BrooklynBasset

Our 11 week old Basset, Higgins has begun nipping while playing. I understand this is normal puppy behavior but, lately every play session involves him wanting to nip at our hands/arms, feet, clothing, anything that is hanging above him.
We've been doing what all the books say, "give him a soft toy to chew", "remove yourself from the activity" ect.... Any other suggestions out there?

It's frustrating because he seems like he has a split personality when he begins to nip!

Mikey T

The book is fine for an older dog ie teething What you want to do know is teach bite inhibition. And this needs a systematic approach. ie. no hard bites, followed by no mouth on skin here is a more comprehensive link

Bite Inhibition - How to Teach It

[quote]We've been doing what all the books say, "give him a soft toy to chew", "remove yourself from the activity" ect.... Any other suggestions out there? /quote]



let us talk about training for a minute Rather than have two, three or more different training alternative and using them all is a recipe for disaster. It is far to confusing for the dog. lets look as some of the alternative you mentioned

1, the soft toy is good method for dealing with distructive chewing or chewing inappropriate objects that are not human. It is not a good alternative for nipping on humans because it never teaches the dog to have a soft mouth It actual to some extent encourages nipping humans because it is an easy alternative to get a chew toy heck one chomp on a human and i get the toy I wanted. The destructive chewing stage general dues not start untill 16 weeks of age when the dog start teething.

2. Yelling ow. For some dogs it works greats, for others it it seems to ecourage the dog to bite harder try it if it work for you fine if not go on to something else. It makes little sense to stick with a method that makes thing worse.

3. Leaving the secret to this is you must do so in a calculated way that is as soon as the bite is too hard leave. no fanfar. no explaining to the dog why ect. leave. Timing is crucial a delay of a second or two makes it much more dificult for the dog to associate his behavior hard bite with your leaving.

4. Remove the dog ie. time out again the same as three but general it requires the dog have some sort of restraint attached to him like a tab (short leash) because picking the dog up, Grabing by the collar etc can be rewarding the dog for the bitting behavior rather than punishing him.

An on to the leaving senarios There is an impportant aspect to training that no one ever mention. Previously rewarded behavior like nipping, simply do not disappear easily when you stop rewarding them, Oh no, they will get worse , much worse houw much worse depends on how much it was previously reinforced. think of an elevator button you push the button the elevator goes to the floor selected, What happens the first time you push the butten and nothing happens. Do you say well that doesn;t work I need to try something else. Nt bloody likely, You push the button over and over, harder, faster sloer etc trying to make it work. That is what the puppy will do to. trying to figure out why what use to work does not work anymore. the fact the behavior actual gets worse before it gets better is normal. BRW the name of this phenoneneom is called and extinction burst.


There are a large number of people that have a hard time using Negitive Punishment (removing something , ie attention, to reduce the likelihood of a behavior nipping) There is another way of thing about this that often works for them In stead of punishing the dog by leaving, Reward the dog. Yup reward the dog for nipping with quality time in his crate etc. So ineffect you are reward the dog for its behavior it just happens to be a reward the dog does not want.

see Insight into Puppy Mouthing
You Won the Prize


So the basic are take a look at the dogs behavior and how it reacts to you. You have a pretty good idea if you do one thing what the dogs reaction will be , use that knowledge when selecting a methodolgy for correcting the behavior. Stick it on training method for a particular behavior, if you need to make slight adjustment do so. but be consistent. Be sure the timing of your reaction is at or within a second or two of the dogs behavior. After that you can't besure the dog will make the right connection between your reaction and his behavior, without this conection the dog will not change its behavior.

The cues ie leaving, yelling must be clear and consice. When leaving quick turn your back from the dog and leave. Don't worry about leaving the dog on the chouch, trying to reason with the dog etc. It muddles the picture for the dog.

Raz

Good post Brooklyn, Snoops has just started doing the same thing with my wife and me at 8 weeks, so was going to post something similar. Mike thanks for the post and super links, I will have to try those things as well. It's been so long since I had a pup and never one so young.

SophieB

Just get Higgins another puppy and he'll play with him instead of 'nipping' you! It's only playing! We got two litter sisters together and neither 'nipped' us like single Bassets often do, as our two pups had each other!

jmwolff

I have to say...I had one basset for 11 years....now that he is gone, we got two 1 year olds...having two is fun! They love each other, and I think are alot less lonely when they are w/out us.

CharlieSue

We did what the books told us too.. and eventually Charlie just grew out of it. Although, she does play with us sometimes like she plays with other dogs. She'll open her mouth and put her mouth on us with out actually biting down.