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I'm getting kind of frustrated with Speedo. We've had him for a couple months now, and when he takes treats he just about nips your fingers off. It hurts. I've switched to giving them to him on my open palm and tossing them to him to catch, but other people are getting nipped. Haven't had this problem with an adult dog yet (he's almost 1), and am not sure how to teach him to take treats gently. Any suggestions?
Autumn does that, we make a yipe sound and pull our hand back quickly with the treat, then we offer it again repeating the word gentle and don't release the treat until she takes it nicely.
We trained our dogs to take treats gently by wrapping our hand around the goodie, keeping fingers tucked so they wouldn't get nipped. If they were too aggressive while trying for the treat, we'd go "OWW" loudly (pulling away), and follow up with the word "easy"! Spencer takes treats so gently now, he always drops them, but even the little kids can feed him meat without getting hurt. Same with big girl Greta. ;) Lots of praise when they learned to go easy helps reinforce the training. Good luck, and hope this works...others I'm sure have other methods. ;)
Try holding the treat in the palm of your hand--offering it to him like you would offer a sugar cube to a horse. It works for some of mine who get over excited about a treat. My hand gets covered in drool, but no nips!
Timber does that too. I used to give her treats often, but now that she's at my aunt's she rarely gets them, and so she gets very excited and just goes for the hand. It's very painful. I often make her sit and then say in a calm soft, but warning voice "Niiice..." and very slowly and gently give it to her while holding the scruff of her neck so that she knows I'm in control, I'm boss, and I this is her gift, not her right.
I like the "yipe-ouch" technique - I was going to use it this afternoon when we went to the dog park, but that darn Speedo must've known somthing was up because he was so gentle, I didn't need to correct him. I will try using it back at home again. Glacier, it seems like he just gets overly enthusiastic, because he doesn't have any food aggression issues. I can stick my hand in his bowl & even take it away-he'll just try to eat faster, but won't snap or nip. But I want him to be gentle enough to take treats from anybody. My other two are so gentle, you don't even feel their lips. *edit- he does have to "sit" before he gets a treat, too. I hate this nippy-thing he does.
Josie use to do that too. I started to use the command 'Nice' when giving her treats. If she tried to snap for it, I'd pull back and say "Nooo!" and she wouldn't get it. I'd do it a couple of time sand she caught on right away that she couldn't do it. She still does it sometimes if I don't tell her nice, but she's a lot better
once i had a husky with the same thing, but i only had to say "des..pa..ci..to"(in spanish) "slow...ly" and he was like a breeze, i think he got over excited because he was gonna have a treat that you had to remind him that nip hurts.
Sibes RULE !!!!