April 21, 2011

My 10 week old Border Collie bites constantly. What can I do?

Full Question:
When you say puppy prong collar are you referring to something different than just a normal prong collar that is small enough to fit a puppy? My 10 week old border collie is biting near constantly and through most every correction given to her. I've tried the basic ouch!, a low growl, scruff shaking, picking her up by the cheeks, pressing down on her tongue lightly but firmly, pushing my hand into her mouth to force a gag, pushing her away, holding her down, taps on the nose. All result in her coming back and biting harder. if I step up the force of the correction she steps up the bite pressure and begins to bite wildly in the air. It doesn't seem to be aggression just what you call prey drive, but that doesn't help the one inch gash she put into my hand the other day. So.. thinking about a prong collar.
Cindy
Cindy Cindy's Answer:
Border collies are high drive, extremely intelligent dogs that need a lot of mental exercise as well as physical activity.

Instead of giving corrections, why don’t you give the puppy something positive to do with her energy and prey drive?

Read the article I wrote titled Training With Markers. There are three phases of training, the learning phase, the distraction phase and the correction phase. We use markers to introduce our dogs to the LEARNING PHASE of training.

Very young puppies can learn all kinds of behaviors when using marker training and they LOVE it.

I would also recommend you purchase the DVD titled Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months.

Ed has owned and trained German Shepherds for 45 years. In the past 30 years we have bred over 350 litters of working bloodline German Shepherds. We give this video to all of our puppy customers and we never get questions on how to raise a pup.

Read the description of this puppy DVD on my web site. Dog training is not rocket science it's simple common sense ideas on how to handle and train a dog.

You should also consider the 4 hour DVD on Basic Dog Obedience. The fact is you have much more to learn than your dog. I recommend the handlers start studying this DVD right away even though you won’t use some of this training material for several months (usually not until the pup is 4 to 6 months old).

I also recommend that you go to the web site and read the article on “Ed’s Philosophy of Dog Training.” I believe you will not only learn something about dog training, I hope you will also adopt the same philosophy on dog training.

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Expert Dog Trainer Cindy Rhodes
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