Puppy nipping/jumping up

bellastella227

Hi...I haven't been on in forever but I recently got a puppy and remembered this board. We got him in early June at about 8 weeks. He is now 6 months old. We took the puppy class at Petsmart and he seemed to learn all the tricks well. He is pretty much potty trained, which I thought would be the hardest thing. It isn't.

His worst habit that I cannot seem to break is nipping and/or jumping up on us. He was neutered today and they pulled out the last of his canine teeth. I know part of the problem is his sharp teeth get caught on our clothes and things. But at this point, I feel like he shouldn't be jumping up and nipping at all.

How do I deter this and fix it for good? I can't let my young kids around him unsupervised yet. I feel like I am constantly yelling at them to stay in their seats and at him to get down.

In training, we taught him "leave it," "down," and "drop it." He does fine in the training situation but not so much in real situations. The trainer suggested that we freeze and yelp when he nips, but my kids are too young to consistently and accurately do that and it doesn't seem to work well with him anyway. I've tried grabbing his neck each time. I've pulled out treats and treated him if he calms down and sits quietly. But the second I put them away, he is back at it.

Any other ideas for me to try? We cannot keep him if we can't break this habit. But I get so sad thinking that because we have had him for a few months now so it would be heartbreaking as well as I know that this is a trainable problem. HELP!!! 

Thanks for any tips or advice. I appreciate it!

abby0313

my pup is about 6 1/2 months now and we have a problem with him jumping on guests because he's so excited there are new people over. What has been working for us is having guests ignore him until he settles down and/or if he is jumping on them, to step forward into him and say OFF (firmly but not yell), this causes the pup to become a bit off balance and get down. by guests ignoring him (or my FI and I) he will start to understand that he gets praise/attention when he's good, nothing when he's being jumpy or over excited.

With the nipping, our trainer suggested we make a sharp "ouch" sound and ignore them again after. Generally speaking, dogs will continue to do something if they aren't corrected so if he's nipping, nipping, nipping, and then gets scolded, he will start to think, ok, I can do this until mom gets mad then I stop; if you correct the behavior right away you may have better luck. Also, try replacing what he's chewing on, so instead of your hand, give him a rope or chew toy so he has something keep him occupied....he may still be teething.

Good luck with everything; whatever route you decide to go with just stay consistent, if you have people coming over, tell them before they come in what the ground rules are; also, if he gets overly excited around company, just keep him on a leash for the first 10 minutes or so that people are there, that way he cant necessarily get to them or all over them. You can make him sit and wait for your guests to greet him.

 

abby0313

I missed the paragraph about the kids; how old are they, are you usually in the room with them and the pooch? If so, help "train" your kids how to do it also. My godson is 3 and he knows to tell our pup "no" if he's doing something he's not supposed to but all kids are different. Just talk to your kids about what the puppy is allowed to do and what he's not. I think as long as you and H are consistent with the pup, you should be able to teach him the manners you want him to have. The kids will learn from what you are doing and probably follow suit also.

sandollar1010

My pup took along time to grow out of this phase too.  The ONLY thing that worked for us was to completely ignore her and turn your back on her.  Yelling, yipping, pushing, kneeing, etc. only got her more worked up and crazy.  You can get your kids on board too, just have them cross their arms and turn away from the puppy.  The puppy gets your back when he/she is jumping or nipping.  No attention, eye contact, affection, words, or anything until the puppy is calm.  My trainer explained it well - even bad attention is still attention to a crazy puppy.  It worked pretty fast for my girl.  Now she just sits in front of me wiggling like crazy because she knows she can't jump or grab my hands.  Good luck!

RedheadBaker

The optimal time for puppies to spend with their mother and littermates is 12 weeks, so he may not have learned bite inhibition. 

We have a page in our board FAQs on that:

https://sites.google.com/site/petsboardfaqs/home/training-and-behavior/bite-inhibition-training 

Regarding his resuming the bad behavior once you put the treats away, you need to wean off using them gradually and bring them out again every once in a while. The technical term is something like varied-schedule reinforcement, but it's the same principle that keeps people coming back to slot machines: "Maybe I'll win *this* time!"  

Have you read the book "Don't Shoot the Dog!" by Karen Pryor? It's a really great read on positive reinforcement.  

bellastella227

Thanks for the responses! We have just started the freeze/tree pose and ignoring and will see what happens. Thanks for the link to the FAQ board---didn't know about that! I am also going to check out that book.