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My nearly 5 month old male wire fox terrier nips at my hands or arms sometimes quite hard when on the couch. I want to be able to have him on the couch so I don't want to train him not to come up. But it's wound up that I get up and he stays on the couch. He's been doing this for quite dome time. What's the best thing to do in this situation? I do have toys on the couch to distract him with - it just always seems to get to where I can't tolerate it further. Thank you.

My australian shepherd is 5 years old. I got him at 4 months. It is just the dog and I at the house. He is trained really well and does amazing....at home. Over Easter I took him to my parents. He loves my parents. My grandparents were there too but he freaked out. He is becoming more and more wary of strangers. He barked a little at my grandma but he freaked out with my grandpa and actually lunged and bit his arm (it did not break skin, thank god). He has never done this before with a person. I scheduled a vet appointment to rule out any medical issues to be on the safe side but I want to train him to stop barking with new people and work on calming him down so he can be better with new people. I don't want this to continue. I am extremely limited to access to dog trainers in my area as it is small and I have very limited funds. He generally barks and backs up and I end up putting him in a separate area so he is not stressed. Then he ends up barking from being alone. What should I do? I don't want anyone getting hurt but it also breaks my heart to think of getting rid of him since I raised him.

Hi Adrienne! I have an 8 month old sweet chocolate lab who knows basic commands such as sit, stay, down, spin and high-five. My only issue is his biting problem. We were going on a walk a couple of days ago and I tugged on his harness when he pulled to eat something on the ground. I told him to sit and he immediately lunged at me. I turned my back to him with folded arms and he continued to bite my back and elbows. During this I had dropped the leash, and once he realized this he ran away for some time. I was in tears already, and although I should have went back inside and got assistance, I was worried he would follow me and attack the neighbors chickens. So I went near him again, hoping he was calm, took his leash and gently guided him to the path. I stopped for half a second to wipe my tears and he lunged for the second time. The bites were very painful and I was bleeding. He also ripped my clothes. I started calling for my family, and someone finally heard and came to help. He did not bite at anyone interfering, and I was able to go inside and clean my wounds. He had ripped the skin on my finger and I had several bruised punctures. This incident is also not the first time, as he's attacked my mother to this severity, as well as my brother. We have stopped talking him for walks and are giving him exercise in our backyard. He lunges and bites either way, but when he does in the backyard we get help faster or run inside to safety. Other than this, he is a loving dog and we love him too, although frankly we are scared to be left alone with him.

Hi I have a 3-month-old mini black golden doodle named River. He is about 10 pounds and I expect him to be about 25 to 30 pounds. At certain times my dog gets very aggressive. He will bite at my pants leg when I walk. If I sit down, He will try to jump up on me. If pick him up and put him on my lap he starts biting me. When I put him down, he starts barking at me and will even start to growl. I have tried many techniques you have mentioned many, many times but nothing is working. My husband will get upset and starts to yell very loud and he will stop. I really do not want to use this technique as it is upsetting to me. Two things I must tell you. I am the dog's person. He has bonded to me. I walk and feed him and play with him. The dog is very food motivated so I was able to teach him several commands rather quickly. He knows his name, He knows drop it, He knows sit. He will return a ball about 75% of the time. He plays the shell game. He sleeps in his crate overnight with no crying or whining. Responds to the kissing sound. Please help. Denise

So my dad surprises the family with an 8 week old German Shepherd puppy - 2 actually. Littermates brother and sister. Since I am the one who stays at home the most, I’ve been charged with watching them while everyone else goes to work and disclaimer: I have never raised a puppy. My last dog was about a year and I had her more than 10 years ago. So I had NO idea what I was in for. About two days in, we noticed a lot of fighting between the siblings and when we learned about “Littermate Syndrome,” we decided to return one of the puppies to the breeder. Our remaining puppy, Lucky, is a lot more calm now since his sister usually started the rough play, but he is nipping more than usual. I understand that it’s common for puppies, especially GSD, and that I have to redirect his biting with a toy or chew, OR make a verbal correction and stop playing when he doesn’t listen. This is my problem: I want to be a good owner, but both my parents are “old fashioned,” and they are used to hitting a dog for correction. I told them it could be detrimental and ineffective, so they’ve held back with this puppy, except once. My dad forgot to cover up and Lucky bit his bare ankle, causing him to immediately slap the dog away and give a loud “No”. As awful as this will sound, I am a little jealous because it worked. Since then, Lucky hasn’t but my dad. He still plays with him, goes to him, and seems genuinely okay with my dad. Meanwhile I am out here, with my torn up boots, getting bit and getting frustrated. What can I do to curb his biting without resorting to hitting? I already offer different toys (which he will chew for a bit and then go back to gnawing the zippers of my boots) and leaving (which he just cries and waits until I come back and resumes the behavior)?

Zeus, our puppy, sometimes starts to bit our pants legs, my top, our hands. I try giving him a bully stick or toy to chew on, but it does not always distract him. It can happen when i am out with him in the pen after he has finished peeing, other times when i am carrying him back into the house, or i throw him a stuffed sock to retrieve and he returns with it and then starts to bite the sweater am wearing. sometimes he growl a bit as he is doing it. we can be running in the yard and when we stop, he starts biting my pant legs. I have tried distracting him with a toy; if that doesn't work i tell him NO sternly and if that does not work i put him in his crate for 10 minutes. What should i do?

I have 3 month old chocolate lab who is becoming very aggressive and always wants to bite and jump on us specially on my 8 years old daughter. He nips her with his very sharp teeth causing scars and blood. He always wants to grab us by the feet or torn what we wear. He 's never calm. We take him out, we walk him and I train him using your techniques for obedience and still. We can't roam freely in the house coz of him and we started to leash him now a lot. please help! We are all bloody scars :(

Hi there. Sorry if I write such a long post. Bell is a shepherd mix, 5 months old. She comes from the south of Italy where she was abandoned in a bag as a puppy with all her siblings and the mom tied up to the door of the shelter. I must say few things about us before, she has been in the shelter since the abandoning. I got her 3 weeks ago, driving half way there (I live in Germany). She could be with her mom playing, everytime the shelter holders went there to feed and clean the place (which was at a distance from the city, with many fields around). Therefore she is used to be alone almost all day and to see me taking care of her more, made me almost immediately her "the one in charge". She is very social, sweet and calm. She keeps mostly her tail between the rear legs, wants to stay more home than to go out and play or walk and barks only at other dogs seen from the window or cats when we meet them on our way outside. Before her, few years ago I had a Rottweiler girl for almost 14 years together with my ex husband. I have 3 Kids, triplets, 9y. old, that come to me each other week. One of them sits in a wheelchair. I live at the 1st floor of a building, in a rented apartment and I work 8 hours a day outside home. Bell is a lovely and very smart girl. She has seen me once going to the toilet and from then on, when she has to and I didn't get the signal in time she goes there potty. For her "emergencies" I put a puppy toilet in the bathroom, which I am taking day by day a little bit more close to the outside door. During the night she likes to sleep on her crate which is also her transportation box and at a certain point in the night she come to me, jumps on the bed and sleeps at my feet. I have these 3 main issues to solve: 1) *Whining and Barking when I am not there.* In those three weeks, Bell has always been together with either me, my mom, my mother in law or my kids. I went to work andd left the house for 8 and a half hours, having kids and grandma home. Apart from a few very usual accidents with potty, we all dealt with it pretty well. They had to leave the house for max.2 hours to go to school/music/training and so on. Bell was alone home. Nothing bad happened and she went potty on the toilet if she needed. The last one has been the first week where we are in the house alone, Bell and I. I went to work on monday 5:30 a.m. knowing that a friend of mine was coming to take Bell outside at about 11.00 a.m. Everything went just fine. Then I was home sick for 3 days. On Friday I had to go back to work, the same way. At 11:00 my friend took her out. The neighbour though, was awake at 6:30 because of the constant whining and barking of Bell. You can imagine her disappointment, telling me "that was very irresponsible of you!" ...but to me the effect of her words was "just wanting to point the finger at you and give you the guilt of my own frustration". after all, she doesn't have pets, her kids are grown up and independant and she jumped up right away to the conclusion that was more convenient for her, including calling everyone around and telling about how much she was bothered by my irresponsabiity. My question is, is a whining of 2 hours long after 3 weeks of living together (where the dog was already alone at least 2 hours) really so bad? It was the first and single time it happened. My kids were more difficult to deal with at 1 y.old when I wanted to go somewhere by myself!!, but you know, they do not bark so loud, a dog can be "brought back to a shelter" but a kid cannot. Now, one of the things that got me to your training is the way you explain that you need to reach the brain of your pet, talking about neuroplasticity, I am a neuromovement practitioner, I know what you're talking about! Let alone the fact that I know I was not irresponsible, I asked someone to come at half time of my absence, I made sure she couldn't hurt herself, I left her toys and fresh water to drink and a clean toilet she can use in case,.. I would like to gradually make her understand that it works that way, I may be outside for long but I always come back for her and everything is taken care of. I know it will have to be gradual, and frankly, the neigbours will have to be patient for a few weeks until I really get her feeling safe. Is there a quick way to train her being alone and not whining? I must profit of the next 3 weeks, where I will be home. 2) *fear of being in the car* she was brought to me 1300Km from the south to the north of Italy in a cage, in a cold and loud transporter full of other dogs. You can imagine the trauma. When I got her on my arm, I cuddled her a bit, then I put her in the transportation crate I also use for her as a bed. She slept for the hour driving and nothing happened apart from a pee accident. That night she slept deep in her crate. The afternoon after that I thought to bring her to the pet shop and get some things for her. I took her and put her on the car, in the crate as the day before. It was a 3 minutes driving to the shop, and 3 mins back. She drooled so much she made the whole blankets in the crate and the whole self wet from it. She repeated this behaviour for the whole week while I was in Italy at my moms. Friday night I gave her a pill the Vet prescribed, to avoid car-sickness and she slept and was calm, not drooling the whole 8 hours driving back to Germany. I have already brought her in the car for just few minutes at the time, bringing the kids to school. Everything looks fine now, she has understood I am not leaving her. But I am doing it without the crate. She sits on a mat on the rear seat, with the safety belt and the harness. I would like to teach her to be calm and feel safe also when I bring her with me to work. I can get out of the production plant often enough to let her out. It is a solution I may need in case no one can go home to look after her. But I don't like to leave her on the seat, I will use the crate. *jumping up, scratching and biting* She got very long nails. I must trim them, but because they are black and she is so small, I don't want to risk anything and I am waiting for the first visit at the vet. Still she comes to me at times and jumps up. I try to ignore her, but it is pretty impossible to do that when she is hurting you. The same goes with the desire of attentions as soon as I talk to someone at the phone. She starts biting me, bites everywhere, the sweatshirt or the hand, the pants, the feet...her milk teeth are pretty sharp, she didn't change them all yet. How do I get her to not use her paws to catch my attention? I need something in addition to the "ignoring".

Hi Adrienne, My 4 month old beagle seems to be getting a bit aggressive. We are afraid if it's something we've done that is causing this or if he's getting anxious. The following were problems/signs that we encountered: 1) Biting us sometimes if we touch his face/ears/back 2) Biting us if we put a on leash him. 3) Excessive barking, growling and howling and pulling when put on a leash. 4) Random biting. 5) Excessively scratching on the door and screaming. 6) Disobedience 7) Peeing on and biting furniture. 😎8 ) Eats all the time. If there's no food around, he finds ways to climb up surfaces and swallow inedible items like wooden frames and plastic flowers. A little background about how we care for him and his schedule: Morning: 7:30am-a short run and some basic training 8:00: Breakfast and a walk until 9am 10:00-12:00: sleep 12:00-2:00- brain training and obedience training and he roams about. 2:00- lunch (mostly home cooked food) Sleeps until 4:30 Roams about in the house for a while (mostly till 6:30) Sleeps for a while 8:00pm dinner Plays until 9 Bed time He is not crate trained. He is stubborn but extremely smart. He has mastered several tricks within a day's time. One mistake we are aware of is that we gave him way too much freedom right from when he was little and still continue to do so because if we don't, he throws tantrums. (Barks, growls, etc) Could you also advice me about how many hours of sleep he essentially requires? We're very worried. Thanks Adrienne.span widget

Hi, We have two labradoodles both 1year old. Prego, the bigger doddle barks and bite Nala when she doesn’t want to play with him while they are by themselves or home alone. At the dog park Prego will do the same but when Nala plays along other dogs that is not him. We don’t know what to do... we have him sit and stay until he calm down while at the park. But when we leave home we cannot control his excessive barking at Nala. Prego, our caramel labradoodle will also jump and bark with high pitch when he sees other dogs when we taking on a walk. Please help!

My lab x collie has recently started getting really bad when I'm leaving the house or going to bed. Shes aggressively barking and nothing will calm her, including a pack of ham, if I turn my back on her shes jumping up and going to bite my arm!!! She is 1 on 31st july, had her 3.5 months. Please any advice.

We have a 3 1/2-year-old female peekapoo and a 2 1/2-year-old male German Shepherd, both neutered. (Also a very old female cocker spaniel, neutered, but she's probably not directly involved in this issue.) They're both generally good dogs though not well enough trained and they seem to enjoy the shelter at home time. They also, generally, get along fine. The German Shepherd's main behavioral issue is that when he gets bored he becomes an insufferable pest. But, that's not my problem here. The problem is that, sometimes, often for no reason I can see, he attacks the peekapoo. He grabs her by the neck tight enough that she has trouble barking. He's never actually hurt her, though he certainly could. There's usually no obvious cause. For instance the peekapoo will chase the German Shepherd away from her food and he's fine with that. She'll eat his dog food, and he's fine with that too. Most recently she was maybe 50 ft away from him peeing in the grass and he ran over and grabbed her by the neck. He's not well enough trained to listen when he is really intent on something like this, so we can't just tell him to drop or come or leave it. He still thinks of commands as strong suggestions. We're working on that. Sometimes he bites the peekapoo when she is barking annoyingly at deer in the backyard. Maybe he can tell that it's bugging me. But him attacking her while she was peeing in the grass stretches the idea that he's being an enforcer for me. He has heard me scold her for peeing in the house, but I like her to pee in the grass! The peekapoo, by the way, is not intimidated. She stands her ground. Another thing. They usually get along fine. Sometimes you'll find them curled up on the same mat, asleep. My questions are, why do you think he's doing this, and what is the most effective way to get him to stop?

Hello Adrienne and everyone, We (family of 4, 2 daughters ages 10 and 6) brought a German Shepherd female puppy two weeks ago, she is now in her 9th week. She is bonding rather well i would say, she seems to seek me most, cuddling up and gently nibbling on my hand. She has no health issues although she still cannot go on walks until she gets her last vaccine in about 3 weeks time. I have a already thought her to sit and lie down. I am reinforcing these every day, for eg. sitting before feeding her, lie down before i open door to enter the room, etc. I'm aware at this age they have teething problems but I am running out of toys and ideas on how to go about it. She is starting to nip and bite at my daughters heels, and our shoes when we walk. Some questions I have are: 1. Redirecting her to teething toys is no longer alluring for her, and neither rotating them (taking some away for a few days and then give them back). She keeps biting at our heels and hands, although sometimes she reduces the pressure and looks at me as if saying 'is this ok?'. Should I keep buying new toys at this stage to keep her interest in new things to bite? Am i expecting to much in expecting her to quit biting after a week she has been with us? 2. What are some realistic timelines by when she is expected to stop biting, provided that we keep our redirection attempts? 3. Separation anxiety: sometimes i take her in the basement office with me when i work. I keep her in the room next to mine which is separated by a glass door so she can see me, but she still takes some time to settle down despite having a lot of toys and couch. Should i try easing her in for a longer time before i walk out, or should i ignore her? 4. Sometimes she has bursts of energy and when this happens i take her out in the yard to steam off with her toys. How do i calm her down afterwards? is 15 minutes of this enough? 5. Housebreaking seems to work sometimes, we can recognise when she needs to go because she starts sniffing around and we take her out, but there are times where she would leak inside. Again, if we keep consistency from our end, when is it realistic for her to stop leaking inside? 7. We are using a crate only for the night. She whimpers a bit but then she settles after i go next to her and sort of reassure her. Is this ok? Can we avoid crate training during the rest of the day? Thanks in advance for your help. Chris

I have a Pyrenees/Anatolian/Catahoula mix who just turned a year old a few weeks ago. When he was still very young, he often exhibited playful aggression (i.e. jumping and biting, sometimes quite hard, but with playful body language) while on walks. I tried to train it out, and as summer came and he grew older the behavior stopped. Quite reasonably I think, I believed he'd simply grown out of it. Evidently I was wrong. It's gotten chilly again, and he's gotten aggressive again, although he still appears to be having a great time tearing me to shreds. It's become quite a serious problem, as he's an 83lb dog. He never bites strangers or other dogs, just me and my immediate family. I've tried ignoring it on the grounds that its attention seeking behavior, but he's quite large and, to put it frankly, it hurts. A lot. I have absolutely no idea how to handle "extremely painful weather based play biting." Thoughts? Resources? Please god help.

I recently rescued a puppy who is about 7-8 months old. I have noticed that sometimes, he will whine and bite me, I think for attention or to play. However now I am not so sure what he is trying to tell me because I put him in the crate after a particularly bad bout of whining and biting, and he calmed down instantly, no whining or trying to get out. He is the sweetest puppy and very friendly to everyone, but I'm not sure how to deal with this biting behavior which is getting worse. Yelping at his bites did not help to stop him, and so I have started to stand up and walk away. However sometimes he will come up and bite me on the back of the legs, when I turn away to ignore him. Is this a typical attention seeking behavior from an energetic puppy or could he be trying to tell he something else?

I adopted my little 14 pound chihuahua mix from a shelter about 8 months ago.. when we first got him he was extremely scared he sat in the corner of my kitchen for 3 days shaking and crying. After a lot of patience and told he finally came around. Carter is now what I can extremely emotionally attached to me. He is also extremely aggressive. I have 4 kids. Sometimes when Carter is in a bad mood and one of my kids walks by him he growls and lunges at them in attack mode. He has done this to everyone in the house including me. He is untrained in every way except he is potty trained. He has bit houseguests before just for standing up after sitting on my couch. I have tried almost EVERYTHING and nothing is working.. I LOVE him to death but he is a safety hazard to my family

I am beyond frustrated! I have a 16 week old lab puppy. The entire 8 weeks have been dreadful, due to her obsession with biting me. Not normal puppy mouthing, but blood drawing, skin ripping biting! Nothing I have tried will stop her. She will gladly do almost anything for a treat, but as soon as I run out of treats, I am bitten. Take her for a walk, guaranteed she will sink her teeth into my legs. Play time always results in me bleeding. My hands, arms, and legs are ripped up and bruised. She is my 8th puppy, and never have I experienced this. I keep a light leash on her in the house, and when she comes near me and bites my leg, she then goes for my hand, arm, or other body parts when I reach for the leash. I am heartbroken over this. What should have been 8 weeks of enjoying my new fur baby, has been exhausting and painful. I started this course tonight. She did well with the pre school basic of “target”, then back to biting. I don’t know whether to scream or cry. Help!

Hi All, Shamus is a 1 year old, 18 lb terrier mutt rescue that we’ve had since about 12 weeks old. He has been a great dog, except when he began showing barking at the window to people going by, getting worse as guests (known and unknown) come into our house. I hit the “enough” point last night when we had friends over and he barked all evening, even nipping my male friend in a way that was not playful. I understand at this point that we don’t have enough control over him and he’s running wild trying to protect his territory (?). Barking at people/dogs/bike riders is also an issue on walks. So I don’t know where to begin with correcting him. Here are some details. -I am a first time dog owner, so trying to follow loving instincts with how I treat him but realize I don’t know what I am doing. I am overwhelmed by so much conflicting training advice so I hope this can be the one gentle loving course that will help me train him :) -He took a puppy course at 6 months and is decent with come, sit, stay (sort of on stay). -He is not crate trained and sleeps with us. -There are 4 of us in the house and it’s hard to have consistency with how he is treated. Me, husband, my mother, and my daughter who is 6. -Because of the above, training hasn’t moved beyond basics and those commands aren’t given consistently every day. -I work out of the house 2 days a week so he is home with my mom, who will never be a consistent or strong leader for him. -Obviously we need to be able to leave him home alone without barking however I have strange feelings about creating an animal for several hours. It doesn’t feel right to me. -I believe he shows me respect by sitting in my presence, being calm when I come home and waiting for me to greet him, waiting to eat until I say it’s ok. But he doesn’t show anyone else the same, and it’s very hard to redirect him once he’s worked up from the anxiety of a person coming in our house. Thank you for any help on getting me started. And I realize I have done many things wrong...feeling very badly about that. Ashamed almost :(

Hi ! I have a chihuahua pup who is about 4 months old and although his zoomies can be quite funny to watch, they are usually frustrating because they also include biting and ripping off everything at his height... When he gets that excited he also runs around us and bites our feet. I suppose it is because he wants to play and get attention and so far we have been trying to just walk away and ignore him when he bites so that he knows it is not the way. But even though he bites less in general, he still bites our feet quite often and when he does, he becomes uncontrollable. I can't seem to find an article about this on the website, maybe you can help?