Hi Strass...

I'm bored at work and visited this site. I figured I knew who you were by the time I was 1/2 through reading your post. Never thought I'd see "Strass" posting on a dog behavior sight!!


I've had friends who highly recommended "yelping" and ignoring the pup when it bites too hard. Personally, that only worked our dog up and we had to go to the spray bottle. Then again, our dog is a bit of a punk. She is far from fearful of us but now stops whatever she is doing if I so much as reach for the spray bottle.

I've read that having a pop can filled with pennies with you can work. When the dog nips, you give a harsh "NO" and shake the can loudly. Apparently you want to keep the can out of sight of the dog, because ours just proceeded to steal the can and turn it into a toy. However, this is pretty similar to the newspaper/noise thing that was mentioned earlier

Finally, our puppy-school instructor recommended grabbing their snout with your finger nails just lightly pinching into the skin and saying, "NO." Hypothetically it simulates the mother-dog giving the put a "That's enough" nip.

Anyway, hope your enjoying Murph. Sorry to hear he finally put the green-pepper to rest.

E