Puppy help

You could also wear a gilly suit so he would not see you.

 

Asserting dominance is the way to go.

Watch the Dog Whisperer.

 

So no luck on the puppy recipe, then?

 

Sounds like he's the one looking for a recipe.

 

No, he apparently prefers the raw bar.

 

The water bottles work great. My sister has a giant lab/mastif cross. Pretty sure he is half horse. It has been the most effective tool in training him, especially in combination with assertive dominance.

 

i highly recommend ian dunbar's book, "before and after getting your puppy."

the most important thing to realize is that your dog doesn't understand anything you're saying to it right now. it's only starting to make connections between the words you use and the associated actions. positive reinforcement is key, which means patience and calmness are paramount. reward the hell out of good behavior, ignore what you want to go away. tone of voice is important when you use your words to train, but most everything right now needs to be conveyed through your actions. if your puppy is nipping, nipping, nipping, especially to the point of drawing blood, and you say "no!" or "stop it!" or "ouch!" -- well, that's not really doing much because the puppy doesn't understand you, but it's getting a reaction out of you and the "game" keeps going. the bad manners are being reinforced, even if you don't realize it.

when puppies play with each other and one gets too aggressive with its mouth, the hurt puppy will yelp really loudly (you should do this and take your hand away, stop the game momentarily) and if the bad behavior continues, the hurt puppy will run away to end the game (you should do this too, to signal that what you did hurt me and i will not play with you when you do that). of course, when the puppy settles down, come back to it, put it on its back (this asserts your dominance) and praise it and give it a belly rub when it chews a toy (positively reinforcing the good manners). you should play with your puppy's mouth as much as possible early on so it learns to have a soft mouth, i.e., what is too strong a bite and what can hurt people. i think, according to the book, the puppy should learn by five months that using its mouth for anything but eating or toys isn't acceptable. it's something that gets phased out.

there are many methods to puppy training. i can't stress how well this book worked for my wife and me when we recently got our first dog. just my two cents. hope you are enjoying puppyhood!

 

Thanks, e4. I think I do a lot of that, but I just must not be doing it right. When he nips at me, I pull my hand back ... but he takes that as an invitation to jump after it. An invitation to continue the game, as it were.

So I'll keep working at it, and I'll try the yelp next.

 

Audio has to go hand in hand... scold when bad, praise when good. Tone is everything...
We still praise our dogs when they go out to do their business at ages 11 and 3, but I suspect it's because they have us trained to praise them for it over the years. When Jack really has to go, he finds my slipper and brings it to one of us because he knows I'll put them on before he goes out in the morning. He learned to equate the slipper with needing to go out...

 

Yeah, i do the same steps before we go out, hoping he'll associate it. I just hope he gets a code for it too.

 

What worked best with my dog (see Avatar) was an exaggerated cry of pain and then a verbal "No!"

Now she tends to nibble just a bit, then lick me because she thinks she's hurting me.

 

The one in my avatar likes to pretend she's going to bite your nose when you bend over. She never does but she snaps her jaw closed. It scares people, so I have to warn them not to bend over to her. I think she did it to you too, IJAG.