I started working my five month old german shepherd pup in some basic obedience and drive work. I noticed that he will open and close his mouth real fast while working. He doesn't open if far just short quick bites. Hope this is making sense. Curious if anyone else has run into this and what I need to do to deal with it properly. I do not know if it is nervousness or excitement. He has never had a nervousness issue before and has always seemed to have good nerves. He is not jumpy and is pretty well socialized. I appreciate the help.

Is he "chattering" his teeth? Kind of like he is cold?

Ed refers to that as a short-nerved dog.

Not a weak-nerved dog, just a highly excitable, hyper, high-strung dog. In the DVD - Preparing your dog for the helper - Ed shows an example of a short-nerved dog. It's a Mal who's chattering his teeth in excitement.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. It just means that you'll have to spend a bit more time settling his nerves down if he gets too wound up to focus properly. Sounds like you have a fun pup to work

I'm currently training one very clear-nerved pup and one somewhat short-nerved dog (not as much as yours, he doesn't chatter his teeth) and I have more fun working with my more hyper dog cause he's a much higher energy dog and it's always exciting with him.
My clear-nerved dog gets bored more easily so I have to work harder to keep the excitement level up for her.

I think that's what it is anyway. I'm sure that if I'm wrong, someone more knowledgeable will pipe in

Jesea chatters a bit....

My last dog "chattered" in anticipation for his ball...my current pup does not chatter, but does have the fire in his eyes and the one drop of drool come spilling over if he has to wait for the ball.

Hi Chuck,

My dog did that when i first got him. Although it wasn't the chattering everyone is describing. It was more like an air snap. Almost like he was barking but no sound was coming out.
He only did it during training or when he was excited. Like if i gave him a command he would do it but he would open and close his mouth once or twice while he was doing it.
And he wasn't reaching to snap at me or anything he was just opening and closing his mouth quickly.
Tucker has a pretty high drive for a mutt (he's part Border Collie) and although he still does this once in awhile it is always only if he is very very excited.
I asked about it on this board because i was concerned that he was maybe being a little bit dominant by doing it when i gave a command. Like he was talking back almost.
I was told (on here) that some high drive hyper (for lack of a better word) dogs will do what I was describing and that it would probably phase itself out. Which it has to a degree.
Tucker is just a pet so the fact that he does it only once in awhile now is fine with me. But I will have to assume that if your plans for you pup are as a working dog that type of behaviour might be seen as a negative.
I am not sure how you would go about correcting it. My dilema at the time was that I didn't want to correct him for it because he only did it when i gave a command. He would do the command perfectly so to me reaching in to give him a correction for the air snapping would just be counter productive as he really wouldn't not what he was being corrected for.
Does the pup do it randomly when he's worked up?

Thanks for the responses everyone. He is not really chattering his teeth it is more like the air snap that Wendy mentioned and it makes a light popping sound. Also, I know his mother does it when she gets excited. My pup only does it when he is excited and is not nervy in any other situation.
I have not noticed him doing it when going after a bite rag (burlap) just when I started working the obedience.

Ooh, an air-snap. I see what you're saying.

Sounds like he's just excited and really in drive. My male used to air-snap a lot during obedience when he was younger - he outgrew it when he was a little over a year old. The pup I'm raising now has just started doing the air-snap recently in obedience (she's 8 months). She even lets out little barks sometimes - only when she's in very high drive and is impatient for the prey. Both of them are very quick to follow commands and I have no trouble with them trying to grab the toy before I release them (even if it's within their reach when I give the command).

If your pup's doing everything you ask him in obedience and is waiting for you to reward him (as opposed to ignoring your commands and grabbing the reward for himself) I don't see the problem.

I would definitely not correct for that. I like seeing that kind of excitement in my dogs. They usually learn to contain it better as they get older... usually

My dog does the "air-snap" too (and silent quick barks), when he's in super-high drive and, like Yuko said, he just can't wait for the prey. This usually happens in the beginning of the training session and phases out the more tired he gets.

I think it's a good sign, and I wouldn't worry about it. Of course, I don't think it would look very good during an OB trial, but eliminating that would be a polishing thing, I think.