SaraCO2013 wrote:Trying to teach Envy to howl at the moment since she is very vocal, pretty fun!
Having an issue atm with molly. She has always done this and it has never bothered me until lately. When she is on her tie out in the day and I go to let her off for her evening run in the woods she gets overly excited and nips me. I know there is a term for this but I forgot what it was called. She has always done this but not so much actually nipping me, I will tell her to sit to un-clip the tie out and as im reaching down she usually does a few, what I call, "air nips" where she just nips the air. They arent aggressive nips where she is intentionally trying to inflict pain or anything she is just really excited. Sometimes she will jump around doing it before she settles down and sits. But lately she has actually nipped me a few times, not hard enough to break skin but it does bruise a little. I know she is excited to get let off to go chase rabbits and hunt oppossums but getting nipped sucks lol. Anyone know how I could correct it? I've been telling her "no" when she does the nipping in the air and kinda scolding her when she does make contact with my hand but im not sure if there is another way to curb this?
Try working on impulse control maybe. When she's really excited and you have a toy, have her sit before she can play. My girl does the same thing, she's a little shark, we call the air nipping "alligator snaps" because it sounds like a small alligator. What I did, was I would stand with the toy away from her until she calmed down and sat, and then she'd get to play. Slowly work towards more and more difficult tasks, like holding the toy closer to her (but not close enough to make her uncomfortable), having her look at you instead of the toy when it's in front of her, and even dropping the toy on the floor.
When practicing this on the tie out, don't un-clip her until she stops nipping. Say "good job!" or whatever positive phrase you use when she calms down and you un-clip her so she has some good reinforcement.