clairebear_ces

Thank you so much! This is all so helpful and I hadn't found the barrier frustration page yet so I'll look at that too. From what you've said and from many hours reading various other training articles, watching videos, and watching our puppy, I'm 99.9% confident it's barrier frustration. She also has somewhat poor (but always improving!) impulse control with everything else so we will just keep working on our training! Thanks again.

Hello, (I don't think I saw any posts with this same issue, but if I missed something please direct me :) ) I had posted awhile back about our puppy's biting behavior, but we have that under control now. Woohoo! I'm now moving on to her barking issues...She is a cattle dog/jack russell mix from the humane society and is about 5 months old. We have had her for 5 weeks. Whenever we go on a walk or have her on a leash, she ALWAYS freezes, and then barks and pulls on the leash when she sees other people and other dogs. It doesn't matter if we are in an unfamiliar place, inside our house, or in our backyard, if she is on a leash she does this. After watching her, I'm thinking it is barrier frustration because she just seems very agitated and sometimes bites at the leash while she's barking and pulling. She is also very friendly towards strangers and other dogs when she is OFF leash. She will run up to them, wagging her tail, and trying to give them kisses. So i'm thinking she's frustrated she can't do that when we're on a walk? Anyway, we are learning to heel, and she does great with that inside with no distractions. We're currently working on heel with her outside with people at a distance. I guess my questions are: if you think this is barrier frustration? (I can provide more info if needed) Or if we should try to find a trainer in person and what type of trainer? (We live in a small city so our options are limited). If the heeling is a good thing to be focusing on or if we can be doing more? Thanks, Claire

Thanks again for all the good suggestions. I just wanted to follow up with what has been working for us in case anyone else reads this. Mostly we just spent a lot of time learning her patterns of when she bites and take action to prevent it from happening. 1. she bites when she's tired so once she'd had a walk or play session, we make sure to give her a treat, crate her, and let her take a nap. 2. When we play, she can get wound up and start biting, but it's because she wants us to throw her the ball or play tug. So now we make her sit before she can get what she wants and the reward is the toy. 3. If she starts getting too wound up and bites during play we will stop and have her do some training with treats. That almost always works to redirect her energy to something constructive. 4. Lastly, we put all of her toys on rotation so we mix them up every couple days so that she never gets tired of them. Then she is more interested in biting the toys rather than us.

Thank you so much for all the info! We will read through and see what we can do!

Hi, We have a 16 week old cattle dog mix from the humane society. We have had her about a week. She is crated while we are at work but gets a solid 4-5 hours a day of play, training, and exercise time when we are home in the mornings, at lunch, and in the evenings. She is very big on biting. Triggers for her biting: when we are playing fetch with a toy she stops with the toy and bites our whole body, when playing by herself with toys she'll stop after a minute or two and bites us all over, she bites when you try to take her toy, she bites after a cuddle session when you stop petting her, she bites a lot after walks, and she bites our legs and feet when we walk around the house. This has escalated every day that we have had her so far. She also jumps up and bites our clothes when we get home, even if we ignored her. The only time she never bites is when we are doing something related to food- such as cooking dinner, prepping her food, or getting her water dish filled- and then she just follows us around and stares at us. Things we have tried: 1. She is very smart. She knows "leave it", but will only leave it if there is a treat for her. She will also just go back to biting the second she gets the treat. 2. We have also tried the "yelp", stand still, and ignore her when she bites us hard. She used to stop biting and stare at us, but now she just ignores the yelp and bites more even when we stop moving and ignore her. 3. We try to ignore her and remove ourself from the situation whenever she bites us, but she just bites harder and harder. 4. We try to leave the room, but she follows us and bites us more. Or, then when we leave she goes and chews on the curtains or something, even if we're gone 10 seconds. She has many toys she is allowed to bite and play with, but they just wind her up. Any suggestions for how to help?? I also wanted to add that we have given her treats and praise whenever she is NOT biting us or when she STOPS biting us. But that winds her up and then she just bites us more to get more treats (again, she's very smart). Also, also, as I said she is from the humane society, and she is very anxious and seems like she might have been abused (she cowers back when you lift your foot up or hand up like she has been kicked or hit before). She also might not have had proper socialization as a young puppy.