A break through!! But new advice needed..

Hey all, so recently I went to the Lake District with Rio, my mum and brother for a family get away. It was brilliant, Rio was walked loads, he met horses, sheep and a grumpy swan. The issue all week was dogs, he'd bark and pull towards them, my brother had to carry him out of a dog friendly pub by his harness and we got sarcastic comments from someone who didn't even have a dog >=P BUT we went on to Somerset to see family and I took him to a park to walk him and there was another small terrier off it's lead who came trotting over to us, Rio wasn't barking or anything so I thought i'd relax his lead and just stand next to him and see what happens. It was lovely! They sniffed each other, tails wagging and the dog moved on, then there was another one soon after, then another. He was fine! Sniffing and wagging and trying to play. And so i kept purposely letting him sniff other dog friendly dogs for the next couple days. I was so proud of him I could cry. I think he was just frustrated at not being able to get near them before, which I feel guilty for now if it made him feel stressed. But i just couldn't trust his behaviour at that point.


Now for the advice. He is a wonderful wonderful dog, but he has a bad habit when he plays. If he gets to a certain excitement level when playing with people, he'll try to pull at your clothes but being a clumsy staffy, he tends to nip the skin by accident which obviously isn't good. But then I feel i can't tell him off when i'm the one playing with him, so how can i correct him or stop him doing it without punishing him for playing?

He also does this if Adam and I, or anyone, hugs or shows affection to each other. He'll jump up and try to pull at clothes, is that jealousy? Or protection?

Sorry for the long post!

Great to hear Rio is doing well.
As far as the grabbing clothes, our pup sometimes grabs sleeves when she gets too excited. We taught her to pick a toy up whenever we come home or visitors come round.
Pete

As soon as your pooch starts to nip clothes and especially skin, stop play time immediately and turn your back and ignore him. Its purely a play thing so don't worry about aggression, you just need to be consistent in your training so make sure everyone else does the same thing. This can become a problem if your dog is ever to be around children. Another option is to give your dog something that belongs to him to replace your clothes or fingers straight away. Do NOT give any form of food as this can be seen as rewarding his behaviour!

And I have the same problem, if me and my OH have a cuddle, my boy will jump up as if to say "Get off my mum!" ha!....again, its down to completely ignoring him, there will be a lot of whining and barking no doubt but you need to kind of shut your ears!

Im sure someone will be along soon with more advice Keep us posted!

Also...well done on the breakthrough.....brilliant news!

KITA90 wrote:As soon as your pooch starts to nip clothes and especially skin, stop play time immediately and turn your back and ignore him. Its purely a play thing so don't worry about aggression, you just need to be consistent in your training so make sure everyone else does the same thing. This can become a problem if your dog is ever to be around children. Another option is to give your dog something that belongs to him to replace your clothes or fingers straight away. Do NOT give any form of food as this can be seen as rewarding his behaviour!

And I have the same problem, if me and my OH have a cuddle, my boy will jump up as if to say "Get off my mum!" ha!....again, its down to completely ignoring him, there will be a lot of whining and barking no doubt but you need to kind of shut your ears!

Im sure someone will be along soon with more advice Keep us posted!

Also...well done on the breakthrough.....brilliant news!

Ignoring is a good tatic. Suki still has both behaviours. For grabbing clothes we use the down or release command. She used to do this to everyone but no really only does this to me or the OH and normally when she wants a walk or to play in irder to get our attention.

When displaying this behaviour do as great advice mentioned above and teach your visitors the same had to do same with mia as she would launch herself at friends visiting for drinks she would rip their tights and i had to replace them was funny at the time she just tries to launch herself at the postman now amd its only one particular one she likes. Takes a bit longer due to the dogs age but consistency is paramount.

I think i'll give the ignoring tactic a go as he does hate being ignored. He only knows the Sit command, as much as i've tried to train him "down" he can't seem to grasp it :/ i'm just worried if we have guests come over and he wants to play and gets too excited. Silly mutt

Congrats on the break through with other dogs!

We used the ignoring method a lot and it works really well! We would play with Bane and just when he got too excited, turn and walk away. Then once he had calmed again waiting for us, we would play again. They learn really quickly as long as you are consistant

I know the OH likes to wind Bane up and plays quite rough with him and then wonders why he comes off with ripped cuffs and sleeves