Biting

What's the best way to get him to stop biting people?
He seems to do okay when it's just me, but as soon as he's
around strangers (or multiple people) it's like all of his manners
go down the toilet. I tell ppl not to let him bite them
(if he does, they're supposed to grab his muzzle and say, "no bite!")
but it almost seems like when they do that, he'll bite more! What am I doing wrong?
Should I change the command? It's frustrating when the ppl he's biting think
"it's cute" and continue to let him do it cuz then it's back to ground zero. Any tips???

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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on October 25, 2010 at 10:35am

Instead of grabbing his muzzle have them yelp and if he continues put him in another room for a little while. Being away from the action for a corgi is major. Grabbing the muzzle can seem too much like play.

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Permalink Reply by Nichole on October 25, 2010 at 11:52am

yeah, I was starting to wonder if that might be the case. It's just harder for me to "yelp" when he does that (I'm not the 'yelping' type) but I suppose if it'll help him learn better than what we're doing, I'm gonna have to step outside my box a little. ;)

Thanks. :)

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Permalink Reply by Edison on October 25, 2010 at 11:49am

Most likely, he's biting people out of fear or over-excitement. The best way to deal with either is to keep him in another room (calmer environment) for the first few minutes that someone else is over. After a short while, you can let your corgi out and carefully introduce him to the new people. If he bites someone, put him back in the other room for a longer calming period. If this doesn't work, you might want to take him to dog/puppy classes to help modify his behavior- professionals can help figure things out if they know the dog personally. :)

It might be worth your time to figure out if your puppy is biting out of fear or excitement. Excitement is easier to deal with, since dogs tend to relax as they get older, whereas fear will require some careful training to deal with. Is this ankle-nipping (a common behavior in corgis and other herding dogs- they try to convince their people to group together) or biting hands that try to pet him?

I agree that grabbing the muzzle is too much like play- and if your corgi is biting out of fear, then grabbing the muzzle is a really bad idea, since it can be interpreted as an attack.

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Permalink Reply by Nichole on October 25, 2010 at 2:57pm

I'm pretty sure it's just excitement. He gets super hyper and just starts to play rough with people. I like the idea of putting him in a separate room. Right now I just put him in a laundry basket until he calms down but I figure he'll be growing out of being able to contain him with laundry baskets eventually. Ha.

We plan to take him to training, however we have to wait until he's gotten all of his puppy shots first...so we have a couple months yet of training him on our own.

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Permalink Reply by Kari & Quin on October 25, 2010 at 12:38pm

This is pretty much puppy behavior. If you are consistent about not letting him do it to you, he will grow out of it. At 8 weeks they are still babies. I found Youtube to be a great resource for puppy training just watch as many as you can so you get a good variate and take what you like and ignore the others. Kikopup and Pamelamarxsen are my favorites

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Permalink Reply by Nichole on October 25, 2010 at 2:57pm

Thanks! I'll have to check those out. :)

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Permalink Reply by Jane on October 25, 2010 at 9:02pm

You shouldn't have to wait too long for puppy classes. Usually they just require the puppy to be "up to date" on shots, they don't necessarily need to have all of them yet. We started Luke after his second round of shots and he was actually one of the older puppies in the class.