More advice needed!

I've just spent half hour with Chase on the lead socialising him with the children.
He was very good, just laid there chewing up his rope toy.

Once bored with his rope he turned, barked at me, lunged towards my face (i was sat on the floor) then started mouthing my arms and nipping while still barking at me!

I asked him to sit and he did straight away so I gave him some calm fuss.

I put up with this for twenty minutes hoping he'd give in and realise he didn't get fuss till he was doing as I asked but he didn't :-(
I had to put him in his crate to calm down as he was so worked up.

My arms are now covered in nip marks and teeth scrapes.

I don't understand this behaviour?!
It's like he becomes a different dog!

Help!

Could it have been the zoomies. When Gus gets them he absolutely goes nuts. He tears around the place and will often try to play rough and bark at us. We tend to just leave the area and let him have his zoomies in peace haha. He then falls asleep.

I wonder if he's also starting to realise he can communicate. If he's spent his life so far without humans listening to him but now that's changing, he may well be expressing himself 'play with me!', just not going about it the right way.

As I think I've said before, get up and leave. You only need to leave the room and close the door for a few seconds, literally just count to 5, enough time for him to realise he's driven you away. If he goes back to nipping, leave again, and again and again until he understands and stops, then you can give him a quiet cuddle.

I'll Try leaving the room (and taking the kiddies with me) if it happens again.

He's not doing it to hurt me, it's just not nice behaviour! He scared my daughter a little bit until I showed her there was no pressure from his teeth.
He gave me a really big nip, harder than I think he meant to and he just stopped and looked at me waiting for me to react to it.

It always seems to happen once he's done playing, almost like he's asking to play more but in the wrong manner.

He only does zoomies when Matt lets him off the lead on the commons in the mornings. He came back with his lovely white patches a dirty shade of brown this morning!

I get these random outbursts too, often we play with him but when we don't we do the leaving the room trick, or give him an empty plastic bottle he's obsessed with them! takes a couple of goes when leaving the room for it to sink in but he eventually stops

We've asked the ADPT trainer to visit the house when she's better in a couple of weeks so hopefully she'll see that behaviour and be able to help correct it.

One friend said spray him with water ... Hell no! ... I wanna train him positively!

Definitely agree with you on the water! Positive reward based training is the only way to train.

Hopefully the leaving the room will work, they crave attention so much that when you leave they soon work out why.

He's just nipped me really hard :-( broke the skin and came back for more :-(

He was hanging off my arm when I tried to leave the room, made my oldest son cry which then made me cry.
I hugged him and told him it was just cos chase doesn't know how to play but he said ...
"please mummy, I hate him, I don't want him anymore. Take him away and be happy mummy again. Chase makes you sad mummy "
My oldest son is three! Maybe he has a point and Chase is just too much.
We're doing our best for him but it's upsetting my children :'-(

I'd never hurt him but I'll give it a try. I'll not hold him any tighter than I hold my children's hands.

We've all calmed down now and Chase has been snoring in his crate for the last hour.

I just had horrible visions of that being my youngest sons fingers or toes. If he'd have nipped him that hard he'd have lost a digit!

Still wondering what he's been through in the past and why it's directed at me?
He lived with two females, no men in the house as far as I know.

I know it's not his fault, he just needs teaching it's not okay.

Yes your right he does just need training to know that's not how you play. You will get there!
What was the holding him comment in regards to? Has a post been deleted?

Now you've read it I've deleted my post. I don't want it to be seen as the first thing to try by others.

I think he's attention seeking, and the reason it's directed at you is that he perceives you as his main support. You're there, you're the one who he feels can most fill his needs, including his emotional needs.

If his demanding attention (nipping) is getting worse since you started ignoring him/walking away, then stop doing that. It may be that he's increasing his pleading in response to it, oh please don't walk away! I'm only guessing here - hopefully your trainer will be well enough to see you at home soon. Instead, keep working on the idea of teaching him clever things to do that will get your attention, making sure he has enough 'me/Chase' time, and managing the situation with his crate when you are doing something that you can't interrupt.

I'd also recommend you trying to keep your emotions a little more level if you can. I'm getting a real high to low feeling, the proverbial roller coaster. It's very unsettling for dogs who pick up on our emotions. Chase in particular needs stability, including emotional stability. See if you can find and work to maintain somewhere in between, avoiding the tears and other more one-end-of-the-scale responses in favour of 'ok, this is progressing gradually, which is good, but we've had a blip and I need to think of a way round it'. Keeping the words you use moderate can help loads, as can breathing.

My emotions and hormones are a little up and down still and will be until I stop breastfeeding. My youngest is gradually weaning himself so it won't be long and my body will level itself out again.

I'll Try anything anyone suggests so long as it's not harmful.

He just gets himself into a frenzy and sort of forgets himself.
Maybe it will fizzle out once he's been snipped or at least he'll be more responsive and listen.

I've been reading (again) and come across an article that suggested he could have been taken away from the litter too early so doesn't know when enough is enough when it comes to "puppy play" and another article suggesting he's sexually frustrated and to get him snipped asap (which were doing anyways).

To be honest, I think he sounds like a typical young staffie who's mad for attention and love. We see a lot of dogs like him, some even worse believe it or not! They do settle, they do grow up, but staffies are such human orientated dogs that most of them will always have that need to a certain extent.

I CAN DO THIS!!!

I may be bruised and scraped from his teeth but he's JUST NEEDING TO LEARN!!!

Sorry for my up and down posts, I've just never come across a dog that hasn't learnt from the start let alone owned one!

It's now my job to teach him and I CAN DO IT!!!
He's not untrainable, just unruly at times.
I HAVE to think POSITIVE!!!

Yes, of course you can. Keep things as quiet and even as possible, when there's a glitch let your brain do the work instead of your emotions, and keep thinking how far you've already come.

MattsBabe7 wrote:I've just never come across a dog that hasn't learnt from the start let alone owned one!

All dogs learn all the time, it's just a question of making sure they're learning what we want. You're clearly a reader, so getting books on dog psychology might be an idea. Have a look what they've got in your county library, Essex has quite a wide selection. The more you can get into how a dog thinks, what motivates and what rewards, the more you'll be able to start working out reactions that will help him, and of course you.

He did try mouthing and nipped again earlier but I put him straight into his crate for time out. I was gonna let him out again but he curled up and is snoring his head off.

I'm going to the library again on Saturday. Others suggested some books in other posts I've left so I'll go see if they have them in this time.

Thank you for your help.
I just want to do what's right for him.

You might need to reserve something, I've had a quick squint at the Libraries West catalogue and these all look good

https://www.librarieswest.org.uk/client/en_GB/default/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:1454451/ada?qu=victoria+stilwell&te=ILS

https://www.librarieswest.org.uk/client/en_GB/default/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:1092540/ada?qu=dog+mind&qf=ITYPE%09Material+Type%091%3AADU_NF%09Adult+Non+Fiction&te=ILS

https://www.librarieswest.org.uk/client/en_GB/default/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:1023890/ada?qu=dog+mind&qf=ITYPE%09Material+Type%091%3AADU_NF%09Adult+Non+Fiction&rw=12&te=ILS

I'm sure there are more but that's just an initial search! The have Jan Fennell's books - avoid, she's dominance based.


Your library catalogue is SO much better and easier to use than ours

I'll Have a look tomorrow for those and reserve a few if I need to.

I've found a few videos on YouTube about dog psychology so I'm gonna try and watch those today if I get five minutes.

Thank you!

You're welcome, Alison. You may have noticed I'm a bit of a dog/training geek!