Biting

Stupa2266

Hey guys

I have a mbt pup and she is really cute and a joy to be with 90% of the time... The other 10 can be a handful. She is now 5 months(in one week) and she still have a tendency to bite when she gets excited. We are training her to calm down, holding her when she gets too excited and releasing her when she has calmed down, and that works some times... We also ignor her when she gets nippy, telling her No and not giving her any attention until she's calm. If that doesn't work we pin her down telling her No and wait.
It just seems that nothing works since she keeps getting overly excited and nippy. We train and walk every day, keeping her stimulated and not bored, but sometimes she just snaps.

I know she's a pup and that we need to be patient. But do any one of you have any tips on how to make her stop? Or do we just keep on with what we are doing and eventually she will stop?

Appreciate all input

Jbird

Keep going and eventually she will stop. 5 months is still younge. 12 months with the same consistent messages and she may stop. Mine did. She only nips now if I have had to be away and the other people in the house had played with her in ways that fosters the nippy behaviour. She pulls In line quickly when I get home.
In my experince Nipping has been the easiest behaviour to train out. Recall and getting her to come when called has been much more challenging.

Jbird

We pretty much said 'no or uhh haaa' in a disapproving tone when she nipped and the occasional pinning. We also encouraged good behaviour, like sitting without nipping, by saying 'good girl' in a nice happy tone. I swear she now thinks her name is 'good girl'. Lol.

Stupa2266

Thank you for the response

We try to keep in mind that she is young and playful and that we have a strong and stubborn breed.
But since we are used to dogs that are more easily trained I wanted to make sure that it's completely normal for bullies to be like this and that we aren't doing anything destructive....

We'll keep on with the treats and encouraging calm and good behaviour

Jbird

Sounds completely normal and like you have an understanding of the breed.

There are other people on this site who have much more knowledge and experienc than I (as I have only had my first for 12 months), so hopefully they will add comments. Mine is 18 months and become so much more pleasant and calm in the house. She no longer nips, or bounds off me, or goes spakko inside. She knows play is for outside and calm is inside. We have polished floor and I have been worried about her hurting herself when going crazy jndoors so I condone that behaviour as well. She's nice and calm and cuddly now, but doesn't come too her name. Lol.

Otherwise, this topic has been discussed a lot and a quick flick past previous topics will probably provide you more insight.

Stupa2266

I have been reading a lot in this forum and I've learned a lot from other posts. I got a bit concerned since I've usually read about younger pups and my experience from other breeds are that the biting stops early.
But I'll keep on training her and remember to be patient:)

She does go crazy from time to time, running around and she gets a good grip here since its carpets all over :-p but most of the time she wants to cuddle and sleep in our lap

Thanks again for your input

Hope

My Bullie is 10 months old. He loves to walk behind me and pinch my butt to get attention. He does not nip hard or leave bruises. He can't stand it if he is not getti g all the attention. I yelp and he just wags his tail like a helicopter blade. He only does this to me. It has become kind of a game with us. He gets petted and kissed then he is ok. Probably not a great thing to do, but we have fun. ☺

corey90260

Your mini sounds like mine and she's 10 months . She gets better all the time but she has her moments ,nipping ,running around my house ,chasing most things that move . I have found that training, lots of exercise ,being as consistent as possible and LOTS of patience . Good Luck

Stupa2266

It's good to hear that Sissel isn't more of a struggle than other bullies I'm more focused on learning her to calm down now. When she starts biting because she's excited I put her on a leash and ignore her until she calms down. Saw some other posts on a different forum who all recommended that. So we'll try and see if that together with training will help

kstorck

My ebt used to nip like crazy when we got her at 6 months. She would follow me around and nip the back of my legs and try to tackle me down. I would get so frustrated at first, but then learned that just fueled her fire. So every single time it happened she was told "No nips!" Very firmly and put into her crate for 5 min to calm down, not to punish but to give her a chance to calm. If she came out and did it again the process would repeat. It has taken a while to train her out of it and even now at just over 1 year old she still nips occasionally and still get the calm down time. I will say that even though the process has been lengthy it didn't take her long to start to control herself at some moments, refraining from the nipping at a time when it surely would have happened. That is rewarding to see and is progress to be happy with. Good luck and have fun!

Stupa2266

It's the same here :-p getting upset and angry only fuels her frustration/excitement.
Hopefully she'll learn in the end

Jbird

The puppy yelp always worked with mine as well. Yelping loud like a puppy to tell her that it hurt.

Stupa2266

For some reason that doesn't help with Sissel.... She looks at us for 2 secs if we do it, and then right back on the chewing. I can see she responds well to what we are doing now, calming her down and giving her a time out if she doesn't stop on her own. But still a lot of training left :-p

Got a tip on stimulating her with agility yesterday. Any of you tried that with your EBT?

Jbird

I did 12 months of dog school with mine. I wanted to advance to agility but found I was having trouble with narrow minded dog trainers who were scared of working with a bull terrier. Summer was also very hot (40 degree Celsius) so we stopped. I'll start training again with another school.

I don't know how well mine will do without rewards (food or praise). Some obstacles (such as going through tunnels or walking on beams) were hard to convince her to do, even with food.

Stupa2266

dog trainers who are afraid of dogs... well, 40 degrees Celsius isn't a good working environment for any of us anyways, so I can see why you stopped.

I was just thinking to do some training at home in the yard, not doing it for competitions or anything fancy. Just something for her to do so her mind gets stimulated as much as possible.
Maybe she's cut out for it, and maybe not.
On thing that I'm sure of is that if I want her to do anything lots of treats will be necessary :-p

kstorck

So one thing that has that helped with my girl to mentally wear her out is to turn her walks into training sessions. I will constantly change direction or vary how fast I am walking. I will ask her to heel for a bit and then let her loose leash. I will walk a short ways and ask her to sit or lay down and just keep repeating that. After a bit she gives me this look like "Are you serious lady?!?!" But it keeps her attention constantly on me and what I am asking her to do. My girl is a scaredy dog so doing that on walks also helps take her mind off of the fact that she wants to go home.

corey90260

I have so thought of doing agility with Mackenzie I think she would love it .Having to use her smarts and activity A Bull Terriers version of Nirvana !! I have tried the puppy yelp and she looks at me like I'm nuts them keeps nipping, time out works way better. I also do training while on walks ,heel fast and slow with turns ,sit, down, wait, leave it ,drop it anything to wear her out both mentally and physically. The more I work with her the better she becomes ...

Stupa2266

Thankyou for all the tips!

We have just walked her and trained obedience when we got home... We'll start with training her during walks as well now. Getting rid of all that energy :-p And we decided on agility. Keeping it simple with just a few obstacles, but as you said @corey90260; it has to be bullie Nirvana ????

snowie

All of these tips and advices sounds really good, especially "training during walks", I think you'll establish good connection to train perfect "on leash" later. We've been doing this occasionally, not every day because I found Snowie uninterested in our training routine. Everything he cares about is his surroundings. Dogs, dogs, cats and dogs so I'll let him be an adolescent for a while. We'll do basic obedience training, but not every day. It's hard to get him focused all the time, if you have some more tips I'll be grateful.

When we're alone, he's perfect in small tricks like sit, lay down, come... because he knows he'll get some tasty treats. If we go out and tried to make the same we fail 7/10 times.

corey90260

I go no where with Mackenzie without the treat bag . I don't do constant training while on walks but there is always opportunity while walking ,as my trainer says every moment is teachable .