My young dog is trying to bite me if I block her from having something that she wants. I don’t use a long line anymore because she gets tangled in it, what should I do?

Question

Dear Cindy,

I have a 10 month old  female GSD.  We have the use of our neighbors acre size fenced yard and I take my dog over every day to let her run and exercise her. Today, she was getting into something I didn't want her messing with and when I tried to block her getting to what she wanted, she lunged at me a few times trying to bite. I literally had to kick her back to keep her from biting at me. I have seen the pack structure DVD and she has been through obedience training since the very beginning. I am also training her in SAR and she is doing very well with that. It is times like today and other times she has jumped up to bite, that I feel she is not respecting me as leader, but am not sure what else to do. I am wondering if I should use an e collar and correct her with that when she tries to bite. She has a dominant personality and is a very independent dog. I have done marker training with her and she has learned really well with it, but if she knows I don't have food she will not come when called. I used to have her drag a long line, but she kept getting tangled in it. I did a lot of research on training and have learned a lot from your website as well as your DVDs and yet I feel so discouraged with her, I want to throw in the towel most days. I have kids and I don't want her to end up biting them seriously or me. She is crate trained and is not allowed on furniture or beds. She is not dominant about her food or toys or chew things.  It is this one thing of trying to bite either me or my kids. I owned 2 other dogs who never did anything like this so it baffles me. Can you give me any suggestions as to what I should do?

Thanks so much,
Shirley

Accepted Answer

Is this dog already trained with the electric collar? What videos do you already have? I looked you up in our customer database and don’t have any orders on file.

The recommendations I would make are this:

Back up your training to establish more leadership. Your dog does not respect you if she’s trying to bite when you block her from something she wants. At 10 months old she’s only an adolescent, not even close to being fully mature. If you don’t work on this now, then it will only continue to escalate.

Start with our groundwork program

Pack Structure for the Family Pet

Dealing with Dominant & Aggressive Dogs

Before you ever would use the ecollar for this, make sure you know how to properly use it and the dog is properly introduced to the sensation of the stimulation.

We have an excellent video on how to use the collar, Electric Collar Training for the Pet Owner.

You say your dog will only respond to marker training if you have food. This means that you have made some big mistakes in your training. You have either used the food as a bribe, instead of a reward AND/OR you have tried to use markers when you didn’t really have anything to give the dog. At 10 months old you should NEVER EVER give your dog a command without being prepared to pay her for listening to you. You should also not show the dog the food before you ask her to follow a command. The food should be hidden on you, and used as a reward, not a bribe.

I’d suggest this article on marker training.

These videos:

The Power of Training Dogs with Markers
The Power of Training Dogs with Food

I’d also direct you to the search function in the upper left corner of the website. It will find posts, articles and Q & A’s that deal with your search terms.

Cindy