12 Month Old Dog Mouthing And General Bad Behaviour

[Rain]

This has taken some courage to even write this as i know i have failed along the way for my dog to be this way.

My 12 month old dog mouths our arms constantly, whenever we are with him he grabs someones arm. You cant even sit with him for a pat and he will mouth your hand/arm.

Each tme i step outside to spend time with him doing obedience or play he will keep barking at me, he is VERY vocal, if i growl at him to shut up he will run around barking more, so i head back inside or ignore him then he will jump at my back or mouth me?

He has no concept of his size and will bowl over small dogs and grab them at the back of their neck and pull them along. He cant be trusted even with supervised play near our toddler as he jumps up and his paws hit her face and she falls back.

I had an obedience instructer look at him and she said he belongs with a more experienced owner, he shouldnt have been placed with us as he is very dominant, this was at 6 months of age. So this behaviour has been going for a while and growling at him, turning my back to him, walking away, putting him on lead just doesnt work.

Hopefully someone can give me some advice.

[poodlefan]

Sounds like you've got a few things going on here.. some behaviour motivated by frustration, some by lack of adverse consequences.

How much daily exercise does your dog get Monie? What ever he's getting, my first recommendation would be to give him more. Some of this behaviour may have its roots in lack of physical stimulation. He sounds like he gets very excited during most interactions with him. I gather he's an outside dog?

Time to introduce, in addition to some general NILIF, TOT training (if you're not already doing this), a few negative (not cruel) consequences for mouthing. As I do not know you or your dog, I won't recomend any specific training but my advice would be to find yourself a DECENT trainer who is willing to work with you and your dog to implement some changes. None of these behaviours sound particularly unusual in terms of what a decent trainer sees almost every day.

He needs to learn not to mouth, not to jump and not to grab other dogs by the neck. He will not, IMO, learn these things by you attempting to deflect his bad behaviour into more positive behaviour or by leashing or ignoring him.

Time to summon a professional. Dominant dogs can learn to become nicely mannered pleasureable pets. My guess is that you're going to have to step up to the mark and take a firmer (not nasty) hand with this one but that would be best done under professional supervision.

[persephone]

Monie...

No time for guilt or embarrassment now- you need to contact a professional, as poodlefan suggested!

Where are you situated? If we know where you are (city/town/subub) .. someone can be recommended to you by folks here. Do not just pull a name out of a hat !

[Rain]

Thank you for both your replys.

Currently living in the Hunter Valley NSW (dont want to write to much personal stuff on the net)

Mornings before breakfast i do obedience and frisbie/ball time. Then evenings it is offlead running as walking him onlead seems to do nothing for him we go for an hour, yes he is an outside dog.

PF i will look into TOT training, NILIF as i dont know it.

[poodlefan]

Monie there are pinned topics on TOT and NILIF at the top of this forum.

Just out of interest, what breed/s is your dog.