Alpha behavior, aggressive attitude, and Biting

[Jordy]

Oscar doesn't seem to be growing out of his biting phase. He is really into biting hands, it is really frustrating. Also, he is displaying some pretty strong alpha behavior, even though I certainly don't allow him to be the alpha.

I have read a lot on this site regarding how to put him in his place. He is fine with my wife (I think that he believes he is above her so why fight), but he is constantly challenging me with everything from wanting food, to demanding almost everything. I follow the NILF philosophy, yet he still persists. I am waiting for the day when he finally accepts his position.

I have a couple of questions. I have read that a dog crate shouldn't be used as punishment, however, do others use it for a 'time-out' place. I think that perhaps he needs to know that he either plays right or he will be isolated.

I believe that part of this may be a hyperactive thing, due to a lack of exercise. This is something we can remedy. However, there is a personality thing at work here.

I have tried pushing his tongue down to stop biting, as well as spraying him with water to ease aggressive tendencies. Also, turning him on his back really has no effect on him, as he just gets up and tries to bite again.

Please give me your input regarding these issues. It's greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[gmacleod]

There are several techniques that you can employ with a persistent biter.

When he bites, he is probably trying to play. The problem, of course, is that he’s playing too roughly and he’s also demanding. So the first thing to do as soon as he puts any pressure into his bite is to shriek “OUCH” in a high pitched tone and to “retire” wounded from his game. That is precisely what his littermates would do if he bit too hard. It’s actually also why puppies have such sharp teeth – so that it will hurt when they put any pressure at all into their bite. The subsequent reaction from their littermates is what teaches them that it hurts, and because nobody will play when they hurt, they learn to moderate their bite. It’s an extremely important lesson for a puppy to learn – and it’s why you shouldn’t just stop the pup using his mouth at all (meaning you want him to know the power of his jaws – that way, if you ever get a warning nip, it will be a nip not a bite ;)).

Anyway – the shriek of pain and retirement/refusal to play is your first defence against his biting, and means of teaching him to be more gentle.

With a puppy like yours though, chances are he isn’t going to take no for an answer easily, and he’ll follow you and try to reengage. That’s OK. But when the teeth come out again (as they surely will), you may need to be a bit more active in ignoring him.

Try redirecting his attention to a toy. If that works, great – he’s learning a more suitable behaviour. If it doesn’t you can do one of several things:
 Ignore him (no eye contact, talking – he doesn’t exist)
 Actively ignore him – get up and leave the room and close the door so he can’t follow. A few minutes solitude is enough, and this one can be a very good technique. It tells him very clearly that if he won’t play nicely, you won’t play at all – and worse than that, he’s excluded and left on his own.
 Put him in a time-out. You should be careful about using the crate for this purpose, but you can put him in an x-pen, or even shut him in the kitchen or another room for a few minutes.
 Engage him in a training session. It’s hard to be biting when you’re doing sits and downs and getting treats for it. This helps to assert your authority, as well as engaging his mind.

The big trick to teaching a dog to behave in the way you want is to reward lavishly the behaviours that you want to encourage, and to ignore (and never reward) the ones you don't like. Ignoring a dog is an effective punishment - when he employs a behaviour (such as biting) he is trying to achieve something. So if you don't want him to do it again, do *not* allow him to achieve whatever it was he wanted via that behaviour. With biting, what he wants is to play or get your attention. So don't give him either thing when he bites. And attention includes negative attention - so if you yell at him, or try to physically stop him doing it, he got what he wanted. So he'll keep doing it. If you ignore him and walk away, he didn't get what he wanted - he got the opposite. So he'll give up doing it ;)

Please don't persist in the negative techniques. Pushing his tongue down will teach him nothing except that you do unpleasant things sometimes. Water is just as likely to be viewed as a game. And the alpha roll thing is just plain dangerous - you might get away with it with a small breed like a Frenchie, but try that with a bigger dog and you'll end up very deservedly bitten.

People have a very mistaken idea of the concept of dominance when it comes to dogs. Dominance is not about getting what you want by the use of force - it is about leadership. When you see a dog on it's back in a submissive pose - it is *always* an offered behaviour by the submissive dog, never one that is forced by the more dominant one. A leader will *never* force another dog on his back in the way you're doing - well, not unless he intended to attack and/or kill. So can you imagine what you do to the psyche of your puppy if you force him onto his back and to 'submit'? It's not hard to figure why people who do that to dogs very often end up bitten - it is a fair defence by the dog to a very abusive behaviour by the owner.

Do not fall into the 1940s notion that dog heirarchies are all about which dog can dominate the others. They're not - they're about leadership and hierarchy below that leadership. And leaders do NOT become or remain so by physical force. If you want to be your dog's leader, then lead. Don't use force - ever. That confirms that you are NOT the leader, because leaders don't squabble, subordinates do

Here are a few articles that discuss canine leadership and some common misconceptions:
http://www.clickersolutions.com/art...1/dominance.htm
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2001/macho.htm
http://www.clickersolutions.com/art...hierarchies.htm

And an excerpt from one of them:
Unfortunately, the real danger of the alpha-concept of physical dominance lies in its questionable extrapolation to dog training and husbandry. Instead of being educational, many so-called 'training' methods are just downright adversarial if not abusive; the dog is often viewed as our enemy, rather than as our best friend. Many playful, greeting and fearful gestures are misinterpreted as being aggressive, providing the unthinking owner with a convenient excuse to abuse the dog under the guise of 'training'.

For example, snapping, pilo-erection, growling and lip-curling are often misconstrued as signs of dominance, whereas they are, in fact, more usually signs of fear - most probably the direct product of a person pounding on the poor dog. Similarly, owners are advised that urine marking, mounting people, stealing food, jumping-up and prolonged eye contact are all signs of dominance, for which the dog should be punished. Some ill-advised, big blue meanies are confusing issues and trying to take the fun out of dog ownership. In my book:

A dog which marks indoors, needs to be housetrained.
A dog which mounts people, a) needs to be instructed to desist and b) requires social introduction to another suitably inclined furry quadruped.
A dog which steals food, a) is in desperate need of an owner who remembers to put food away and b) requires rapid introduction to my favorite booby-trap.
A dog which jumps-up, needs simply to be taught to sit when greeting people.
A dog which is tricky about eye contact should be taught a) that human eye-contact is no threat, b) to look away, or look at its paws on command, and c) to lovingly gaze in the eyes of its understanding owner.
Certainly, we need to control dogs - but mental control is what is required, not physical domination. Even though an ill-experienced, middle-ranking dog 'handler' might be able to jerk, hang, roll-over, and/or beat a dog into submission, what is the point of winning the battle and losing the war? What possible advantage is there in converting a 'dominant' dog into a fearful one? Both are equally as worthless as companions or working dogs. Furthermore, most physical corrections are well beyond the physical and mental capabilities of all but a few dog owners. And so, why advise novice owners to enter into a physical contest that they are bound to lose? In fact, why abuse the dog at all, when it is possible to achieve the same end using brain instead of brawn? Why try to wade the Atlantic, when one could take the Concorde?

We must prescribe training methods which are effective and lie within the capabilities of the average dog owner, including women, children and the elderly. If we have learned anything at all from studying dog behavior, ... owners must establish control in a developmental context, whilst the dog is still a puppy. Rather than browbeating the dog into submission, it is far easier to convince the dog to join the team, so that it enjoys life living with us, rather than fighting against us.

[ledhed]

Oscar doesn't seem to be growing out of his biting phase. He is really into biting hands, it is really frustrating. Also, he is displaying some pretty strong alpha behavior, even though I certainly don't allow him to be the alpha.

I have read a lot on this site regarding how to put him in his place. He is fine with my wife (I think that he believes he is above her so why fight), but he is constantly challenging me with everything from wanting food, to demanding almost everything. I follow the NILF philosophy, yet he still persists. I am waiting for the day when he finally accepts his position.

I have a couple of questions. I have read that a dog crate shouldn't be used as punishment, however, do others use it for a 'time-out' place. I think that perhaps he needs to know that he either plays right or he will be isolated.

I believe that part of this may be a hyperactive thing, due to a lack of exercise. This is something we can remedy. However, there is a personality thing at work here.

I have tried pushing his tongue down to stop biting, as well as spraying him with water to ease aggressive tendencies. Also, turning him on his back really has no effect on him, as he just gets up and tries to bite again.

Please give me your input regarding these issues. It's greatly appreciated.

Thanks


I have had (am having) a lot of these same problems with my dog, and I agree with everything gmacleod said. I tried literally everything to get him to stop with the hand biting, and although he's not quite there yet, it is getting better. One thing I can tell you for sure, putting your hands in his mouth for any reason including pushing his tongue down, just seemed to reinforce that having your hands in his mouth is OK, and escalated the situation. I tried the water spraying, he just thought it was a game and it escalated the situation. I actually tried the shrieking and stopping play.... the shrieking got him excited and he just came at me harder. The only thing that has made it better is consistently removing ANY attention as soon as he puts his teeth on me. If his teeth touch my skin or clothing, he gets the "No Bite", he gets put on the floor if he's on the couch, I don't look at him, I don't touch him, and I don't talk to him for a couple of minutes. If he persists, I stand up and turn my back on him and walk away... and continue that until he gets the message and starts playing with something else. Then we can try it again. One thing that has happened with this lately though, is that if he starts getting frustrated with being corrected he will just start barking at me in a sort of rebellious teenager tone (The "If I can't bite you I'm going to irritate you one way or the other" bark :p ).... which I cannot tolerate because I live in an apartment building with neighbors and sometimes this is happening late at night or early in the morning. He has been getting a couple of minutes in the crate for this, mainly because I don't know another way to deal with it that works... and it has been working for the barking. Then again, a lot of dogs bark when you put them IN the crate, mine just immediately lays down and takes a nap.... so maybe that's not for everybody.

[gmacleod]

Oops - just noticed that a couple of those links don't work.

Here are the missing articles:
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2001/hierarchies.htm
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2001/dominance.htm

[Jordy]

Wow,
That opened my eyes. Does that philosophy ever fly in the face of most of the dog trainers we have worked with. It is really surprising. It seems like there are people doing all sorts of techniques (water, pushing tongue down, shrieking and leaving, and yes the alpha roll). I do understand the philosophy and behavioral consequences behind this sort of aggressive behavior.

We will surely take steps to stop doing this and try to change his behavior with reward rather than punishment.

Thanks for the input.

[gmacleod]

Thanks for the input.
Thanks for taking it onboard :)

And these sorts of techniques really do work with dogs. Everything is about rewards and removal of rewards, and simultaneously leadership through the control of resources. If you control all the "Good Things for Dogs", then your dog will work hard to achieve the rewards you can give him - you become the leader. That's a far better way to achieve compliance than the use of force and intimidation. I don't know that it's faster (which is probably why coercive training methods still survive), but it is better - and IMO in the long term it is also more effective ;)