Hi everyone,
Hope someone can help here!!  We have a beautiful Newfy boy who's only 11 weeks, we had him for 3 and he's our world!.  I have a son of 7 and a daughter who's 9.  I have read everything I can on training him in the puppy stage and my husband and kids are involved as we are trying to do the same thing all together.  (Now I know he's a pup) but our lovely boy is 'nipping' each time he sees our son, he goes for his feet/shoes or nips lightly his skin (if he comes down without his bottoms jarmys on).  He was doing this to my daughter but we'v got him out of that now as we've taught her to take the lead and say "NO" in a loud voice and we had her doing this for a week, but now he's doing it to my son, but my son is not at all strong as my daughter and is really frightened of him.  He does try to do as we say but he runs from him or jumps on the sofa & starts to bark at him., so iv shouted "NO" and he does take notice of my voice and also my husband's voice.  Iv told him NOT to be scared of him or he'll pick this up and be pack leader over him.  Can anyone help on this, my son is really frightened, I want to try and change my son's ways with our boy.  Apologies to go on but I'm lost now, and with him growing like mad all the time, it scares me to think that my son be still like this when he's a fully grown dog THEN we will honestly things could really get very nasty!! Any good advice with be so greatly appreciated xx

essentially your wee boy is going to have to learn to say no to him, it sounds like he thinks he's another puppy. if you do a search for "the bite stops here" it should help :)

Your son is quite young to believe that he shouldn't be afraid of the puppy, he needs to LEARN that the puppy isn't a savage beast by you never leaving them unatended and ensuring you stop things before they get out of hand & are always there to back-up your son.
11 weeks is very young for the puppy, his biting may well get more intense as his teething progresses and you need to make sure that you are in charge of him.

Both of my boys were frightened of our Mastiff pup when we first got him (they were 8 & 9yrs when we got pup), now the pup is 12 months old & weighs more than the pair of them put together they are not afraid of him atall.

It doesn't matter that your son is not as strong as your daughter, it takes a firm attitude, not brute force, if strength had anything to do with it then my boys wouldn't stand a chance of getting the Mastiff to listen. My 10 yr old can calm the Mastiff down when he is in the middle of the 'zoomies', that entails holding the collar & saying sit  - now this sounds easy , but grabbing hold of the collar of a huge dog while he is bombing around is enough to pull an adult over, my 10yr old manages this as he is confidant - the dog knows this so he listens :) (also the dog knows that I will always back-up my kids).

As Astarte has said, The Bite Stops here is very good.

Here is the link to the article The Bite Stops Here that has been mentioned.  The key to any method is consistency so you need to work with your son as much as your pup on this one.

Your pup is biting at your son to instigate play.  Your son's excitable reaction is being interpreted as play behaviour and in turn winds the pup up more.  You need to impress upon your son the need to keep calm and turn away from the pup when he starts to nip and calmly walk away, removing himself from the room if necessary and putting a physical barrier between him and the pup (like a door but I'd also invest in some baby gates if you haven't already).  If your son is not capable of this, then you must ensure that they are never alone together so that you or your husband can step in to correct the pup and remove your son from the situation.  if the pup doesn't have the opportunity to practice mouthing on your son then the behaviour should soon stop.

You've owned a Newfie before i believe, so you understand that very soon, the pup will weigh more and be much stronger than your children.  You need to build your son's confidence now in handling the pup or you have no chance in 5 or 6 months time.  If you haven't yet trained the dog to sit, then do so asap. Get your son involved in the training...give him a handful of tasty treats and teach him how to calmly command the pup to sit and give a treat.  Then, when the pup is engaging in any sort to undesirable behaviour, he can be told to sit...it's pretty hard to jump up, mouth and generally be a nuisance when in a sit.  If you haven't already looked into basic training classes, I would advise you do so sooner rather than later and take the children along to so they can take turns at learning the techniques.  In a few months time your children will not safely be able to handle an adolescent on the lead so if you can get along to classes ASAP, I'm sure you'd find it to everyone's benefit.

ShaynLola, that's great advice :)

my newfy boy is four and half and still ignores me, he is still very playful knocking me over by running at me if my back is turn to him, very gentle with children though, he plays my husband up, when we tell him to come in he runs off and when we turn away and walk back in he creeps in again again when i turn around he runs off. he is so funny buit very naughty its all down to the badly trained owner i am afraid. Great in the park though. However his mate a little girl poppy is very obiedient.

Hi Shaynlola

Just to say many thanx for your advice on our newfy pup.  He is a bit of a handful at the min, but we are working with our son but it's hard as he still 'freezes' when our boy runs at him.  We are trying to get to puppy classes but iv emailed a couple but up to now no response! (it may be the holidays as most places shut when the kids are off).  Yes we've had a newf over 10 years ago but he died 4 years ago but it's still all new to us - it's like the first time all over again!

We notice now how fast he's growing but he's a bugger with his nipping and mouthing.  I am a groomer so iv got him on the table every day grooming him, then it's basic training which he's picking up.  My daughter is still a bit weary of him but she's getting there.  We do walk away if he doesn't stop barking at us in the garden and go in.  But I find he goes mad in the evening and having a cat doesn't help, but we've now started to put the cat upstairs while we do further training with him to calm him down.  Iv printed off 'The Bite Stops Here' and iv read some of it and its been really helpful up to now...

Something I find it hard to know HOW to train him on other things! like being obedient, or just to stay, or to do anything, you know, you see these people on tv showing what their dogs CAN do and it's amazing to see, HOW on earth do they get their dogs to do these things??? so it knowing HOW isn't it and that's where im lacking really!! id love to meet some expert who'll teach me to teach my dog....anyway, many thanx again shaynlola for your good advice, we'r keeping it up and hopefully we'll attend classes soon, and we're working with our 7 year old on a daily basis now so hopefully his confidence will come soon and not be scared.  regards  Debi XX

I would recommend you to get the book 'The Perfect Puppy' by Gwen Bailey.  You can buy it from Amazon.co.uk.  It is a very good guide to all aspects of new puppy ownership including basic obedience training.

> I would recommend you to get the book 'The Perfect Puppy' by Gwen Bailey

I bought this book and referred to it time and time again. It's worth investing IMO. :-)

lots of positive reinforcement. ask him to do something, maybe gently show him the first couple of times *tapping the bum for a sit etc) then IMMEDIATELY treat with a sweety and attention so puppy thinks "hmmm, mum says sit... i sit down= getting a sweety and hugs, therefore sitting is good!"

Hi Shaynlola

Thanx for the advice with my little boy, we're getting there now!

Can you or anyone give me any advice on our Newfoundland pup who's now 14 weeks old on the 'nipping', we can't seem to stop him from 'mouthing' (he has extremely sharp teeth) and the nipping.  He has toys and chews but he just 'nips' us and tries to jump up when we walk past him also if anything that is not his on the floor or the chair, he'll take it and have a go at chewing it.  He also 'roams' around as tho he's bored stiff!, he is part or our family and never leave him out.  We play with him and Iv taken him to puppy classes and continued the training when iv come home each day.  My husband is really fed up with him to be honest (& i'm a bit worried about that!)  Even tho he goes to classes and he now knows: 'sit', 'stay', 'down' & 'stand' (with a treat of course!), he barks constantly when we want him to do something.  I want to get this right, we waited so long for our lovely boy.  I think having a 7 & a 9 year old and a cat (who he is always going for) doesn't help him with all the distractions (the cat is always being put in another room whilst I train him) but as I say, he just ignores us and barks when he doesn't want to do anything.

So any tip/advice or anyone who I can contact on this would be very very grateful indeed

Debi
xx

Hi Newfidays,
there is also i good book called "aint misbehaving" by David appleby ( i think ) which may be of some help to you.
As to the nipping have you treid making a loud yelping sound when he does it.
I stopped my 7 1/ 2 month old Newf by doing this but its got to be VERY LOUD, when he nips = shout simple as that, if you keep at it he will get the message.
At 14 weeks it sounds like you are doing well with the training and as its not your 1st you know it does take time. and you have two kids and a cat.
You must be super Mum to cope with all this at the same time.
I dont have kids but i have 3 newfs so i really dont know where you find the time!!!!!!!!!!!!LOL.

The shouting 'ouch' or 'yelping' very loudly will only work to stop your dog if your dog has been 'bitten' back first!  This bit of advice is useful if several pups in a litter have 'play faught' together.  If one pup bites another hard the bitten puppy yelps and this is important - bites back!  The 'biter' then learns that if he bites hard enough to make another yelp he will get hurt in return. 

However, if your pup was an only one or did not mingle and play with his litter mates enough for this to happen he will have made no association whatsoever between biting hard and what follows the 'yelp' ie being bitten himself.  So sometimes we can do this and get no improvement in our pups behaviour.  It may sound cruel but if you need to make this work you may have to give your pup a light tap if he nips you hard so that he does realise there is a downside to what he is doing.  Before anyone gets overly excited I'm not suggesting any kind of abuse here - just a lesson that pups should have learned with their mates.

Other than that, you can only make the sound, hope it's enough to interrupt your pups behaviour and then immediately walk off or banish your pup to another room for a few minutes to calm down.  Exclusion is a form of punishment and your pup may well learn that if he bites hard and you yelp he also gets excluded from the pack so stops his nipping.

> The shouting 'ouch' or 'yelping' very loudly will only work to stop your dog if your dog has been 'bitten' back first!

Not so :)  Even singleton pups learn that a high pitched noise as described signifies pain - they do after all have their own vocal chords and if mum has stood on it, got up quickly and let it "drop" off the milk bar etc through it's early weeks then that puppy knows the association of the noise with consequences.

> If one pup bites another hard the bitten puppy yelps and this is important - bites back The 'biter' then learns that if he bites hard enough to make another yelp he will get hurt in return
>

again, not so :)  "bites" which result in yelps result in stop of play and not in being bitten back.  Pups who "bite back" tend to be growling and snarling their little heads off so giving a very different sound and therefore signal to the perpetrator :)

I've successfully raised six adults from puppyhood and a large litter as well as observing other litters and how pups interact, physically and vocally and my
views are therefore formed over a lengthy period with numerous examples.  TBH I was teaching bite inhibition before before the article became available simply through instinct developed with raising my own dogs and, importantly, observing dog to dog interaction.

As for advocating "give your pup a light tap if he nips you hard so that he does realise there is a downside to what he is doing. " where, in or out of the nest, would a puppy experience this from it's litter mates or dam?    

IMO it is better to avoid advising 'hands-on' type training methods to any posters when there are perfectly effective tried and tested methods of training dogs using 'language' that they, canines, understand :)   

Hi Debi,

Shaynlola has your best methods of moulding desired behaviour pretty much covered :)  The bite stop article is, IMO, a must have for anyone embarking on bringing a new pup into the home.  Print off a few copies and leave them in various places where other household members will have timely reminders!

As with the play biting, your pup's barking should be similarly consistently dealt with.  Consistency is the key to every method of training, regardless of the dogs age, breed, size, character etc :)

Play biting should result in a loud "yelp" or "ouch" and play/interaction cease immediately.  By doing this your puppy will realise that it was his behaviour which brought a game or attention to an end.

Yapping or barking from the puppy should result in a similar end - I use a low toned "ah, ah" and immediately stop what I was doing or about to do with the puppy.  Again, he will soon learn that his barking caused the withdrawal of what he was getting excited about :)

If he's being beligerent/willful about not wanting to do something, cajole and persuade him with treats.   Initially, each time he performs as you want, treat and praise (calmly).  Over a week or so depending on his progress, make the treats more random - use physical or vocal praise every now and again instead.  Any resorting on his part to undesired actions, take a step back as he's still very young and easily distracted/bored etc so we have to be patient.

I'm sure you will find that over the next few short weeks there is a huge transformation in your pups behaviour so stick with it and ensure that the family don't undo your hard work by explaining the way you want things handled with the pup and emphasising the importance of all 'singing from the same hymn sheet'

HTH Teri :)

> IMO it is better to avoid advising 'hands-on' type training methods to any posters when there are perfectly effective tried and tested methods of training dogs using 'language' that they, canines, understand

completely agree.
There are many reasons why it's not a good idea to hit/get physical with your puppy. In the case of a pup that really does enjoy rough playing, hitting/getting physical will only make the pup bite harder/get more exited.

My Mastiff was complete softy untill he wanted to play and he would turn in to the tazmanian devil, teeth, teeth, teeth, snapping jumping. My other dog would bite him back and the pup thought that was a great game!!! A yelp from the other dog would end play, full stop, the pup new that the dog yelp meant game over.
Try as I might, I just couldn't make a sound anything like that yelp, however loud/high I 'yelped' pup thought it was good fun and would take his game to the next level :(
In the end I gave up with the 'yelp' and resorted to a calm, firm 'no' (not loud), depending how wound up the pup was I would either give him a toy & say 'toy' (& praise when he bit that instead of me!!), or if he really was hyped up I would lead him into the kitchen (without speaking) and keep him shut in there for a few minutes untill he had calmed down (stairgate at door).

I think as well as bite inhibition, pups also need to be shown an alternative way of play (ie, a toy), it's natural for them to bite in play, they need to learn how they should be playing/interacting with humans and we need to show them how they can do that. Re-directing a behaviour is so much easier to teach than trying to stop one :)

> Re-directing a behaviour is so much easier to teach than trying to stop one

VERY true :)

And what you are saying is that the pup must make an association with (its own) yelp and pain for the yelp to be effective!!  That is EXACTLY what I said but not all pups do get the experience of being trodden on by mum or get dropped off the milk bar!  For the ouch to be effective there HAS to be an association with pain and if the pup, for whatever reason, does not get that experience before it comes into a home it won't make the connection unless humans make it for them! 

In my next sentence I did suggest withdrawing all contact after a nip from the pup and an ouch from the person bitten as a way of teaching the pup that hard bites are not acceptable.

I also said that I was not suggesting any type of abuse either but Newfies are big, solid pups and would take more hard-knocks from littermates playing than a light tap from you or me.  I would not advocate any kind of negative association from a hand near a dog's face as this can make a dog hand-shy.  BUT...

Dogs are not stupid, they do know when they are in a good relationship with the humans around them.  I've lost count of how many times I've gone to step over one of mine and they've stood up as I've done so and I've trodden on them or kicked them!  I've also turned around and done the same thing because they've been right behind me.   I've accidentally knocked them when brushing the floor and they've playfully attacked the brush, I've thrown them toys that they've chased after that landed on them.  Yet my dogs have no fear of me they know they are 'safe' just as I know they have had no malice when they've jumped up and bumped me on the nose (very painful), or jumped for a toy and nipped me with their teeth, or taken skin off my fingers as they've chased a rabbit and pulled the lead through my hand.

It's a real world out there, we sometimes hurt our dogs and they us but it doesn't necessarily damage the relationship. 

>what you are saying is that the pup must make an association with (its own) yelp and pain for the yelp to be effective!! 

No, not at all. It associates its siblings' yelp (and then that of the new owner) with cessation of fun, and it's this which teaches it not to be so rough. Puppies, like small children, cannot empathise and think "When I say Ow it's because I'm hurting, so when /brotherOwner says Ow it means brother/Owner's hurting too".

>For the ouch to be effective there HAS to be an association with pain

Not true. A far better association is that of cessation of pleasure, not physical discomfort.

Which is what I also said if you read my post.  But it is not JUST the cessation of fun which prohibits biting.  As Teri said, the pup that gets trodden on or dropped cries in pain and, as a result, it makes the association with the sound and the feeling. 

I am not advocating either one method or the other, merely pointing out that in some instances humans can 'ouch' all they like and the pup's behaviour does not change.  There has to be an association already in place (ouch and pain) or a consequence of action - bite hard, play stops/exclusion.

I should have added another bit.  What do pups born of a single litter do?  It has no siblings to pay-bite with and non to withdraw play if  biting gets too hard.  Few mothers play-fight with their pups  so singleton's won't learn that 'bite hard and play stops' from mum.  The pup learns that if it gets out of line and bites too hard with Mum she grabs them by the muzzle and holds them down.  It is only when the pup yelps that she will release her hold on them but I bet a pound to a penny the pup learns the sound of a yelp is associated with pain (its own) and that is a contributing factor to backing off a human hand when a human yelps.   

If a pup has no litter-mates and is hand-reared (mum dies in birth) how does the pup learn then?  If it hasn't learnt in the critical period of socialisation, and I quote what I said in my first posting,  it's all down to us - the humans - if the pup is to grow up and survive in the real world.

It quite clearly IS simply the removal of reward (fun, play) that stops a dog from biting. SOME dogs respond to the high pitched yelp wtih more biting, often terrier breeds - with these its hard to recreate the 'omg im dying' yelp of another pup and its easier just to stand up and walk away (or sit still and ignore if you can).

Whichever you do though, stopping a dog from earning a reward for repeating an unwanted behaviour works. End of.

In posting about tapping a dog on the nose and in repeating that and advising that it is not harmful to do in a big strong dog like a newfi IS advocating a method.

Tapping a dog like a newfi on the nose is unlikely to hurt, granted - but its very VERY likely to be seen AS further play, further reward for the behaviour and as such, totally counter productive.

Advising people to 'tap' is extremely dangerous - your 'tap' is another persons 'smack' which is another persons 'hit really hard', and you dont know how the person reading your advice is going to interpret your words. But then I presume thats ok because despite outlining what to do and offering advice, you are 'not advocating a method' </sarcasm>... so when someone hits their dog and gets badly bitten, it wont be your fault?

You need to re-read my posting.  I DID NOT  say tap your dog on the nose, nor did I advocate it as a method.  I said if you need to make this work for your dog (the  ouch.release) then coupling it with pain is what makes it work. I did not say ..use it.  I also made the point of not using any kind of abuse.

If you want to make any association between sound and action the dog has to experience the action.  For Example, we can say 'sit' or 'down' or 'come' or whatever and if our dogs have not associated this sound with the action of bum on floor, lying down, coming to be near us, the dog can't possibly know what the sound means. 

The yelping noise a pup makes is an instinctive response to pain as is drooling at food.  It experiences pain from nips of correction from its mother and in play-biting with siblings.  When it yelps in pain from its mum it also lies down in the suckling position because at that early age its another instinctive response.  The mum backs off.  She has done her job, she has disciplined her pup. End of.  The pup now knows that when you feel pain you yelp, once yelped the response is back off.  It is basic social communication awareness and learning and is what makes canines social communication pass from one generation to the next.  The ouch or yelp that we make when our pup hurts us then has the learned response of back off and most well-socialised pups that have been exposed to social learning among their own kind will respond in this way. 

However, there are those that did not have this start in life and whose learning is incomplete.   There are those who carry on snapping and rough playing into adulthood regardless of the yelping response of other dogs.  They become the 'bullies' of the dog world.  These are the dogs that will barge and bash into other dogs in play and even though the other dogs either run off and stop play or NEVER play with them in the first place the bullies will still broadside and 'T' Bone them.   End of play does not stop some dogs.  What does is another (often bigger) stronger dog who gives the bully a taste of its own medicine and broadsides IT.  Only then (after expiencing pain) does the under-socialisedl/lacking in communication skills dog learn to respond more sympathetically to the yelps of others.

'Play biting = end of play' is only one facet of how dogs learn but both Operant and Instrumental have their place with each having different value in different circumstances. BUT the early learning of pain,yelp, release/back off association is started much earlier than the  'end of play'  response to biting because the ability to stand, lunge, chase after, jump on, catch and bring down etc invoved in 'play' come much later in the pups physical development.  Ouch is a response to pain in any language and the mother's response to her pups yelp of distress is what teaches the pups what to do (back off) when hearing its own littermates yelp in pain.

Other than that I'd say it all depends on which popular 'training book' you've read or what the populist theory of the moment happens to be.

> The ouch or yelp that we make when our pup hurts us then has the learned response of back off and most well-socialised pups that have been exposed to social learning among their own kind will respond in this way.&nbsp;
>
> However, there are those that did not have this start in life and whose learning is incomplete. There are those who carry on snapping and rough playing into adulthood regardless of the yelping response of other dogs.&nbsp; They become the 'bullies' of the dog world.&nbsp;

Sorry, I disagree. My puppy knew full well that a dog yelp meant back off and he would not push his luck past that point with another dog, however he did not know that a human 'yelp' meant the same thing. The ways dog act between each other is not how they act with us & vice-versa, they need to learn how to play/interact differently with people, not treat us like 2 legged canines.

Maybee a dogs pain tollerence/threshold has a lot to do with this too, I've only heard my pup yelp once when he bit his own tail, yet my other dog has bitten him, knocked him over, the cats stuck her claws up his nostrills etc... and he never yelped, I would imagine that he learnt his litter mates could put up with a lot of hard biting and actually enjoy rough games - he trys to apply that to people and every times his bites them they yelp - that doesn't happen with other dogs, he has to learn the boundries all over again.

Also a dog that likes to play rough is not a bully,  the same way that a dog that plays gentle is not a coward. A bully picks on the weak, a dog that plays rough will enjoy meeting a bigger stronger dogs that will play rough too. Dogs have different levels of playing, some humans enjoy restling with each other, other don't , it doesn't mean those that wrestle are bullies or that they haven't learnt how to communicate.

I hate theses threads ending up in disharmony :(
Pleases can we give our opinions and not berate others.................
It's not supposed to be this way.

Karen

Karen I don't meant to cause offence to anybody.

I just can't sit back and not comment on somebody elses statement that dogs that play rough are bullies and lack early inter-canine socialisation skills. A lot of people browse the boards for advice and things like this can be mis-interpreted and send people in a panick that thier dogs who enjoy a good rough-housing basically have behaviour problems due to lack of socialisation. A dog that plays rough is no problem, it's only a problem when the dog doesn't know the limits.

Sorry, I disagree. My puppy knew full well that a dog yelp meant back off and he would not push his luck past that point with another dog, however he did not know that a human 'yelp' meant the same thing. The ways dog act between each other is not how they act with us & vice-versa, they need to learn how to play/interact differently with people, not treat us like 2 legged canines.

But what a lot of popular Puppy/Dog Books would have you believe is that all you have to do when your pup bites too hard is to say Ouch and the dog will stop biting!!  The lady who first posted on here had said that she was doing this and getting no response from her dog - it still engaged in biting!  neither did it respond to 'No'.  My whole point is the dog won't respond to Ouch unless it has learned Ouch/yelp means something ie is a RESPONSE TO PAIN!!!!  Most dogs DO generalise the yelp to ouch with humans if it high pitched enough but a lot of humans can't manage this.  But IF this method is to be effective, whether it is a Yelp or an Ouch that's used, there has to be an association with pain in the dog's early learning. 

You don't have to tell me that we need to learn to play with our dogs or that with-holding rewards or not rewarding behaviour is a way of teaching our dogs what we do not want. But, if you think of it in scientific terms, what you teach your dog when you say  "Ouch" and stop play (if the dog has no association with pain/yelp/back off/) is that the word "Ouch" is a pre-curser/signal to end of play.  Just as you producing the lead or saying 'walkies' tells the dog a walk is coming Ouch is saying play is ending.   "Ouch" said in those circumstances tells the dog nothing about how hard it bit or that it should not have bitten at all.   In stopping play all you are really doing is removing the dog from the environment in which it gets so excited that it bites (too hard). 

Surely, if you want to teach the dog that bite stops play then no word should be said at all; it's a simple equation - dog bites = no play; a direct consequence of action - Skinner at his best.  But again, a lot of books tell you to say Ouch loudly and remove your hands or stop play.  It's very misleading, written by people who only half understand canine evolution but have good marketing skills.   The fact that ithe dog stops biting after a few weeks would probably happen anyway as part of it's general development.   Just as babies stop exploring their environment by putting everything they find in their mouths so do dogs.  Once they've honed their predatory skills by play-fighting/biting this  behaviour in dogs usually stops too as they don't have to go out and catch and kill their food.

But I stick by why I believe there has to be an association between pain and yelp for the dog to understand the meaning of the sound and  to back off/stop biting hard.

>the dog won't respond to Ouch unless it has learned Ouch/yelp means something ie is a RESPONSE TO PAIN!!!!

You seem to be making the very common mistake of assuming that dogs understand English. We learn that "Ouch" is what we say when something hurts us - to a dog it's just another of our vocalisations. They will eventually learn that it means "Let go" (just as they will eventually learn that "Sit" means ''put your bottom on the floor') but they will never, ever link it to someone else's pain because they cannot empathise. You can teach a dog to 'let go' without ever needing to cause it pain.

They don't have to empathise!  They know that yelping is a result of pain.  Their own.  Their own mother releases them when they yelp after discipline.  There at their mother's knee so to speak they learn social behaviour and social communication.  It is re-inforced every time they are disciplined and everytime they interact with their own littermates and bite/get bitten back in exploration and play  It becomes a learned response just as they develop learned responses to thousands of other things.   I would even venture (though without scientific back up) that dogs DO EMPATHISE with humans.  When mine have inadvertently jumped up and hit me on the nose, I've gasped and covered my nose with my hands.  Almost all of my dogs will come to me and lick my face and nuzzle in addition to the one that bumped me.  If I am ill or upset they will come and lie by me their head on my lap or feet whichever they can get to.  They are incredibly sensitive to me and my frame of mind and will offer whatever comfort they can. 

If they don't generalise the yelp to the ouch (which I already covered) itis the ouch that has to be equated with pain/discomfort - call it what you will  - for the ouch to be effective. 

Withdrawing play alone will not teach a dog not to bite per se.  It will learn biting stops play but what do you do in other circumstances where you are not playing but the pup is biting?  What if you are just walking past the bed or sofa and get dive-bombed by your pup and the teeth go in?  You can't withdraw play to stop the biting as there is no play involved.  You may not be able to stand still either if the phone's ringing or someone is at the door.  So, as soon as you move the pup strikes again.  It's not playing - it's honing it's predatory skills.  There's no play on your part to withdraw.  What will you do then?

You can only teach a pup that ouch means let go if you at first say ouch as the pup lets go until you make the association and then move the cue along the behaviour chain and say it when the pup has hold of you and you want him to let go.  Using that method then how can Ouch teach Do Not Bite Humans, or Bite Inhibition - another situation that the popular press suggests Ouch is used in.

If you don't say anything until the pup has hold of you how has the pup learned NOT to bite humans in the first place?  How has it learned the difference between a soft and hard bite? 

I will quote you JG   "We learn that "Ouch" is what we say when something hurts us - to a dog it's just another of our vocalisations. They will eventually learn that it means "Let go" (just as they will eventually learn that "Sit" means ''put your"   etc etc.

Well, we use drop or give to get a dog to give up a ball from its mouth.  Does that teach it never to pick up a ball again??  What rubbish!  Of course it doesn't.  It teaches it, quite rightly, to let go. 

But that's not what we want to teach the dog - we want to teach it not to bite us because biting hurts and is unacceptable in our society.  The only way we have is looking to how the dog learns and mimic it as closely as we can or, as I said before,  just wait until it grows out of it but that's a very painful process for us and a bit risky if you don't want your dog destroyed!

I will go back to what the first poster's problem was - the pup kept on biting her and although she said Ouch and No the pup kept on doing it.  My point is Ouch (or no or yelp) means nothing to the dog unless it has experienced pain (discomfort) of biting/being bitten in association with the sound.  

I don't think there is any intention to create disharmony but what is sad is that because I made one statement it has been discussed at length and at the expense of helping the origianl poster. 

But, no-one should take on board what is written here without question.  If not thought through an awful lot of unsound advice would circulate.  It is healthy to discuss and debate ideas and theories - non of us would progress and learn if ideas were not challenged and thought patterns stretched.

xxx

>Their own mother releases them when they yelp after discipline

My bitches must be weird then because they've never made their pups yelp when disciplining them. They hold them until they stop resisting, but never hold hard enough to cause pain.

>What if you are just walking past the bed or sofa and get dive-bombed by your pup and the teeth go in?  You can't withdraw play to stop the biting as there is no play involved.

Of course there's 'play' involved - all dogs' games are variations on hunting (chasing a ball instead of a rabbit etc). They pounce because they're programmed to, and fulfilling the action releases endorphins which create the feeling of pleasure. The pounce is triggered by movement - you stand still and become boring = have removed the fun.

>When mine have inadvertently jumped up and hit me on the nose, I've gasped and covered my nose with my hands.  Almost all of my dogs will come to me and lick my face and nuzzle in addition to the one that bumped me.  If I am ill or upset they will come and lie by me their head on my lap or feet whichever they can get to.  They are incredibly sensitive to me and my frame of mind and will offer whatever comfort they can. 

Dogs become very good at learning body-language; anything out of the ordinary scares and distresses them, so they make appeasing gestures. They cannot imagine your feelings in relation to theirs.

"Ouch" is no more than a cue-word to be taught (because it's easy for us to remember), and said loudly and/or high-pitched it's more of a shock to the pup than if it's said soothingly. Saying "banana!" in the same tone of voice could be taught just as easily, but would be harder for us to remember!

>Well, we use drop or give to get a dog to give up a ball from its mouth.  Does that teach it never to pick up a ball again??  What rubbish!  Of course it doesn't.  It teaches it, quite rightly, to let go. 

Of course - because if you were trying to teach it not pick things up you'd do that at an earlier stage, just as it was picking up the object.

You are missing the point again JG.  No it doesn't matter what the sound is it could be bananas but the dog can't say that.   But if the dogs feel pain and vocalises in a canine way - ie yelp the dog does make an association which, if we get a similar sound by yelping/ouching which is what a lot of people on here are proposing humans do then the effect will be the same.

On the other issue you raise - watch one of your dogs go bite a child in the park and try telling it's mother - it's Ok I taught my dog that ouch means let go.  I'm sure she'd be impressed but she'd far rather the dog learned NOT to bite in the first place than let go once it has.  And if you're trying to say that having taught ouch means let go and you say it before the dog has even got hold how confusing would be that be for your dog?  You may as well tell it to down after its done so or come when it's already there. 

It seems that you are  still trying to score points JG just as you did before.  If you remember about two years ago we had a run in over how breeding to the KC breed specification was ruining dogs health and conformation.  You and John (gundogs) tried your best to discredit me and find fault with what I said.  Funny then that a two year research team found the exact same thing and broadcast it on TV this week putting breeders and the KC to shame for what they did to dogs.

suzieque you must agree that all animals are born with some instincts. In my experience, if done correctly, puppies do understand the sound of pain if one emulates the sound another puppy can make. I am very capable of yelping like the best of them and for very hard bites find licking my 'paws' adds a little extra message. I've stopped scores of pups from biting hard in our training club, not just my own. These pups had never met me before. They know from instinct what the sound means like humans understand laughter. I've never had problems with my own pups biting; I let them chew my hands when very young to teach inhibition and teach them it's inappropriate to bite when their bite is softened to a light touch - that's been around 16 weeks. I've never hurt my pups to teach them this. I never saw their mothers or littermates hurt them to teach them this. As previously mentioned, a bite too hard resulted in a littermate yelping and giving them the cold shoulder. Certainly my older dog never bit or hurt my puppy to teach it to stop biting. He just went somewhere the pup couldn't reach him - ie walked away.

>But if the dogs feel pain and vocalises in a canine way - ie yelp the dog does make an association which, if we get a similar sound by yelping/ouching which is what a lot of people on here are proposing humans do then the effect will be the same.

Apart from the fact that people can't 'speak dog' any more than dogs can 'speak human', I'm told it's no more difficult to teach a deaf puppy not to mouth too hard as it is a hearing puppy. If that's so then the sound is of no meaning at all.

>If you remember about two years ago we had a run in over how breeding to the KC breed specification was ruining dogs health and conformation.

No, I don't recall that at all. But as John believes in the old-fashioned practicalities of dogs rather than modern trends then I'd trust his judgement.

Perhaps then JG it will help if I refer you to page 63 of How Dogs Learn by Birch and Bailey, a book recommended by leading Canine Education experts to students. 

There you will find a section on  how (verbal) Reprimands, which are Conditioned Punishers are used to decrease behaviour and are only effective when previously paired with some other form of physical punishment.

You may also find that reading The  Evolution of Canine Social Behaviour by Abrantes well worth considering along with any of the leading written research on social behaviour and development of dogs.  There you may well find that how a pup responds to pain/biting from its mother and or littermates has a lasting effect on the dog and provides the basis of its social interaction and lifelong communication skills.

Sure, there's exceptions to every rule but I offered a suggestion as to why this poster was not getting an effective response to her 'stop biting' policy, an explanation based on proven research and modelled on tried and tested theory.  I will still give credence to this over the incomplete, and unsound hints and tips that are provided in the 'popular' dog training books.