Nipping at people when the leave

[Donna Everson]

Our doodle Riley (1yr) loves attention.  He'll allow you to pet him, but when you stop and go to walk away he nipps at you.  We use to take him to the ice cream shop with us, but yesterday after allowing a women to pet him, when she started to walk away he nipped at her hand.  When my brother-in-law visits, Riley is aggressive towards him when he goes to leave.  He has started to bark at us when we leave too.   Any suggestions.

[shelly]

I'm sorry that I don't have any answers for you! Maybe Riley just loves visitors. Tori doesn't nip, but she barks like crazy whenever a guest leaves our house as if they never were in here.... I'll be watching to see the suggestions you get! Good luck!

[Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles]

Donna, I have a "nipper" too but usually when coming in the house rather than going out. Plus my nipper is 100#. What I did was have a hard biscuit on hand when I was coming home from work and I wouldn't pet him until I put it in his mouth. It took a bit, but now I'll say "where's your cookie" before someone comes in my door or the kids from school or husband from work and he'll run to the cabinet to get it before they come in. He holds it in his mouth until his "hellos" are done and then goes to eat it. It's almost like a routine around here, so you might find a little trick like that to do as people leave. Like I said, it took a lot of repetition, but helps around here, a lot, especially with 4 doods.

[Donna Everson]

Thanks I'll give it a try

[Adina P]

How much obedience does Riley have under his belt? How 'trained' is he?

[Donna Everson]

We took him for a 6 week puppy course when and then an intro course, but I don't think I'm a very good "pack leader". I was thinking of trying the clicker training. Do you think that might help?

[Diana Allen]

Sorry to hear this....I am not having a problem with the nipping with my doodle ... but I can tell ya one time with a hound mix I had bit a mail courier... this courier was on our deck...all was well... the dog was petted and all was well...when the guy goes to leave Bear ( my dog ) bit him in the back of the leg... Bear ripped the guys pants... but did not cause injury other than some mild bruising... this courier called in right away and my dog ended up in quarantine and I had to pay for a new pair of pants and was sued $1000.00 off insurance.... nice.....
So for you I hope the behavior changes... before anything like that happens... This happened to my friend as well who has a shipoo...after petting and when the lady started to walk down the hallway he bit her but did draw blood... why do they do this.... ??? It still remains a mystery to me....