Our collie cross puppy is still biting !  It seems to happen when she is doing something we dont want her to , like chewing the furniture, when we tell her "off"  thats when she turns to bite us. Also when she`s trying to bite our shoes. she`s ok otherwise. I bought the book, The Dog Listener today. Has anyone else used this book, and does it work ?

There are varying opinions about Jan Fennells methods, I';m sure they will be expressed soon enough by others :D IMO some of it makes sense and works but other parts of it I don't thinm work, we persisited with it for ages with Kayla but in the end she responded better to clicker training, firmer(not roughness or beating, just firm)handling and she came on really well.

Anyway, not wishing to turn it into a debate about JF, we are lucky in that our latest baby was never very bity, although he doesn occassionally think its fun but he's just still teething so thats understandable :D Can i ask, do you have a few items that you activley encourage her to chew, as an alternative to your furniture I mean. Like for example, nylabones or rope/ragger type things, or something soft, or rubber(different dogs like different textures). If we ever 'caught' any of them as pups chewing we would say 'no' and offer the toy, as soon as they take it give them lots of praise and them leave them to play with the toy. In the meantime WATCH them like a hawk :D When the interest moves away from the toy and back to the unsuitbake object them you can say 'no' again but slightly louder and more sternly. If your pup is not used to you shouting alot then this will get there attention, and what I do with Idõ is to look at him and slightly widen my eyes, then when he respons I 'soften' my eyes, smile and tell him he is good. This works very well with him, but I know it wouldn't work with some dogs as they would not accept that kind of eye contact but it works fine with our.

You don't say what age your pup is, puppies go through 2 stages of biting/chewing/mouthing so if we know a bit more about your little girl then that would be a great help :)

Hope what I've said already helps, tho, we all here have been through this with pups, some of us quite a few times so we should be able to help

Emily - off to watch one of my fave films Kill Bill:Volume 1 :D

How old is she now? When you tell her 'off' and she bites you, what do you do?

It's worth remembering that JF isn't infallible. A lot of what she's written is sensible - other parts are based on flawed logic. If you can sort the wheat from the chaff you'll be okay. What she does extremely well is to teach owners that dogs aren't mentally deficient deformed furry children. They're a different species who have a different set of rules.
:)

she`s about 14 weeks, I`ve tried yelping and walking away, but she follows me and does it more ! 

Yelps can also sound exciting if you don't get the right intonation ...

We had it with our shar-pei when she was a puppy, if you told her off she would go for your feet, then when she got a bit bigger would go to nip your knee lol.
Did it to me once but she knows i am top dog lol, didnt work with hubby though lmao.
We tried all the no's and turning our back on her but nothing, the only thing that worked was time out. we would put her out of the room for 5 mins, had to be persistant with it though. worked wonders :)
She is 18mths now and as good as gold :) :)
Jane

Using the time out method can be very effective, and if you are following JFs books then somehting she advocates. I use it with Idõ when he's in my room and thinks my rats are fun to bark at at, or he tries to pawa t them or jump up at their cages, as soon as he does somehting it put him outside for 10secs. I did this about 15 times yeserday and now he can be in the same room and all he does is watch them :D
Needless to say, don't say a word when you do this, just camly put her out of the room and open the door after 10secs, just as long as she's making no noise that it!
Hope this helps
Emily

At 14 weeks, she won't have stopped, many pups are much worse at this stage ;)

I tend to feel the yelping only tends to work with veryyoung pups and then only if you get the yelp right - some pups will think you are being the latest squeaky toy and will just have more fun with you.

I have a Terv bitch who was nicknamed "Mad Bitey Puppy" - I had never known a pup like her.
We tackled it from various angles; time outs worked wonderfully, along with teaching bite inhibition re. toys etc (ie if her teeth touched us whilst she was playing with tuggies, balls etc, we immediately ended the game and walked away, and kept away for a few minutes).

Time outs work best if they are kept veryshort; only a couple of minutes at a time; be ready to repeat and repeat at first. I like to say "ah!" as soon as they start biting, so they get to understand why they have a time out, the word acts as a marker. Otherwise it can take a few moments to get them out and they maynot understand.

People with children often find it harder to prevent pup biting because the children are not so able to be very consistent in this area and may encourage over excitement.  It does come with time though - Mad Bitey Puppy was much improved by 20 weeks and can be very gentle with her mouth now :)

Lindsay
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