Puppy Nipping Other Dogs

[PuppyMavis]

You mentioned that you're currently in an obedience class with your puppy. You could see if anyone else in the class is interested in puppy play dates? We ended up working with a behaviorist (more to train us than the puppy ) and she was able to connect us with a few other people in the area with puppies of similar ages. Mavis is now 9 months old and we've had weekly 30 minute play dates ever since, and I think it really helped with her feeling comfortable around other dogs while allowing us to intervene when needed.

[MyRuna]

Good luck with your puppy. I tried daycare for my adult rescue BC, but she only went three times. She would get overstimulated, start herding, and ended up crated. She was fine playing with one dog,

[Gloria Atwater]

Wolves for a bazillion years did without doggy daycare. Border collies have been around for only a couple hundred years and way less than that as purely a pet. I don't think doggy daycare should be viewed as bad in anyway, that's completely unfair to its whole purpose. Ive had nothing but positive experiences with it, it's helped with her socialization of other dogs and people, being away from me and bite inhibition. The nipping at other dogs just started, they told me immediately and I came here for answers immediately. If it's been going on for only a short while, are they really failing at correcting her? How long is it supposed to take a puppy to learn that nipping isn't okay? Immediately? It's unfortunate that most people here view doggy daycare as negative when it's supposed to be a tool to help you and your dog. I guess I came here to find help, not for people to just say 'don't take her there anymore' with vertualy no follow up or alternatives. That's not very helpful.

 

I am sorry that you feel we have been unkind or unreasonable. Each of us can only respond from our own frame of reference and our own gut feelings as to what might be best - without any of us seeing the situation, of, course. So we each have a picture in our minds that can't match what you know to be so.

 

No, doggie daycare is not a bad thing, if run right. It sounds like the people at your facility are conscientious and careful in what they do. That's fantastic!

 

But a border collie is not just like other dogs. Teaching a lab or boxer or spaniel puppy not to nip may be quite different because they are wired differently. As I said, border collies are hard-wired to respond to movement and she's at an age where many of her kindred "switch on" to an awareness that something in their brain is telling them - 'control movement, react to it, quick!"

 

It's great that the daycare staff are removing her, calming her and not letting her back to play until she is calm. But are they training her? Are they giving her alternatives to the behavior? Are they replacing it with something else? That's what I meant in my earlier comment about changing her mind. IF it works - if the time-outs do succeed in stopping her nipping at play, that would be great.

 

But she's a border collie and simply telling her "no" over and over without the stimulation changing may or may not work. For example, if a young dog begins reacting repeatedly to passing cars, the usual advice is to remove them from proximity to vehicles and only begin reintroducing them to cars from a distance. That is done by teaching them an alternative behavior (such as sit or look at me, or whatever) while in a location that's far enough removed from the trigger - passing cars - the dog can successfully ignore it. Then only gradually are they brought closer to the trigger, until they can repeat the alternative behavior reliably without reacting to nearby passing cars. The end result is the dog's mind is changed and he learns to abandon the undesirable behavior.

 

So, I guess you can simply wait and let things at the daycare go as they are. See if the time outs the staff give her do indeed teach her that nipping is not acceptable. But when you came here, you said they have informed you that putting her in with the bigger dogs has not changed the behavior and that she is still nipping. And you've also said that you're concerned about a larger dog ruining her confidence with bigger dogs. Those thing added together are why we have been advocating removing her from the daycare. I'm not sure what else we can tell you. Either the daycare staff are successful in teaching her not to nip, or they are not. But in the meantime, I'd be worried about that harsh bigger dog.

 

Now, as for nipping your boyfriend when he's just walking, that's something he can (and probably should) help work on, as well. When she goes to nip him, have him stop dead in his tracks, turn on her and simply say, "NO" in a big, firm voice. Ideally she'll show a change of demeanor - you don't want her to look horrified and crushed, but it would be good if she showed a look of, "Woops, okay, he doesn't like that." Or you could even have him do a few walk-bys while carrying a squirt bottle of water, and combine the big NO with a zap of water. If he becomes an un-fun target, she'll learn to leave his ankles alone. That's just a couple thoughts that come to mind, anyhow.

 

Respectfully,

 

~ Gloria

 

 

[kristin36890]

Thank you Gloria for your response. I felt like a lot of assumptions were being made by people on here and advice was given based on those assumptions. She was put in with the older dogs for only part of the day one time. How long should I wait to see if the behavior is stopped? I feel like the expectation is it should be immediate but that seems unrealistic to me. There are so many border collies and aussies at this daycare I feel confident that they have a good understanding of herding issues. They're also in contact with trainers that I've used personally to help them with behavioral issues with any dogs. It's hard for me to think that daycare is bad when the trainers I used with my puppy are the same trainers working with the daycare staff who are also working with my puppy.

[mbc1963]

Dog daycares haven't existed till recently... but when I was a kid we all let our dogs roam free, and during the day my dog would interact with many, many other local dogs. I do think dogs naturally (as in, feral dogs) interact with other dogs a lot, and learn from those interactions.

 

The big difference is that in my neighborhood, and in the wild, dogs are in a huge space, and can get away from situations that stress them. My childhood dog could come home and sleep in the corner for five hours if he felt like it. No puppy would be in an enclosed area, playing with numerous older, adult, nonrelated dogs, for a full day. No big, nonrelated dog would be expected to tolerate a puppy nipping at his legs for long: the behavior would be corrected and BOOM, the puppy would understand the lesson.

 

It possibly would be the productive thing for your pup to get a punctured ear or snout because an older and less tolerant dog taught her a lesson. But that means there's also a risk that she'd get a more serious bite. It sounds as though the dog daycare is very aware that this is a possibility, and they're forewarning you.

 

Plus, yeah - the "practicing behavior = reinforcing behavior" thing.

[Blackdawgs]

If what the day care is doing to address this was going to work, it would have worked by now. In the meantime, this behavior is becoming more ingrained.

 

Unless you are specifically paying for training (as opposed to daycare), it is unfair to expect the daycare to train your dog for you. I suspect that they are more interested in protecting the other dogs than training your dog.

 

The flipside to this--this isn't just about your dog. Your dog is harassing other dogs. If I owned one of those constantly chased and nipped dogs, I would be very unhappy.

[Sue R]

This.^^^

[kristin36890]

She just started doing it, for one day. How long is it supposed to take? I've asked this question numerous times and have yet to receive a response. People just keep saying 'if it's still happening, what they're doing isn't working'. Are 4 month old puppies supposed to learn things in one day and if they don't then it's failing?

[waffles]

None of us have seen your dog, met her, or seen her at daycare. There is no set time frame for training puppies and dogs behaviors that go against their instincts. You could be working on this the rest of her life or just until she matures.

How are any of us supposed to answer that question? My suggestions is to go to the daycare and observe her. See for yourself what she is doing and make a decision if you think she should be allowed to stay and have their employees work with her. This is really a situation between you and the daycare, not strangers online. Our advice is the best we can give you given what we know (which is basically nothing), and this is to remove her from the situation that is causing the behavior. That is the only sure way to stop the behavior. Take her back when she is an adult dog and see how she is. That is my advice, there is no black/white quick answer to your problem. Daycare to me is not a place for baby dogs to learn manners. That is their owners responsibility. I hope you find a solution, but the best thing is to ask these questions of the people at the daycare because they are the ones reporting the problem. I wish you all the best with your pup.

 

She just started doing it, for one day. How long is it supposed to take? I've asked this question numerous times and have yet to receive a response. People just keep saying 'if it's still happening, what they're doing isn't working'. Are 4 month old puppies supposed to learn things in one day and if they don't then it's failing?

[Sue R]

 

She just started doing it, for one day. How long is it supposed to take? I've asked this question numerous times and have yet to receive a response. People just keep saying 'if it's still happening, what they're doing isn't working'. Are 4 month old puppies supposed to learn things in one day and if they don't then it's failing?

The fact that it was just the one day was not clear to me and maybe not clear to others.

[Gloria Atwater]

She just started doing it, for one day. How long is it supposed to take? I've asked this question numerous times and have yet to receive a response. People just keep saying 'if it's still happening, what they're doing isn't working'. Are 4 month old puppies supposed to learn things in one day and if they don't then it's failing?

 

 

I also didn't see the part that she'd only done it for one day. I'm sorry, I thought it was an ongoing problem.

 

In all honesty, though, how long it would take for the behavior to stop is an unanswerable question, for people who aren't there to observe the situation. If the doggie daycare people have a good, structured program for training and modifying the behaviors of dogs in their care, perhaps it would only take a couple weeks. We don't know what methods they are using to deter her from the nipping, so really, we can't guess. I'm sorry we can't give you more.

 

If you just want to know when puppies outgrow the urge to nip, that's not easy to answer, either. At 4 months they are teething and they are beginning to push their boundaries a little, so I'd say it mainly depends a little on the nature of the dog but especially on how effective his/her training in bite inhibition. How often do you send her to doggy daycare and when does she go back?

 

I did offer a couple suggestions on her nipping your boyfriend at home, if you saw that.

 

~ Gloria

 

 

 

[D'Elle]

Kristen, you came here for advice, and all of us are trying to do our best to help you. Please understand that no one online can give you definitive answers to questions like "how long will it take" because there are simply too many variables. Even if I were standing there in person observing your dog I would not be able to answer that question with any certainty. Training takes as long as it takes and sometimes it is fast and sometimes it is not. It depends on so many different things.

 

At no point in your previous posts did you say that the problem had only happened for one day, so there is no way that we could have known that. There are many highly knowledgeable people here who will take a lot of their time and effort to help you if you will let us, but we can only go on the information you give us. Now, of course, it is also not your fault if you don't give us every single detail the first time you post a question! But we need as many details as you can provide, as the conversation goes along.

 

When it comes to training, I have a basic philosophy: It takes the time it takes, and no matter how long it takes, the time is well spent. If you are 100% consistent and go about it the right way you absolutely will be able to change just about any behavior in just about any dog. I say "just about", because there are rare cases in which the dog has a medical condition or is so badly damaged psychologically that nothing can be done. That is not your situation.

 

I have retrained a behavior in a border collie in an hour, and it has also been known to take me two years. Just look at it this way: the time will go by anyway, whether it is hours or months or years. At the end of that time you can either have a well trained dog or not, depending on whether or not you have done the work with the dog. It is always worth the time in the end.