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Play mouthing & ending play time

Behavioral Issues
  • ProxamP

    Our 9 week old basenji loves to chew. For the most part, we've got this under control (by watching him carefully and replacing stuff he can't chew with stuff he can). Where we don't have this under control is when is comes to chewing us: every time he gets excited (ie play time) he starts nipping at us. He's not being aggressive, but it's still behaviour we'd like to "nip" in the bud. Lots of people seem to have had success with ignoring their dog for a little bit whenever he nips, so we'd like to try that, but we're unclear on a couple of points. First, how long do we ignore him for? And second, often he'll miss when he nips, sort of like snapping but much slower. Should we ignore him for this or wait until he actually connects?

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  • D

    How is your pup doing?

    Jennifer

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  • ProxamP

    On all but the mouthiness front, he's amazing - he's friendly with people and other dogs, he loves to sit in our laps (for now at least), and he's doing well in the basic commands we are teaching him. We're so happy to have him around! But ignoring him has given mixed results and little progress in the last week. Remi just turned ten weeks so we are not too worried yet. At the same time, it sure would be nice if we could solve it sooner rather than later. Also, any suggestions on your dog's favourite chew toys are welcome. We've got Remi some nylabones to gnaw on for the moment.

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    Thanks for the advice foschatt! As I mentioned, my family went out of town for two weeks to Sweden. While they were away Dallas continues to sleep in my room while the other two dogs slept in my parent's room. Dallas' behavior greatly diminished during the two weeks. The first 3 mornings or so he would whine & pace. However, as he realized that the other dogs were not being fed until I got up either, he started sleeping in more. I really do think he wakes up & wants out when he hears my step dad getting up for work. My stepdad feeds the other two dogs [we tried having him not feed Dallas] around 5 AM when he is getting ready for work. Therefore, it is someone being up that has been causing him to wake up & whine to be let out. There is still a chance I may start putting him back in his crate to sleep. Problem is, he is kept crated during the day so I don't really find it fair for him to do both. I'm still working on it I suppose… He's gotten better but now that they are back in town he has already begun to regress. sigh Around 2 AM my stepdad let our family dogs out & in the process Dallas woke up & basically wouldn't go back to bed afterwards. I let him outside to pee for like 15 minutes. However, when we came back into the house he kept whining & pacing again. He didn't end up finally falling back asleep until after 3 AM! I am quite tired this AM I must say...
  • Tayda_LennyT

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    I know this is an old thread, but it seems to be what we are experiencing…so rather than start a new one, I thought building on an old one would be best. We adopted a brother/sister pair of 5 month old Bs. They do well with other dogs, rarely nip at other dogs (unless they are overly excited and the other dog is a little too friendly - nothing serious so far), but my goodness do they roughhouse with each other. They will start the B-500 while taking them for a walk, and wrestle and tackle, nibble, grab each other by the throat, ear, leg, etc. Sometimes there's noise, sometimes not, lots of legs flying everywhere as they wrestle each other to the ground. By what I've read so far using the search feature, this seems pretty normal B behavior. But occasionally we fear someone's going to call the police and tell them we have a dog fighting ring going! Luckily for us it's only with each other that they wrestle. Other dogs don't interest them except to prove they can run faster. So the $64,000 question is...should we try to train this out of them, or do we just need to learn to live with it - as long as they keep it to themselves and don't involve other dogs. Many thanks!
  • DukeD

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  • C

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    My girl does this but it's with a toy in her mouth and when she first started doing it I thought she just didn't realize that she was getting my skin in there when she was trying to get me to throw her toy. I learned later that she knew perfectly well what she was doing. After a while I was watched her doing this and she would feel for my skin with her toy in her mouth and would get it just right and then start nipping. What a sneaky little devil. And OUCH does that pinch bite hurt.