Nipping

[Remidoodle]

We have had a ton of success with training our 1.5 year old goldendoodle since he was 6 months old.  He does great in formal training settings and is currently in an advanced obedience class working towards his CGC.  The one habit we are having SO much trouble breaking is him nipping at guests' clothing when they come in the door.  We have tried "go to bed" and making him sit while someone comes in, but the moment he is released he sprints to the guest (sometimes jumping) and will playfully nip at their shoelaces or the bottom of their clothing.  This happens mostly with adult male guests (I'm guessing because he thinks he can play a bit rougher with them).  Does anyone have a dog that has continued this puppy behavior this long and has found a successful way to correct it?  We have tried spraying bitter apple on our guests' clothing, but he gets so over threshold that he just doesn't seem to be able to control himself.  I should add that after about 30 seconds of craziness, he calms down and continues to act like his well-behaved self.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I'm going to guess that he does this with male guests because at least one male in his immediate family plays with him in ways that encourage it, and that would include playing tug-of-war, holding a ball or toy out or over him and encouraging him to grab it, and/or pulling a ball or toy out of his mouth for games of fetch rather than waiting until he drops it. (And of course, the kinds of games where the a person's hands or arms are the toys, lol.) These are typical ways that men and sometimes kids of both sexes play with dogs, and all of them encourage nipping.

The dog must never get a reward for putting his teeth on any part of a person, including clothing, and a toy or ball in your hand is an extension of that. Nobody ever throws anything for him until he has released it. Nobody ever throws anything for him if he tries to take it before it gets thrown. If his teeth touch anything that is "attached" to a human, even accidentally, the game ends and he gets ignored.

Jumping also must never be rewarded. All 4 have to be on the floor before he gets any kind of attention or affection. Don't acknowledge his presence at all, turn your back on him. If you're consistent with this, he'll stop doing it, as long as there's never a payoff. You can also work on the "off" command.

I am sure Jane will address the subject of training being situational. if he's perfect in formal training sessions, it's time to start doing the training in every day situations, lol. 

[Melissa & Harley]

I appreciate your answer, as I'm having the same issue with Harley. He only does it with me, though. He nips and pulls mostly on my sleeves, trying to get me to play, especially after I first get home from work. I haven't seen him do it with my husband or the kids. We learned "off" during puppy class, but its definitely the one command that he never perfected. I'm thinking we need to step up the treats we use for training to something like hotdogs to keep his attention. lol.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

And "training" needs to happen every day, all day, in all situations. Most dogs do beautifully in class, the challenge is to get them to behave appropriately outside of class, which is where they live, lol.

A dog will not continue to do something that never brings a payoff. That means he must never, ever get attention of any kind, even negative attention like scolding, for nipping or pulling at you. If you ignore him 99 times when he demands attention or play from you, and one single time, maybe you're on the phone or otherwise distracted, you toss a toy for him or play with him when he nipped at you, you just taught him that persistence pays off, lol, and that if he keeps trying, sometimes he succeeds. It's called intermittent reinforcement in psychological terms, and it's the most powerful kind of reinforcement of a behavior that there is. 

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I really think that this is just because he still has lots of puppy energy and he's not able to control his excitement....so you'll have to do that for him.  If you have successfully taught him to go to his "place" and stay there when someone comes into the home that's a great start.  Just don't release him unless you have control and can keep him calm.  I would put him on a leash as you release him from the "place" position, take him calmly with you to meet the visitor, and the minute he shows signs of being overly excited take him back to his "place" and make him wait until he is calm.  You may have to repeat this a few times....but DON'T let him get excited....that's a self-reinforcing behavior.  If you haven't taught a reliable "place" command, they I would crate him or gate him away from where the visitor is entering and use the exercise I described.  My Doodles are five and six and I still gate them away from the front door for the first few minutes that our visitors are here...and they know they will not be released until they are completely calm.

Karen mentioned situational training.  Dogs learn things contextually.  Often they will perform really well in a classroom setting, and that's because everything is predictable and controlled.  Once they're in the "real world" they aren't able to generalize those learnings.....that's why I think it's so important to do training among all kinds of distractions versus only in a training facility.  Good luck.

[Remidoodle]

Thanks so much for your response! I definitely agree that it's over-excited puppy energy. Even if I give a command once he's in that state, his brain just can't process what I'm saying because he's so focused on the excitement. I will definitely try gating him until he is calm! Thanks again!

[Laura and Angus]

We had a large problem with grabbing clothes and worked very hard to get Angus to a point where he uses a "gentle mouth"... he still gets overly excited, but verbal corrections seem to work well with him at this point. What made the biggest difference in our family is the use of the air canister seen below. We paired the word "No" with a puff of air to his back hips -as per the advice of our trainer. We had initially tried the use of a spritz of water, but that was not a deterrent for Angus and he actually seemed to get excited by that. It seems that with the air, he mostly hates the hissing noise the canister makes and he completely stopped grabbing our hands/arms/ and clothes after we started using this tool. The key, though, is to say "No" and then a few seconds after spray a puff of air very calmly. The goal being to have the dog understand that the word "No" is a bad thing. Worked very successfully for us - we still use the air spray occasionally, but only need it in rare instances now. Good luck!

http://www.amazon.com/Pet-Convincer-Training-Tool-Dogs/dp/B004B6HV6A

[Remidoodle]

Thanks for the tip!