Hi I have a 10 week old jack russell terrier. I work with her a total of an hour and a half of one on one training. We use a tennis ball for focus and affection as reward. She is a very hyperactive puppy and has a hard time focusing. She is getting better with consistent training. She knows the sit command and we are working on lay down. I have two young children so I am focusing on teaching the puppy to not bite. My voice command was not working so now I have been grabbing the loose skin of her neck nad shaking her a bit saying no biting. She kisses mea and I do good kisses and love her. She listens to my husbands voice and stops biting. The children however she will biteand bite on their clothes and jump crazily. I am crate training her and have been telling her forcfully no biting. She stops and then will do it again. Again I do the voice and she stops. Then again she will bite them and I put her into the crate for a time out. She bit my daughter on the hand today pretty bad and made her bleed. I know the puppy's breed reputation. I am wondering if I am training her properly to stop biting. She still isn't getting it and we are at 4 weeks of training now. She growls and bites our hands. I give her a toy and redirect the behavior but she wearies of a toy and again bites at us. Any advice would be appreciated. Kristy

Wow, 10 weeks old is really a baby to expect so much from. How well do your 2 year old children listen? I know my pups have the attention span of a gnat, so rather than one session of training lasting 1 1/2 hours, it worked MUCH better for me to have a few 2 minute sessions thru out the day.

Puppies that age just want to PLAY. And how did they play with their mom and littermates? How did they invite them to play. How did they continue to play? Using their MOUTHS! That is how puppies play and if they are happy and want you do join in, they will continue to do so UNTIL THEY LEARN SOMETHING ELSE.

Since you WANT the puppy to love you and your family. And want it to play with you, I'd just start working WAY harder on the 'distract with another toy' and let up on the corrections. What worked best for me and my pups is to have tug toys literally in each and every room the pup would ever be in. It was important for me to never jerk, or yelp when I was attacked to play. My goal was to make my BODY be very unexciting and THE TOY be much more fun. So when the pup would grab my hand, I would have it be 'dead' for the milli-sec it took me to use my other hand to grab THE TOY to then dangle enticingly in front of the pup.

All my pups quickly learned that my body parts were not as fun as their littermates, but those toys would get about 5 minutes or so of exciting play! And then they start bringing the toys over as future invitations (rather than jumping on me to invite me to play).

It also sounds like your pup (as do most of them) has alot of unspent energy in general you are having to deal with. I'd up the exercise outside, off leash if you can. A good pup is a tired pup!

You've got your work cut out for you. First, I'm gonna pi$$ you off by saying that JRTs are NOT a good breed if you have small children. Some jokingly refer to them as mini-mals. That's no joke. This is one of those breeds that should have a note tied to them that says "expierienced dog owners only." As a very genereal statement about Russells, one of two things will happen with heavy corrections or handling. You will break it's will, OR, it will come up the leash after you. For the most part, they are no different than any working GSD except the GSD wants to learn <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> , and the JRT is faster if it wants to bite <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> . As you mentioned, your pup has no attention span. This will get somewhat better with age but I compair JRTs to a child with ADHD. Usually very intelligent and either focused to the point of obsession, or distraced so easily, you'll be pulling your hair out. Your biggest problem will be with the kids. It's hard to teach the little ones how to be gentle with a pup and a JRT pup, usually, wont put up with a lot of poking and pulling. I've had terriers for 30+ yrs, and the've taught me patients in dog training. I usually stop the biting by saying nothing and sticking my finger down their throat. By not saying anything, they think it's their doing and learn to keep their mouth off. You obviously can't have the small kids do this so your corrections are about the best you can do. Correct and redirect to a toy. My best suggestion would be to get rid of the kids and concentrate on the dog <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> .

I had a very similar problem with my dog. It would rather bite than lick. We went through a lot of band aids. Some breeds, like JRTs are breed for using their teeth and being persistent. My dog is a Florida cur crossed with an ACD. Hence it was breed too bite pigs ears and cows legs and no challenge is too big. Now your dog is young so this will take a while to grow out of. Kids move quick and wave their arm around a lot which is just
exciting the dogs prey drive. I tried all the tricks in the book (and on this site) with no success. And this went on for a very long time. Finally enough was enough. I went out and bought a soft muzzle. Until you grow out of this and behavior you will wear this around the children. The dog would get one chance to not bite the kids and then on goes the muzzle. When a run and bite would occur, I would say NO BITE, and keep repeating this until the pup was muzzled. Then I would say good girl and let her go. This turned out too be the most meaningful correction she could get. And in about 1 week problem solved. To this day if I say no and pull the muzzle out of my back pocked to let her see it , it is like her getting a level 7 correction with the prong collar. Now your pup is very young and a soft muzzle may not be the thing for this situation.
Do not leave the kids alone with the pup, supervise at all times and maybe keep a lead on the pup so you can stop the behavior without getting into a game of chase and then give her a rope toy. Maybe a long rope toy is a good way for your kids to interact with the dog. Everyone gets to play and have fun. The dog gets to bite the rope toy and not the kids. Little kids and puppies is not like it is made out in the movies.

Jeff

Hi I am training the dog in 6 15 minute sessions that are play based with a tennis ball. I do it away from the kids so she will focus. The dog is very intelligent and seems to wait until I turn my back to bite the children, she's a smart one, lol. We love her all so much and I know at such a young age I can beat this behavior. Thank you for all the advice. I am used to training raising and breeding German Shepards. So I saw a Jack Russell as a new exciting and challenging breed to own. My kids are 4 and 3. The four year old works hard to learn how to train the dog with me and she is doing a great job. The 3 year old, well he is learning at the paace of the dog slow. They are used to animals and very gentle with them. The 3 year old is just excitable and raises his hands every which way provoking the dog to bite prey. I am letting them play tug of war with a towel with the puppy and watching them. Helping to teach them to play distract the puppy. It will get better, pups take a while to learn and grow...thanks again.

Great idea to break up the training in six sessions but 15 mins is way to long for a 10 week old pup. There's where you loose the pups focus and it becomes distracted way to easily. 3-5 mins is plenty. I know some JRT pups will play to exhaustion but stop while the pup is fresh. Don't train to failure.

Also, Tug of war with a 3-4 yr old is bad news. The kids don't really understand the game and when the dog wins, it's social status rises above the kids. I love playing tug, but, in your case, the dog should NEVER win.

Thanks for the information will take the advice

I have a boxer and I experienced / (am experiencing) some of the same things you are.
The pup bit my 3 year old pretty hard on the finger and made him bleed--When it happened my wife gave him a good shake by the scruff immediately--and that's when I took it serious.

I had been making many mistakes in letting the puppy chase the children around because it seemed like everyone was having fun. I was ignorant to assume it was ok behaviour.

Now my puppy is on leash 100% of the time or he's in the crate, even in the house. This makes it a helluva lot easier to regulate what the dog is doing/where he is going.

I have witnessed a big change in behavior over the time I have been doing this. Initially I allowed him to have free reign of the house, including my kids room...I know, big mistake---now, he knows he is not allowed in that room if I give him enough leash to go that way (I have a really small house).

This hasn't totally alleviated the problem yet. Occasionally my pup still thinks my kids PJ feet are things he should bite, but overall I've witnessed probably a 75% change in how he reacts to my kids.

Of course I've been giving him things that are good to chew on like kongs, soup bones he really likes...most of his toys don't get much attention when the kids are around. Another tough aspect of this is that sometimes when the pup IS playing with a toy, the 3 year old wants to be involved and snatches the toy from him.

It IS a really tough thing to work on I think, but using the leash indoors helps tremendously (in my opinion).