Biting Continues

More and more we are liking the muzzle suggestion.  We've put it on only once thus far.  The trainer gave us some counter-intuitive ideas to try after witnessing her behavior yesterday during training.  

We've been very hands off with her outside of gentle patting, ear rubs and the like.  But she does seem to thrive and desire rougher handling.  So he did suggest using some hands on, not wrestling, but rougher play with her as rewards only...in conjunction with either isolation in the closet or muzzle depending on which we choose.  

I felt like this would be a recipe for disaster, b/c my goal has been to CALM her down, not revv her up, but he demonstrated and we did do this last night with her to some degree of success.  She loved it, got a little mouthy (I distinguish between mouthy and biting), but when I ended it she was done.  She also showed new enthusiam for obedience command practice when this was used as a reward (also with tug play which she loves as well).  This morning, she tried to get bitey with me and instead of being uber calm in my voice, I got not overly excited, but kinda happy excited and was able to redirect her energy that way. 

I'll give this a week before I decide if this is helping or not, but she does appear to be responded favorably to it. 

Oh and if it helps she's fed out of a buster cube, to slow down her eating and give her something to work at.  I may just have to intercede right around 7 or a little before with some sort of chill out activity she enjoys to head off the nuttiness before it begins! 

 Some small accomplishments:

1.  I am now the majority of the time able to redirect her biting.  I've found using a VERY soft quiet voice, using her name (in a sing-songish way) - followed by some command she knows works very very well for refocusing her attention, rather than doing ANY sharp noises (including OW, YIPPING, etc - those just rile her up).   She is still got the problem of trying to bite in the first place, but this is leaps and bounds where we were before.  Soon I'm hoping for an extinction of this behavior. 

2.  She's actually BROUGHT over a toy to me on occasions where she was starting to get bitey with me, I shot her "a look" and told her to "think about it" (I've ALWAYS said this phrase when she's about to do something she's not supposed to do).  She sat down, cocked her head at me - and went and brought me a toy.  I CELEBRATED this and each time we have a good game of tug (which she loves).  Eventually she will have to understand that I can't ALWAYS play with her at any given moment - but to bring a toy over to me is awesome, instead of eliciting attention by biting. 

3.  We started naming her toys and she's just about got frisbee down - my hopes is to use naming of the toys as part of redirecting her bitey behavior. 

4.  She's doing well with basic obedience.  This week we are introducing some minor distractions.  We're also working on training her to sit in a designated spot for people coming to or leaving the door (she has a bad habit of rushing the door - not to get outside but to greet people a little too enthusiastically).  She also barks, which I'm OK with - but I'm working on getting her to stop barking after I've acknowledged her warning that someone is near the house.  She's slowly picking that up (I use the Ok, good girl, I got it from here - maybe a lot of words, but it's mostly the tone she responds to). 

5.  Her first doggy play group is Saturday!  The person moderating it is well aware of Ari and her issues - and since she's not aggressive, I was happy we were going to be let in.  I was a tad worried since we are still battling mouthing/biting problems.  

Mostly I'm just thrilled that I'm able to redirect her biting behavior more often than not now. 
 

Awesome progress!  Congrats!  I love it when we find that THING that works!

CoBuHe

Awesome progress!  Congrats!  I love it when we find that THING that works!

:)  Believe me I am sooo happy.  Cannot express it in words.  Funny, all the advice I was getting from people (not necessarily here, meaning more various trainers I've talked with, breeder even) made darn certain to emphasize that I needed to use a sharp LOUD voice to get her attention.  Well it definitively does get her attention - makes her even more riled up!  I discovered the soft voice one day because I was worn out with her, and I said it very quietly almost pleadingly for her to just stop.  And she did!  Heck with this we even do MORE training throughout the day because I'll typically redirect her into a training session. 

Right now the BEST word I can use that describes how we are training Ari (or correcting behavior issues) is negotiations.  This isn't about a battle of wills anymore (she wins in that game even if all she gets is negative attention), but more so let's meet halfway here.  There are absolutes in the house she needs to learn and respect (biting, counter surfing *even when nothing is on there!* and jumping being the big three) but we're doing our best to demonstrate why following those rules is better for her (more positive attention, we introduced tugging as a reward, and yes I will even now rough house with her a bit since she LOOVES it - she craves tactile stimulation like that). 
 

Sounds like you are really making some progress!  I know you must feel like you have been fighting an uphill battle and finally you can see the end.  I'm really happy for you and I hope Ari has a great time at her play date Saturday. Your description of the training method as negotiations is so accurate and is something to think about when we get locked into a certain method.  You hit on the way to get her attention by accident and that led to a different way of thinking about the whole biting to get attention problem.  Way to go, Sharon.

corvus

Has anyone else experienced grooming nibbles

Yes. Shadow has given me grooming nibbles. Very gentle, with his incisors, never hurt, sometimes tickles. Other times, when I am sick, he will lay in the bed behind me and lick my neck.