We are the proud owners of a beautiful Golden Lab puppy just over 4 months old. She's an excellent dog and is about to graduate from obedience class at Petco (which has been excellent). One major problem: biting or nipping. Mainly my wife - early mornings. Our obedience instructor says harsh punishment is not the way to correct her behavior. She suggests throwing some of her dry food or small treats on the floor or redirecting her behavior with a toy or chewey, If she persists hook her up to her leach and tie her away from us. At 36 pounds she's quite a handful to push down when she jumps up and wants to bite my wife's toes/legs. She doesn't do it as much to me because my deep voice seems to scare her. With the sharp baby teeth still intact she can draw blood when she playfully bites. Any suggestions?
My Sophie (black lab) is 13 weeks today and her biting has intensified and is out of control. She bites me a lot and I feared she was growing into an aggressive dog. After a complete crying meltdown, I calmed myself and hired a dog behaviorist in my area. I was fortunate that she wasn't super expensive, came to my house and had glowing reviews about helping with aggressive shelter dogs. After observing me with Sophie for a couple hours, she told me Sophie isnt aggressive, she's just out of control with no manners and has taken the leadership role since I am not providing the right leadership and energy, and so Sophie is confused and stressed over having to be the leader. She addressed many things I was doing wrong, that you don't find in obedience videos. Since she left yeterday, I have been focusing on making Sophie give me a watch me before every thing I do like before I give her food, water, a toy, treat, etc. I also added more ruleslike making her give me a sit and a wait before everything we do - before we go for a walk, before I let her out of her playpen, before I put her leash on her. When she was trying to get into mulch today, I remained calm but firm instead of saying NO, NO SOPHIE, NO, LEAVE IT. I had her look at me, redirected her attention, had her give me a "touch" on my hand, gave her a treat and away we walked. Sophie has been biting me on the legs and calves vert bad when I let her out of the crate in the morning. Today, I made her sit and wait while I opened the door, then made her sit and wait while I put on the leash---and NO BITING! She has not attempted to bite me once today. She also attemps to bit me in the chair, which Kristi told me to stand up and ignore versus looking down at her yelling from the chair because my body language might be mistaken as a play bow which means "game on, let's bite and play!" I'm sure she's not cured and some biting will come back, but now I'm more confident that she's starting to see me a as a leader. Maybe look up Leadership skills - McCann Dogs has some info on Your Tube and have her watch it. Maybe if she changes some of her body language, adds some simple calm rules and hand gestures, things might start to improve if the pup is seeing you as the leader but maybe not your wife 0 the dog might see her as an equal which means littermate which means biting is fun!.
So happy that you are seeing some improvement! I'm going to try the sit and wait strategy. I have also found McCann dogs on YouTube in the last few days and found their videos very helpful - wish I had watched them much earlier..
