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My Dog Loves to Lick!! Advice?
So my dog, Dutch, will be 2 sometime this summer. We're pretty sure he's a pitbull/boxer mix and he's the sweetest thing on the planet. We rescued him when he was 2-3 months old. He's always been a great dog, very smart, trained easily. The only thing is that he loves to lick you! He'll sit down next to you and as you pet him, he will just lick away at your hands, your arms, anything.
His favorite body part is the hand, that's for sure. When he was a puppy, he liked to play bite at hands and we got him to transition to licking rather than play biting, but have not been able to fully stop the licking! Most of the time if I snap my fingers at him, he stops, but it's not foolproof and doesn't work as well when he's grooming our company! It doesn't bother me and my husband too much, but we have guests, and I don't want them to be subjected to his baths. Any advice to keep him from licking so darn much?
Re: My Dog Loves to Lick!! Advice?
I think you can use the same "ouch" technique you use to stop puppy biting. Make a loud high pitched noise and then leave the presence of the dog. The loud noise should get his attention and leaving his presence will let him know the behavior is not acceptable.
I really don't like being licked either but my child LOVES it. When my dog is licking me I redirect her to DD haha. Sweet toddler giggles of puppy love always follow.
Ditto that using a similar tactic to stopping the play biting should work here. When he starts licking, you stop petting. Making whatever no-no noise you use should get it to click faster. In our case, it would be something like this:
::petting our dog; dog starts licking:: "Eh eh!" ::stop petting/move hands away::
The important thing is to stop touching the dog immediately. Any sort of contact is viewed as attention from the dog, and they want to do whatever they can to get your attention. Showing him that he's doing something that makes your attention go away from him should help him learn fairly quickly that what he's doing is not acceptable.
I would NOT start using hand sanitzers frequently; not only will you dry out your hands, but I wouldn't want my dog ingesting whatever chemicals are in those things.
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My dog has the same problem. She is a 3 year old lab/german shepherd mix. When we were training her not to bite as a puppy, I would always tell her "Good girls don't bite. They kiss!" and now it has become an obsession. She gives so many licks, especially after she drinks water. It is almost as if she is drying off her tongue by licking my leg.
Thanks for posting this! It's been super helpful!