Ed,
I have many of your video's and am a bit confused about teaching my 15 week old pup the meaning of the word "NO". Reading your artical on teaching a pup the NO command you say to take it by the scruff of the neck and shake it, in your vidoe, you have said to grab him by the front of his neck/cheeks for this? Of the two which do you recommend. I am wanting to train my pup in SCH so am very concerned about breaking his spirit, I also have a problem with this hard little guy. I have tried the water bottle and squiring him when I say no, he turns that into a game and that does not help much. At 15 weeks old when he play bites, he really does not bite but plays, of course he breaks the skin with those sharp puppy teeth. So which method is perferred on a pretty hard little guy? I know he is a tuff little guy because when he was 8 weeks old he almost got the front of his tongur cut off and he just kind of whimpered one time and then was back off playing again. At the present time I have your OB video, Deal with Dom and Aggressive dogs, 8 weeks to 8 months and a few others, so I am trying to do this right but being a new handler do not want to hurt the little guy and want to keep my realationship with him very close. So at 15 weeks do you shake them to get them to break this and to teach the meaning of NO, have tried but maybe not hard enough, have also done the look in the eye while holding his front feet off the ground by his neck/cheeks.
Folks on the board join in and let me know what you do, I really love this little guy and he has a very strong play drive, I do redirect him but of course he wants to play with mom and dad more than toys...
Thx,
Jay

15 weeks seems far along, but you could try what I did with mine when she was mouthing and younger...palm a plastic bulb of lemon juice (less than a buck at a grocery store)...squat down on their level, act distracted and unaware of them, and wait until they get worked up and mouthy...once they hit your knuckles or whatever you don't want them on, say "No" calmly, gently grab their heads, and give them a solid squirt down their throats. Takes them about 15 seconds to figure out what just happened in their mouths. It's not scary (as I saw it) and it's not harsh (as I interpreted my pup's actions). It was effective in my case, didn't take long. Nice thing is that once she identifies the scent (like the Bitter Apple technique Ed has in his videos) you can rub it on hands, etc. of yourself, kids, etc. in small quantities. Hopefully he will get the picture.

I am not raising mine as a sport dog, perhaps others can comment on whether this would be bad for that kind of pup. Or whether this is a dumb idea.

Hi Jay, With a 15wk old puppy, (sch prospect) I would continue to redirect him on to a toy. I keep a lot of small stuffed animal type toys around & use them (shaking them & letting the pup pounce on them). With such a young pup, patience is key!

My 4.5 month old pup has no idea what the word "no" means... some days I wonder if my 2 year old GSD knows <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I'm not a fan of correcting working puppies at all. In fact, I teach my pup to tollerate being scruffed, I do it while playing, n if she yelps n growls at my hand I pull my hand back quickly n act like "wow, defending yourself just made the problem go away!" n go back to playing like nothing ever happened.

To each their own... some people need more obedience out of a pup than others, I don't worry about it at all, she steals my $200 shoes all the time, I throw a toy in her vicinity n grab the shoe when she lets go, some people can't take that stuff, so like I said, to each their own <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />