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Just got a new puppy - a stray who showed up at my farm that, despite my best efforts, no one seemed to be looking for, so I am going to keep her.
Possible belgian sheepdog/border collie mix (?) about 3-4 months old, 25 lbs or so.
She has been very good in the house - no accidents, crates well, good eating routine (waits patiently) and is very friendly with the dogs and people she's met on outings.
She has been very nippy but was improving daily. Has had a few mild protests to corrections (asking her to move away from me when eating for example) but gave up after a few barks and went and lay down.
BUT today we were playing outside - throwing the ball etc when she nipped hard on my leg. I 'poked' her like Cesar does and she went ballistic. I mean like a wild animal - running crazy circles around me, nipping as she went by, grabbing my hands, pants, sleeves etc. I yelped a loud high pitched 'ouch' and walked away - she basically chased and jumped and nipped and acted like a crazy thing. I grabbed her collar to take her back to the house to get her leash and she flipped herself over and rolled around like a fish on a hook, grabbing at my hand and flailing with her legs at my arm. I tried very hard to stay calm yet assertive. I kept thinking in my head "I just want you to calm down' and she kept going nuts. I tried once to hold her down for a short time, but that just made it worse so I stopped. Nothing I tried made an ounce of difference in her - she just got more and more wound up.
FInally got back to the house, got the leash and did a small amount of calm leash work back in the yard with her and she seemed to be fine again. I think going back into the house to get the leash snapped her out of it.
She had tons of exercise prior to that. Hiked for about an hour in the paths we have in our fields, and played frisbee so I was shocked that she had so much 'fight' in her over such a small correction that she has had before and responded to before.
Needless to say, my hands and arms are scratched and cut and I'm at a total loss. I've never in my life seen a puppy act like such a wild untamed animal before - completely out of her mind - no sense what so ever. Never seen anything close to it. I'm in shock.
HELP please!
Well in order to fix it i think you will have to find out what triggered it. You don't want a kid or someone else to trigger that kind of tempertantrum.
I would repeat the same process, if she goes nuts agian I would gain control of her (IE hold her down) and give her a firm NO. You have to let her know its not play and its not acceptable behavior. Somethings that work great on one dog won't work well for others.
Gotta find what works for your dog.
www.AmstaffTalk.com
While the pups history is unknown lets assume it hasn’t learned ‘bit inhibit’, there’s loads on the internet on the subject so I won’t bother re-writing it here.
I’m guessing at the instant this leg bite happened that perhaps you had the ball or perhaps the whole situation was just way too excited? So you applied what you call a ‘correction’ and puppy saw it as either an attack or an invitation for more rough play. So you attempted to correct that which the puppy saw as another attack so you attacked the puppy again trying to pin it down. This is now a life or death situation for the pup, because the pup hasn’t seen the DW show and has no other understanding of what you were doing to it. Then you gave up the fight so the puppy won and then you rewarded it for it!!!
I’d recommend you research bite inhibit and the tips and tricks for dealing with it. ABSOLUTELY NEVER pin down/alpha role a pup and NEVER pin down/alpha role a dog unless you really know what you are doing you could cause the dog major problems, get injured yourself or seriously injured if it involves an adult dog.
In general don’t let situations become too excited, play stops if it gets too excited, start again when the dog has calmed down. If the dog does ANYTHING un-required during play STOP, put the ball/toy away and totally ignore the dog. When and only when the dog offers calm-submissive behaviour then play can commence again. Rules, boundaries and limitations YOU set them and stick to them 100%. Then the dog learns the ONLY way to get what it wants is to offer calm-submissive behaviour.
Hope this helps,
Dave (England UK)
By hold down i didn't me alpha role, i meant re-gain control of the situation. Whether that means holding the dog, grabbing the collar or holdin it down. etc..
By doing that you accomplishing three things, safer envioronment for both of you, it will calming the dogs excited state down and not letting him think he is in charge.
WOW...You just described my puppy EXACTLY!!! She is part Aussi and part Lab.. 10 weeks old .and still relatively small thank God I am also at a loss when she gets that wild...I have narrowed down when it happens for my pup tends to be at about 8 30 p.m... the behaviour tends to happen no matter what we are doing and it is also useless to try any of the techniques Cesar shows,,,she just gets more excited.. Holding her down is ABSOLUTELY not working.....So while I am trying various techniques such as stopping play , treats, ignoring her etc..she does eventually snap out of it... but it is hit and miss at this point. and she can snap out of it and then return to the behaviour for no apparent reason..The one thing I really am trying is to wait for that moment of calm before we do anything positive....I am interested to see what people say about this because it is perplexing!
Please let me know if anything works consistently because I would sure appreciate it...I also just ordered Cesar's book a member of the family to see if there is anything in there that might help...Sure would like to see Cesar with this dog when she gets the "crazy eyes" as we call it! Good luck...
Dorothy
Hi Dorothy,
For the most part CM methods are NOT suitable for puppies. As a general overview CM methods are for adult dogs with issues that are primarily about dominance, aggression and lack of balance. Of course these issues can and do appear in a puppy but puppies are to some extent a ‘blank canvas’ with much to learn, for the most part it doesn’t even know ‘dogish’, like a human child it has a VERY limited understanding of its own language and is often removed from its birth pack before it gets a chance to learn.
So you need to think in terms of it not being a small dog but a ‘baby dog’ and your job is to be its surrogate parent. When you get a new puppy your first port of call should be your vet for a thorough health check. If you haven’t done that already I’d suggest you do just to eliminate any health issues from the equation.
As I suggested to Maximus, research ‘bite inhibit’ this is something the puppy would normally learn from its natural parent and littermates, you’ll need to continue this teaching/learning.
Mean time if you could furnish us with more details as to what is going on before things kick-off then people here might be able to offer you more guidance.
does can't tell time. So don't say "it's around 8:30pm that the dog goes nuts" (-.-) if so then my dog needs to learn this time telling trick so he can wake me up in the morning. XD
Why didn’t I think of that… stop the clock… stop the problem J
Incidentally… we have a cat that can tell the time, it used to get my daughter up for school in the morning J And… and, the dogs seem to know when its time for a ride in the truck to go and get Helen from work!
Never underestimate a dogs instincts. My pups always wen through what was called a "Witching Hour" at night, when they would get all hyper and crazy.
Also, my JRT always knows when I'm getting ready to leave, and she runs and trys to hide, to avoid her crate!
Luke - My Treadmill Dog
I agree actually, I have a routine with my dogs, we get up at the same sort of time every day, get fed at the same sort of time each day, sleep at the same time etc etc. So whilst my dogs can't 'tell the time' in that they don't look at the clock and know that at 8pm they get their last walk of the day, they do tend to get up and start getting restless at about 7.55pm every day. So I can undersatnd that if you have a set routine it may appear your dog does know what time it is. My two youngest (9months and 15months) have 'mad half hours' at points throughout the day and these usually occur at tha same sort of times, first thing in the morning, then around 11am then again at around 5pm, they run around and wrestle with each other and generally just have fun. A dogs instinct is a pretty impressive thing sometimes!
Kate
Dave - my brother has a cat that has that same ability to know what time it is. He wakes him up just before his alarm goes off every morning...and whines at the door if my brother is late getting home in the evening! The cat also waits at the back door for him...and my brother is the only one who uses the back door and even then he only uses it after work!! This has no relevance to the out of control puppy of course, but I do believe that dogs, cats, animals in general are very aware of the time of day. To that end, Maximus....he is still a pup and he just may outgrow it. I agree with the suggestion that you should try and see if you can find any trigger..anything that happens consistently before this behavior happens.
Hi - what you describe sounds very much like herding dog behavior when this behavior is not properly taught and controlled. If this is your first herding breed dog, you may want to do some research into the two mixed breeds so you can better understand the impulse control issues many of these dogs have. Border Collies, Belgium Sheepdogs, German Shepherds and many other herding breeds herd by nipping at the heels of the sheep. The tendency to nip is hardwired into these dogs and must be directed in a positive direction or the dog will become unsafe. I teach my GSDs bite inhibition starting the day they come to the farm at 8 weeks and continuing until they are adult and understand the right and wrong way of using their mouths.
The significance of this in regards to your dog is knowing that what you experienced may relate to the level of excitement your dog felt at that moment and how he then used his energy to overwhelm you. She nipped your leg because she wanted the ball and this is how herding dogs get what they want. You responded with defiance (to her mind) thus escalating the situation and causing her to assume the stance of "I'll teach you to defy me" by chasing you and trying to nip some more. In short, you behaved like a sheep might if it chose not to go along with the rest of the herd. The more you fought with her the more excited she became and the more she felt the need to assert her herding effort. She was not being vicious or even extraordinarily dominate: she was being a herding dog. I have witnessed similar behavior in GSDs that have not been handled correctly early in their lives.
This is how I handle my GSD puppies: we do not play ball or any other activity that encourages chasing since this immediately taps the herding instinct before the dog is mature enough to learn how to use this instinct correctly. I teach a very strong "leave it" and never attempt to remove anything from the dog's mouth. Instead I teach my dogs to leave the object on the ground by my feet. We practice "leave it" constantly to proof the command. This applies to everything from balls to food, bones, other animals, etc. When playing with my young dogs I carefully watch for the moment when play escalates into serious activity such as the need to herd. Once I understand that moment in a dog I try very hard never to allow play to escalate to that point. It is important to understand that to a herding dog almost everything is a job and they view play as work and will be as strong and as serious about this as any job. If the dog does not have the proper training situations such as yours can turn even more serious. My adult GSDs are all very gentle dogs that would not purposefully hurt anyone or anything. However, they all have high drive and this must be controlled by discipline and training. My most recent puppy, now age one year, has an extremely high herding drive and had to learn not to "herd" people or the family cats. She is wonderful at "leave it" and anyone (including young children) can take anything from her, but everyone is taught to use the "leave it" command rather than to simply reach for the object.
I know it can be very disconcerting to have your dog "attack" you; however, from what you describe I suspect this was not an attack but rather a misdirected and mismanaged attempt to herd. Please don't be insulted by my term "mismanaged". It is not meant as an insult or criticism. It's just that without meaning to, you may have created the situation and this is important to know so you can act to avoid similar situations again.
Hi Carney and thank you so much for your post! That is the first take on the situation that has made perfect sense! It's like a light bulb moment for me :)
You hit the nail on the head! And that explains perfectly why she got more and more insistent and nippy - because she thought she was correcting me! I didn't see it as an 'attack' from her, but more of a 'spaz out' that I didn't understand the origin and reasoning behind. We have been working very hard on leash work. She is starting to heel very nicely, sit, down, stay are all improving markedly by the day. She's very keen to learn. I think I was taking things too slowly with her, meaning I wasn't expecting enough from her right away - babying her too much for the first week she was here. Now that she has some more structure, should I assume that when I do correct her for nipping, she will accept it easier the more I take charge in a productive way? I'm a bit confused on how to correct that behavior without eliciting the 'sheep' approach from her. She has not done a big episode since, but can still be a bit nippy at times.
I have not had a herding type dog before. My true loves are rotts. I had planned on yet another rottie since I lost mine to cancer in April (I've had 3 now, so I like the familiarity of them and their temperaments), but this little one showed up.. so I guess she picked me. (Fate is strange...) I have already contacted a herding place to try that out with her but it will be several months before she's the right age to try that. I am interested in learning, and absolutely no insult taken from your choice of words - they make sense to me. I don't know what corrections and when to use with a brain that works differently from what I'm used to. Also, all the puppy classes will not allow us to join their new sessions because she was stray and, while I got one set of shots for her, they require proof of at least 2 sets before I can join in the classes. So we're trying to socialize on our own with friends dogs and trips to town.
I would welcome any other advice you could offer to a herding breed newbie. I would like her to be able to enjoy farm life (have horses) and participate in the day to day activies, but do not want to do the wrong things with her to encourage unwanted 'herding' or bad habits around the animals.
I'm gathering from your post that I should not play fetch with her? Or allow over excitement of any kind? If she gets worked up - should I be doing a timeout in the crate or just ignore her? I'm going to start working on some other activities with her. I'll have to be creative as all my rotties loved fetch, so that's an old standard in my puppy play time. Would tricks be better for my new girl rather than ball play?
I'm like a sponge here - any suggestions or knowledge you want to pass on would be appreciated! Sorry if this is a but rambling...
I do know that mismanaged herding can be harmful. A few years ago, a friend had several aussies in and around his horse barn and one 'nipped' me very hard one day - broke the skin and left a hell of a bruise on the back of my calf. He just said "oh yeh - sorry, she does that sometimes...".
This is what I DON'T want with my girl! She's very smart and I think she will be a great dog and want to give her the best opportunity for that!
I should also mention, I have searched for articles and information online about herding breeds and nipping, and while they all mention that herders have a stronger tendency to herd by nipping at heels etc (obviously) none seem to mention specifically how to address it compared to non herding breeds. They just suggest the same things with all pups, which seems to be too generalized for one like mine that seems to have a strong herding drive. Do you know of any site that discuss the problem specifically for herding types?