demonstrating better impulse control and frustration tolerance. They can also be implemented for those times when one doesn't have time to train. 3) Acclimate To a Muzzle Dogs who bite out of frustration are often in a hyper-aroused state and this often means that they'll bite harder than if they were calmer. You will need to take steps to prevent your dog from potentially hurting you and others around you. Muzzle training your dog is therefore important so that you have a back-up in case your dog happens to be exposed to a trigger that causes him to go over threshold. Here is a guide: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/video-archive/train-your-dog-to-wear-a-muzzle/ In your case, a strong basket muzzle will likely be needed as this allows your dog to pant and take treats. Just because your dog wears a muzzle though, doesn't mean you are free to expose him to his triggers. You still will need to avoid full intensity exposures as if he wasn't wearing it. 4) Interrupt the Behavior Early Learn to recognize the earliest signs of your dog potentially starting to get "revved up" and intervene swiftly *before * any biting occurs. One of my favorite ways to interrupt is to entice the dog into a fun treasure hunt game. This means you'll have to carry treats in your pocket (and hold your hand in that pocket) so to have them ready at a moment's notice. *If your dog gets frustrated by smelling treats and not having them, skip this and consult with a professional. I would therefore toss a handful of treats mixed with kibble to the ground and tell the dog to "go find them!" as I point at them. The redirection needs to be long and valuable enough so that the dog doesn't go back to biting. Sometimes, one may have to do several reps in a row to get the dog back to baseline. It's crucial to interrupt the behavior before it escalates into biting. If one interrupts the behavior once the dog is biting, it will be more difficult to redirect him, and on to of that, one risks establishing a behavior chain (dog bites on purpose to get treats) which can be difficult to eradicate once stablished. 6) Avoid Corrections A dog who bites out of frustration can be a very scary ordeal especially when the dog is large, has little bite inhibition and the biting is challenging and difficult to interrupt. As tempting as it may be to use corrections under the form of corrective tools (such as prong collars, choke collars shock collars) or physical interventions (pushing the dog down, shoving a hand in the mouth, grabbing the muzzle, getting angry at the dog) these risks adding fuel to the fire, potentially triggering defensive/aggressive responses. 7) Provide More Enrichment All food should be used for brain games, training and food puzzles. This can help keep the dog mentally stimulated and can help provide an outlet for built-up frustrations. Impulse control training and frustration tolerance exercises may also help, train these very gradually. I recommend working alongside a trainer for safety. Here are some impulse control games: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/10-impulse-control-games-for-dogs/ 8 ) Ensure Enough Sleep Many dogs get very cranky when they are tired and this makes more prone to getting overstimulated and frustrated. It's very important that puppies and young dog sleep enough. You may need to enforce naps for dogs who have fear of missing out or struggle finding their "off button." This can be done by providing a quiet area free of stimulation and that is dark and relaxing. 9) Enroll in Daycare This can be an option, especially in dogs who are unexercised and have surges of high energy, but the daycare needs to be one that is very, very carefully chosen, with preferably dog trainers taking care of the dogs. Going there a couple of times a week or doing play dates with dogs they get along with, allows them to engage in some types of play they may crave. At the same time, you'll also be able to get some respite considering how frustrating and emotionally draining it is dealing with a dog who bites out of frustration. 10) Teach Relaxation Catch your dog when he's in a relaxed state and praise and reward that. When he sits without being asked to, praise and give a treat, When he lies down without being asked to, praise and reward that. Keep randomly praising and rewarding him when he's lying down by placing some treats in between his paws. Do this as often as needed so that your dog learns that when he's calm, he gets your attention and rewards. If your dog gets frustrated when ending a training session, end it by providing a longer lasting treat like a stuffed Kong and walk away. 11) Enlist the Help of a Professional Some cases can be very difficult to treat. It may be difficult for you to interrupt your dog's behavior, or maybe he bites too hard and you are starting to fear him which makes him more likely to bite (when in fear we may move a lot and run). You need to make your safety and the safety of others your top priority. If your dog shows signs of aggression, dog's hesitate to consult with a behavior professional. This is for safety and for correct implementation of behavior modification. Look for a reputable dog behavior professional (like a board-certified veterinary behaviorist) or a dog trainer with years of behavior consulting under the belt and using force-free methods. Sometimes, dogs may need medications to be under threshold enough to allow them the opportunity to learn better coping skills and better frustration tolerance.

You're very welcome, keep us posted on how things go! Best, Adrienne

Hi there! Welcome to the forums! So there are really no rules set in stone as to how long you need to work on a module. It's mostly all about going at the dog's pace and attaining results. Once your dog performs the behaviors reliably in the house, you'll have to then generalize them in the yard and on walks with distractions. You also need to fade food lures and start fading continuous rewards, which are covered in the polishing up sections: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/polishing-up-training/ Your dog is a mix of very smart breeds, it sounds like he is learning fast! Keep up the great work and feel free to post videos/pictures of Bodie's progress in our bragging section: HAPPY TRAINING!

Hi there! Welcome to the forums, What makes one dog patiently wait for his meal lying down on his mat while another one is pacing, barking and whining in anticipation? Most likely, it's the dog's level of impulse control in other words the amount of training the dog has received. After all, if we think about it, training a dog mostly encompasses teaching a dog to better control his impulses. So just as you can train a dog to heel and control his impulse to forge ahead and pull, you can train your dog to calmly wait for his meal and then sit before you provide it. Being that your puppy is young, this is a work in progress, but we can take a proactive approach to teach Ollie that "patience pays." You may have to dedicate some time for the purpose of teaching him this concept, but it's worthy for the long run, and after all, the same principle applies to us humans as well (taking time to train, pays us too in the long run with a nice return on our investment!) One question that comes to mind is: if meal preparation continues while he's barking that means we'll be rewarding the barking for food behavior as he does get fed at the end, so how can we put a stop to it? We still need to feed our dogs food, so it's not like not feeding them is an option. Getting upset about it and scolding the dog won't also help and most dogs may find this approach confusing and intimidating. How about instead, informing your dog that his barking doesn't expedite you, but rather makes you work in slow-mo or even stop? Let's therefore take a look at how we can extinguish this type of barking. Barking Makes You Stop! So on a day when you have time, start preparing your dog's meal. Have him watch you. The moment your dog barks, stop in your tracks. Just freeze like a statue and wait for about 8-10 seconds of quiet. Once he has been quiet for those seconds, resume preparing his food. Keep doing this: freeze when he barks and resume and expedite when he is quiet for at least those seconds. If he persists on barking, you can even walk away from the food station and come back only once quiet for at least 10 seconds. To make the first sessions easier, have some of the meal preparation work cut out for you. In other words, have the kibble already premeasured in a baggie and the fresh food in another one. You can prepare these while your dog is out in the yard or is out for a walk. This will help both you and your puppy succeed so that you can build up on that, and gradually raise criteria by adding further steps. Training a dog who has barked during meal preparation for quite some time will take some time and it's normal to encounter certain problems. For instance, if your dog's barking seems to be increasing rather than decreasing, this may signal what's known as an "extinction burst," but no worries, this is a good thing! Basically, what's happening is that your dog is increasing his barking in hopes of getting your attention since it no longer seems to be working, so your dog may at some point try to bark louder or longer than before. It's as if your dog is saying " Hey, what's up with you today? Usually, when I whine you speed up and feed me, today instead you are slowing down and even stopping! Don't you hear me? Bark, bark bark, I am even jumping higher too!" There are also chances that your dog may try another behavior, a different one, such as pawing at the pen. If your dog goes through such an extinction burst, no worries! It's actually a good thing, signaling that your training is working! Just keep stopping food preparation during barking and resuming when your dog has been quiet for some time. If you keep it up and persist, your dog will get the point and reduce whining, but be careful: if you are in a rush one day and give in just to stop the barking, chances are you will end up with barking that's even worse than before because your dog will be learning that persistence pays off! So keep up the training. If one day, you don't have time to train these valuable lessons, prepare the meal in advance while your dog is in the yard, so that you have it already in the food bowl and just have to grab it and ask for a sit and then lower the bowl with the dog behaving nicely. This is a great way to call your dog and reinforce that by the way! Hide the bowl behind your back, call your dog when out in the yard, and then reinforce that by asking for a sit and then lowering the food bowl. In the background, don't forget to start introducing your puppy to some impulse control exercises: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/10-impulse-control-games-for-dogs/ I hope this helps! Keep us posted on how things go. Happy training! Best, Adrienne

Thank you so much for your reply! I sadly did not get a notification of the reply for some reason. I'm going to have to stay logged in to the forum and watch more closely. (Oh.. I just found the little toggle at the bottom to "Follow topic". I didn't realize I had to do that on my own post. Oops!) Sorry it took so long for me to get back with you! So sorry to hear you have been waiting so long. Notifications for forums can be hit and miss sometimes and some may go into spam folders. I find it works best to just visit the forums. I'm going to read through everything you've replied with and see where I can strengthen her mental stimulating play some more. I did try the sandbox! It worked a couple of times, but then she stopped being as interested in going to look for treats and things and wouldn't really engage much if they were buried more than an inch deep and she couldn't easily just find them lying around the box. In these cases, if the dog gives up because finds the exercise/task too difficult, it helps to keep it easy and worthy with high rewards. Once it establishes a stronger reinforcement history, and we increase motivation, we can try placing them gradually a bit deeper, maybe starting with some lower value items closer to the surface, and some higher value items a little deeper. I haven't tried a snuffle mat yet, but did try one of those toys with the treats hidden under things. She did great with it, but then at the end wanted to tear it apart looking for more treats! lol (and that was when she was like 12 weeks old) In this case, you want to remove access to the toy before she has a chance to destroy it. Once the toy is devoid of any treats, simply, swap it with a handful of tossed kibble/treats or a tossed cookie. Toss them in the opposite direction and retrieve the toy. It is best to invest in puzzle toys that are quite durable (like a Kong Wobbler) as these withstand better teeth trying to get any food remnants from the toy. I agree about the potential aggression issues. So far she's never lunged aggressively at me with any sort of attitude like that. It's all always been mouthing/nipping like as if she's just really wanting to play fight/tussle. She puts her mouth on me when frustrated when she's got that "tantrum" attitude for being taken away from something she wants or when wanting to play fight, but ALWAYS bite inhibited (even if she leaves bruises because I just have sensitive skin unfortunately). Her attitude is always more like "Come on mom, play fight!" and I say no and she does it again. She doesn't want to give up easily when she starts that. It's good that you haven't noticed any signs of aggression and that it seems more like play. The ultimate goal should be going to the root of the problem, that is, preventing so much frustration to build up in the first place. So when taking her away from something, make it rewarding so no frustration builds up. For example, redirect her at the earliest signs, creating a fluent response to a smacking sound. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/the-airplane-game/the-smacking-sound/ Ask for sits and toss a kibble to reward. Offer activities that surpass in value her enjoyment of physically engaging with you. Of course, the ultimate goal is to build up her frustration tolerance so we'll do that in the background, but at the spur of the moment, find a way to divert her from physically engaging with you such as tossing a treat so no aversive feelings of frustration build up and she doesn't rehearse undesirable nipping behavior. Grabs my hand/arm/wrist or nips me in the butt or leg. Sometimes I can redirect her to a different training command, but if I have a large stick available and can put it between us she will either bite on that or stop nipping at me at least. Again I've never tried to hit her with a stick of course! It's always been more of a barrier she respects right away for whatever reason. (thankfully) I don't know if there's a genetic respect of a large staff with shepherds or what, but it does help when I remember to have one nearby when she's in one of those tantrum or trying to get me to play fight modes. 🙂 It can be that you're looking at a behavior chain, where undesirable behaviors are inadvertently reinforced. In other words, she's likely hoping for a reaction from you, so when she nips and you place the stick in between, if she bites that, that may qualify as interaction, so it can happen that she purposely starts nipping because that means you'll offer the stick, which is like an extension of your arm and something fun to chew. In these cases again, it's best to avoid getting her into this frustrated mindset, and if she does, catching her *before* she has a chance to start physically engaging with you. She hates anything rubber unfortunately (like kongs), BUT I have been able to get her some cow hooves from tractor supply and fill those with cream cheese and freeze them. She gets one of those at night and loves cream cheese thankfully! Careful as cow hooves have been known for causing dental fractures. When you say she "hates rubber" what do you mean exactly? Does she not want to engage with the toy? She won't lick anything smeared in it? As always, whatever we place in it initially needs to be easy to remove, if too challenging she may give up. Baby steps are needed with dogs who get frustrated easily and give up. I am definitely thinking of trying a lick mat. I tried one of the games with the treats hidden under boxes or slider things when she was about 12 weeks old and she got all the treats, then got frustrated with the toy itself and started trying to tear it apart looking for more treats. Again, try taking it away before she gets to rehearse frustrated behaviors. Always trade the toy with something else. Yes, I've been trying to avoid corrections, definitely! I've noticed she's better if I can get her redirected or put a large stick between us as I tell her no. Like a reminder to stop nipping at me. I agree about the corrections for frustration adding fuel to the fire! I can definitely see where those have done that. "No" often doesn't provide much info, they seem to do better when we tell them what we would like them to do instead. I have found treat/kibble toss game useful, ideally inserting a sit and making it extra fun. We have to feed them anyhow, so why not put their kibble to good use rather than letting them wolf it down in a food bowl withing seconds? https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/adriennes-picks/top-5-dog-feeding-toys/ She's never acted afraid of the stick. Most times she'll just bite on it, or chase her tail or something and stop biting on me. We have actually worked on leave it since she was little. She will let me take things from her mouth, put my fingers in and take them out. I practice with bones she likes, look at it, and give it back. That way she is more likely to let me take things. Sometimes she is a little stubborn at first, but will let me take things after I say "leave it" a few times. Taking things away and removing items from the mouth needs to be always be followed by something positive. I didn't see mentioned any trading or use of high value rewards, so just mentioning this in case. See trading and mouth inspections (drop it always better than mouth removals as these can carry some elements of risk, depending on the dog or item the dog has. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/the-importance-of-preventing-resource-guarding-in-puppies/ I am recently trying to work on "drop it" with her ball and get her to let it go if she wants me to toss the ball. She will fetch a ball a few times before she's bored with it for the day so I only get to practice this a few times a day, but she's smart so hopefully it will start kicking in quickly. I also just started teaching her "touch" to get her to nose my palm on command. She learns pretty quickly thankfully. That's awesome! The "touch" is referred to as targeting in the course, you can find more about it here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/preschool/targeting/ Agreed with trying to keep her away from the deer poop altogether. Not as easy when the deer frequent my acreage a lot, but I did start steering clear of areas where I knew the piles were! I hear you! I have had the problem of rabbit poop instead and it's terribly difficult spotting these tiny droppings! Oh, I like that thought! Practicing leave it with her favorite treats around something like poop so she will start to signal it for a treat instead of going after it. (yes the multi acreage fencing will definitely help cut down on deer poop too. I can't wait!) Fencing can provide loads of peace of mind on several fronts. I am glad that's in the planning. I am going to have to start carrying extra treats in different pockets. She already knows I tend to carry treats in at least one pocket and sometimes will try to chew on my jacket looking for one. lol But I like the concept of tossing a treat on the ground away from me when I see her start to decide she's going to get excited and mouth on me. I am definitely going to start trying that! Redirect before she gets a chance to start the biting game. Treat tossing has worked very nicely for me with several nippy dogs. Catching them *before* makes the whole difference. As the concept sinks in, you can then add a sit and at some point you may notice they start offering that voluntarily. As always, I start this training indoors, and then carry it over outdoors by a porch/deck. 7. I'll definitely take a look at the impulse control article! This can help a lot in creating a foundation of better frustration tolerance/impulse control. 8. That is a thought too! She definitely gets more nippy after training when she knows I am going to go inside to get my shoes changed to leave for work. Not every time, but usually. I might definitely have to try another frozen cream cheese cow hoof at the end of the morning perimeter walk and training. Toppl by West Paw may offer a safer alternative to the cow hooves. The concept and shape are quite similar. Maybe start taking it out in a different pocket and in a baggie so she can't smell it as much and try to eat my coat. LOL But be able to get her to sit and take it before she starts getting frustrated that she knows training time or play time is over for now. They recently also made a smell proof dog training bag. It's made by Whager. Thank you for the suggestion about the piece of PVC pipe on walks! I might try that when out in the field as an extra safety when out there. I can't always hold her far enough away from me when she acts out and I want to be able to get her to stop without having to really try to do corrections since I agree they tend to escalate things. I do have 1/2 acre fenced in for her now! We do our leash walks in the field less lately because she has more room to run. Next spring we will be fencing in around 2 more acres, but I was at least able to get 1/2 acre done for now to give her running room. It sounds like I'm going to have to try keeping treats in baggies and in different pockets. She knows I keep some in my pockets when it's time for training. And I am going to try keeping a frozen cream cheese cow hoof in my pocket to end morning perimeter walks/training sessions. I will read your article on working on frustration/impulse control too. I'm very interested in that! I think it sounds promising for her. I will report back on how things are going more soon! Thanks again, Great! Keep us posted on how things go! Happy training! Adrienne