Help with Reilly

[Giselle]

There are two things I did with Ivy, and I recommend you do them, too:
1) I am the boss of everything. From the very first day, I taught her to Sit or Down when she wanted something. If she wanted dinner, she had to Sit and she had to Wait. Today, she will not eat her dinner unless I explicitly say "Okay!" and release her from her Sit/Wait. She also sits before exiting the house, before getting a toy, before putting her collar on, etc. This method is called Nothing In Life Is Free: www.k9deb.com/nilif.htm
2) Give means GIVE. One of my biggest fears was raising a large-breed puppy who didn't know "Give". As a result, I taught Ivy "Give" from the day she came home. I would give her a toy and let her play with it. Once the toy was firmly in her mouth, I held a piece of chicken (tip: real meat is the best motivator) in front of her nose and said "GIVE". She instinctively dropped the toy and went for the treat. Repeat repeat repeat. Eventually, say "Give" without the treat. The dog should give the toy up willingly. Over time, generalize the behavior - meaning, try asking for a "Give" with all types of items in all types of situations.

Once you have these two things down, Reilly will never resort to biting you for taking away his toy (or cellphone)

[RedyreRotties]

Several things I would offer:

1) MANAGE THIS PUPPY BETTER. Put things away. Use baby gates. Keep things out of his reach. NEVER have him loose in the house when you cannot pay direct attention to him. When he is loose in your house, keep a buckle collar on him with a short cord attached that you can get hold of. ALWAYS try trading first, but if you have no time to trade, if you will take the collar or the cord and gently lift him up off his front feet, he will spit out whatever he has. The key word here is GENTLY. Lift GENTLY straight up, and he will spit out whatever he has in a couple seconds. IMMEDIATELY lower him, keeping him away from the object, and praise him, offering a treat as SOON as you can.

2) play trade A LOT. Start with 3 items. 2 low value items, such as toys he likes, and some really high value food treats cut into tiny pieces that he will gulp in a flash. Give him the toy, let him play with it a second, and then offer him a treat. As he is spitting out the toy to take the treat, say OUT. Or whatever word you choose, it can be GIVE, or MINE, or whatever you like. They KEY is for the puppy to hear this word everytime he is spitting something out. Eventually he will learn that this word means "spit that out and you will get a cookie".

3) get in training class as the others advise. You will exercise the puppy's brain along with his body and you will all benefit.

4) STOP doing what incites him to bite any of you. STOP it IMMEDIATELY, and insist your family members do the same. Make the PEOPLE take responsibility for keeping inappropriate items out of reach of the puppy.

5) Make the puppy a TOY BOX. I am will be posting another thread called "Why Your Puppy Needs a TOYBOX". I encourage you to read it and print it out so your family can read it as well.

Do an internet search on resource guarding, and another one on BITE INHIBITION, and print out the info so your family members can also understand how to address this issue with your puppy.

It is important that you pay close attention to resolving this, as it will only get worse over time if you do not.

I will post the toybox article in just a few seconds.

[kallisto4529]

Thank you so very much for all of your advice and help, I can not tell you how much i appreciate it. We will start managing Reilly better than we have, and I do get on to people when they leave stuff out that they are not supposed to, trust me ticks me off to no end. lol I will be honest I have not had a chance to start the suggestions made yet due to my mom just had surgery thurs and I just brought her home today, but once
I get her settled down I will start it immediately. Thank you again so very much.

[RedyreRotties]

Good luck with him, as bad as it seems, with some proper good attention, and good management habits, most of the time this problem can be overcome quickly.

Hope your mom is better soon. Let us know if you have more questions.

[kallisto4529]

Thank you all for your advice, I thought that I would give you a little update on Reilly. Slowly but surely I have been trying to work with him, the trade off is going great!!!!! I have always been able to take his food or bones or toys out of his mouth, but now when its something he is not supposed to have, we do a trade, you were so right, he is so much more willing to give mommy the "bad" stuff...lol We make sure things are picked up we were doing that before, but sometimes he would get things from outside or out of the trash...lol thanks again for the advice and i will keep you posted.

[RedyreRotties]

How excellent! I'm so glad to hear you are making progress with him. Keep it up, it will only get better.

[crow_noir]

That is wonderful that you are making progress with him! Congrats, and good luck on continued success!