Not sure if my title is the best or if that is even a thing, lol, but it's the best I could come up with.
Sorry in advance for the length of this post but I have read a ton of the biting posts out there and have tried a lot but still have some questions.
Lexi is our first GSD and she is a fantastic puppy (just shy of 6 months old). She has definitely made me fall in love with the breed and I already know we will have more GSD's in the future. In general she is super well behaved. I feel spoiled with how calm she is. Does well in her crate, is an awesome car rider (which is a great thing since we travel full time in an RV).
When we picked her up at 8 weeks old she did the normal puppy biting and we redirected to toys, and bones, etc. and it worked pretty well. We quickly learned that she won't give up on a fight or maybe she percieves it as play. But if you say "eh", "no", "ouch" or any of that she always chomped down harder. If you pushed her off, she came right back twice as hard. If we pinched her gums on her teeth, she would come back twice as hard...etc. But the redirect to a toy worked well.
However now the biting has changed a bit. She doesn't chomp down as hard, and her teeth are starting to become her adult teeth (thankfully those puppy pinchers are horrible) but she is almost using biting to demand something. I.e. there are times when she wants attention, or wants to be played with and she will come up and grab your arm or hand with her teeth. Usually not a ton of pressure but you definitely feel it. Furthermore when she comes to get our attention like that she won't take a redirect. I can push a toy in her mouth and she ignores it and goes right back for your arm. And if you continue to ignore her, or push her away she comes back harder.
I used to "walk away" and show her if she was like that I would ignore her, but now she just comes up to wherever you move to and comes at you (again we travel full time in an RV so space is limited).
So lately when she gets really pushy / demanding like this, the only thing I can do is put her in her crate and give her 20 mins or so to cool off, and then when she comes out play with her and give her some attention. However I don't want the crate to feel like a punishment.
I did just get a pinch collar, based on some of the things I was reading in the forum. I mainly got this for walks, again since we travel in an RV, I don't have a fenced yard for her so every potty time is a walk. And while she walks pretty well in the morning and afternoon, in the afternoons she just turns her brain off...and goes for every distraction possible (especially birds) and a nap on the leash with the flat collar does nothing to get her attention. The stoping and just standing there until she chills out thing worked well for awhile but doesn't anymore. So anyways that isn't really about this post other then we got a pinch collar.
Today when she came up to me and did her demand bite, I pulled the pinch collar and she just went to biting me harder.
I first tried just a snap of the pinch collar, but she didn't stop biting at all. I then tried to keep pressure on until she stopped. After a short bit she got the picture, stopped biting me and sat down. As soon as she stopped biting I released pressure. Then once the pressure had been off the collar for a few seconds she came right back and bit harder then before.
So I am just running out of things to try.
Before anyone asks here is where we are excercise:
- I have another post about this but she has a limp due to what appears to be a sprain and we are limiting activity currently (no running or jumping). So that is out
- We do go on multiple walks per day. How long they are is limited by where we are sometimes and where we are able to walk. She seems to find the walks sometimes boring to be honest.
- We play a decent amount of tug
- We do multiple training sessions per day.
The biting is definitely worse when we are very inactive (i.e. both my wife and I had horrible colds last week and we know we gave her a sub optimal amount of activity, we just couldn't do much) and she was super bitey, but even when we give her enough activity that she is just sacking out tired, she gets bitey as described.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Sorry in advance for the length of this post but I have read a ton of the biting posts out there and have tried a lot but still have some questions.
Lexi is our first GSD and she is a fantastic puppy (just shy of 6 months old). She has definitely made me fall in love with the breed and I already know we will have more GSD's in the future. In general she is super well behaved. I feel spoiled with how calm she is. Does well in her crate, is an awesome car rider (which is a great thing since we travel full time in an RV).
When we picked her up at 8 weeks old she did the normal puppy biting and we redirected to toys, and bones, etc. and it worked pretty well. We quickly learned that she won't give up on a fight or maybe she percieves it as play. But if you say "eh", "no", "ouch" or any of that she always chomped down harder. If you pushed her off, she came right back twice as hard. If we pinched her gums on her teeth, she would come back twice as hard...etc. But the redirect to a toy worked well.
However now the biting has changed a bit. She doesn't chomp down as hard, and her teeth are starting to become her adult teeth (thankfully those puppy pinchers are horrible) but she is almost using biting to demand something. I.e. there are times when she wants attention, or wants to be played with and she will come up and grab your arm or hand with her teeth. Usually not a ton of pressure but you definitely feel it. Furthermore when she comes to get our attention like that she won't take a redirect. I can push a toy in her mouth and she ignores it and goes right back for your arm. And if you continue to ignore her, or push her away she comes back harder.
I used to "walk away" and show her if she was like that I would ignore her, but now she just comes up to wherever you move to and comes at you (again we travel full time in an RV so space is limited).
So lately when she gets really pushy / demanding like this, the only thing I can do is put her in her crate and give her 20 mins or so to cool off, and then when she comes out play with her and give her some attention. However I don't want the crate to feel like a punishment.
I did just get a pinch collar, based on some of the things I was reading in the forum. I mainly got this for walks, again since we travel in an RV, I don't have a fenced yard for her so every potty time is a walk. And while she walks pretty well in the morning and afternoon, in the afternoons she just turns her brain off...and goes for every distraction possible (especially birds) and a nap on the leash with the flat collar does nothing to get her attention. The stoping and just standing there until she chills out thing worked well for awhile but doesn't anymore. So anyways that isn't really about this post other then we got a pinch collar.
Today when she came up to me and did her demand bite, I pulled the pinch collar and she just went to biting me harder.
I first tried just a snap of the pinch collar, but she didn't stop biting at all. I then tried to keep pressure on until she stopped. After a short bit she got the picture, stopped biting me and sat down. As soon as she stopped biting I released pressure. Then once the pressure had been off the collar for a few seconds she came right back and bit harder then before.
So I am just running out of things to try.
Before anyone asks here is where we are excercise:
- I have another post about this but she has a limp due to what appears to be a sprain and we are limiting activity currently (no running or jumping). So that is out
- We do go on multiple walks per day. How long they are is limited by where we are sometimes and where we are able to walk. She seems to find the walks sometimes boring to be honest.
- We play a decent amount of tug
- We do multiple training sessions per day.
The biting is definitely worse when we are very inactive (i.e. both my wife and I had horrible colds last week and we know we gave her a sub optimal amount of activity, we just couldn't do much) and she was super bitey, but even when we give her enough activity that she is just sacking out tired, she gets bitey as described.
Thanks in advance for any help.