Romeo 'O' Romeo - You're being a pain in the butt! lol.

Romeo is growing well and absolutely wonderful, yet we can't get past this nip the hand a bit as someone walks by phase. I've tried some of the methods you suggested in my previous post but he's still doing it.
When you walk by with your hands down he'll nip - not in an aggressive manner more of a "Look at Me" manner.. I ignore it - but he's doing it to my 5 year old who's "Mr. Drama" LoL. Anymore suggestions on how we can get him to focus on something else besides fingers? <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

My heart stopped when I saw your thread title. "Romeo" is the name of our female GSD's first "boyfriend" where she is currently being bred with our first tie yesterday afternoon.

I can't believe my "little girl's first boyfriend" is some dude named Romeo. At least he likes to kiss the girls first...LOL!

OK - back to your original topic...

Beth

*Bump* Did anyone have any input?

LOL @ Beth - I actually don't know why I named him Romeo. I think it was because GSD is my ultimate FAVORITE ever breed, I've ALWAYS loved them and always told my dad as a little girl "Someday when I have a dog with stand up ears, I'll name *him* Romeo, because he'll be my prince charming". My dad even has it video taped, when I was like 6 .. me talking about my "Romeo". =0) I think in one part I even said I never wanted to get married.. I just wanted a Romeo and dogs. ahahah!

Perhaps he's just not getting the point, and the correction needs to be taken up a level or two. If ignoring the behaviour isn't helping, possibly a physical correction is in order. Especially if he's a somewhat "hard" dog, ignoring usually doesn't work for those kinds of puppies

I am not talking a total take down, but since he's getting bigger and pushing his limits, it sounds like he needs the correction stepped up a notch so that it will get through to him that its unacceptable.

Even though my dog is almost 3, i did just get him about a year ago and found that sometimes he just wasn't getting the point with a verbal correction, and i had to switch to physically correcting him because the verbal just wasn't cutting it. For a mutt, he's a pretty hard dog and bounces right back from a correction, so i know I am not correcting him too hard, but hard enough for him to understand the behaviour will not be tolerated.
You will have to gauge how a hard a correction will have to be for Romeo to get it through his little puppy brain.

Don't know if this is crazy but I heard it, tried it and it worked. Be forewarned - I'm NOT a trainer

Get an empty small spray bottle from the beauty supply retail stores. They sell them for $.50. Fill it with water. When he goes to nip, be ready with the spray bottle in the other hand and mist him in the face. I doubt he'll enjoy the experience.

BRAVO, Judy, water squirted in his face was the only thing that stopped our rescue Dobie's "playful" dominance bullying behaviors -- We resorted to it AFTER trying all sorts of more forceful physical corrections (which he shrugged off like they were nothing!) simply because I didn't want to escalate that Old School yank-&-crank right off the Richter Scale on a recently adopted adult dog with whom we're building a bond of trust...

Anyway, Duke did an instant Cost/Benefit Analysis & decided his gratification was NOT worth our spritzer response -- Problem solved immediately <:-)