We have a 1 and a half year old female chocolate lab. We love her to death. After a rough puppy stage she has matured a bit. But there is one thing she still does and that is biting. She will be fine, and then all of a sudden jump on me and bite my lips, nose, hands, and arms. She does not growl or anything, but it is troubling to say the least. She mainly does it to me. Does anyone know why she does this? Or does anyone have experience with this? Does anyone have any advice? We have gone to training and still nothing works.
That is unusual at 18 months old, but not unheard of. It sounds like she's trying to get you to play, but if I were you i'd book a session with a canine behaviorist that specialises in positive reinforcement methods, as if she did it to someone smaller and more vulnerable than you at that age and size it could cause problems. Let us know how she gets along!
So sorry to hear you are experiencing that. It must be difficult to live with. Does she kind of seem overexcited and if it’s not you she’s biting, is it anything else around you ? Has it ever stopped or has biting continued since she was a little puppy? I hope you can find a behaviourist that gives you good advice.
in my experience training classes taught us good skills and exercised my dog’s mind but it didn’t target specific behaviours in context, perhaps both training classes and behaviourist advice may help ?
My dog last bit me badly aged 18 months ( in a training class where I had ignored warning signs from him when I should have just gone home in hindsight). He is a lovely dog but I do have to constantly be aware of his potential to get overexcited and overstimulated - these days this manifests as humping and mouthing of clothes rather than full-on biting. I can prevent it happening 99% of the time by anticipating when it is going to happen and asking him to sit and stay before he goes loopy.
My lovely dog was an enthusiastic mouther until past her second birthday, she'd get over excited and grab my arm or wrist or clothes, frequently drawing blood. I didn't want to call it biting because she's totally non-aggressive, but it was inappropriate and hard mouthing is very upsetting. We saw a behaviourist and went to training classes that didn't help as the energy and noise was too high, and when things didn't work the final advice was muzzle training which I was reluctant to do. I found another behaviourist trainer that understands her much better and we've done lots of work to encourage calm behaviour. Off lead in open spaces was the main trigger, and meeting other dogs, she'd run at me and grab with her teeth (an overgrown puppy!) Teaching her 'stop' at a distance helped me enormously, and now at 29 months she's largely grown out of mouthing. So my advice is to find a good trainer behaviourist who understands dogs as individuals, and then work out a strategy that keeps you safe until the behaviour stops. Good luck!
