heel nipping with a samoyed puppy

[barblyon]

My client’s dog (a 14 week old Samoyed) is really bad about nipping at feet. She will also nips hands but not nearly as bad and she is easily redirected to an appropriate toy most of the time. When it comes to feet however, she is really fast and doesn’t want to let go. She doesn’t respond at all to saying “ouch” or anything similar and she is not the least bit distracted by toys or even treats being tossed. The only way to get her to let go, without physically prying her off, is to put a treat right up to her nose. However, she goes straight back to nipping as soon as she’s done with the treat and/or you move your feet again. She also does not stop or lose interest just because you stand still. (She rarely gets the skin but rather she is going for pant legs and shoes, thank goodness!) I have been considering various tactics for her mom to try and would love some feedback.
She seems to respond rather well to time-outs, but it has to be done before she gets too ramped up or you can’t get away from her. This worked when I was three feet from the door and she was relatively calm but out in the yard I had to shove a treat in her mouth with every step I took to get away from her.
I’m thinking of teaching her “off” so that she will know to let go if she does get ahold of something. I’ve taught leave it and drop it plenty of times but not off. Any particular suggestions for this one?
I began working on “find it” with her where I would move and toss a treat as she came at me. This worked fairly well but only as long as we were on concrete. Once we moved into the grass though, she would instantly lose the treat and any interest in it. (She is also pretty good with “sit” and I was able to get her to come to me and sit, so we worked on that a bit.)
So that’s where I’m at so far: time-outs, “off”, and “find it”.
I have also seen in the training articles that teaching targeting and going to a mat works well in these instances. Any thoughts? I feel like I might overwhelm my client if we try to learn too many things at once.

[Jindo]

Wait, you're giving the pup a treat to make her let go? I would think that would make her believe that nipping = treats

Why not have her on a leash and have someone walk by, if she lunges at their feet, you can pull her away and tell her no and make her back away. If you do this, it has to be done repetitively and you have to be patient about it because you don't know how long it will take. You can also teach her the stay command, if she doesn't already know it, if she tries to lunge at peoples feet as well.

[emmabeth]

I think this pup (and Sammies are SMART dogs) has cottoned on that this is an EXCELLENT way of getting attention - which suggests that she may not be getting appropriate attention elsewhere and has some mental ya-ya's she needs to get out!

I would focus on teaching alternative behaviours that make nipping impossible - sit for example, fetching a toy is another, and really really get her crazy for certain toys - and then very careful management so that she is never in a situation where the behaviour cannot be pre-empted and dealt with, or prevented.

Then she should grow out of it, however it is worth bearing in mind that unlike most Spitz breeds, Samoyeds ARE a herding/droving dog and nipping heels/ankles does come more easily to them. Whilst they are probably one of the easiest of the Spitz types to have as a pet rather than a working dog, they are still very sharp fast learners that need a LOT of mental stimulation.

[barblyon]

I feel like the treats are rewarding the behavior of letting go, not nipping. I gave this some thought because I was worried about it being seen as a reward for nipping. My thinking is though, that if I wanted to reward her for nipping, I would shake my pant legs, shuffle my feet, pet her, praise her, etc. I would encourage her to grab on and hold on. I feel like I'm using the treat in the same way as we do in teaching drop it when you have to show the dog the treat for them to let go of whatever toy they have. Am I wrong in this? I certainly don't want to develop a treat/nip habit.

Also, I'm not sure the nipping happens to get attention because it happens when you are already playing with her. The more excited she gets, the more she wants to go for your feet. She has never gone after my feet when I wasn't already interacting directly with her. She also has very little interest in toys. When we are inside, she will play with toys a little bit but she much prefers her bully stick or bone. Outside, she completely loses interest in the toys. I thought I would try to get her to chase a ball, play fetch, or even tug, but I just couldn't get her excited about the toys at all.

[Jindo]

What I think is if you're giving her the treat to make her let go, the mentality of the dog would be something like, 'every single time I grab onto this person, they will give me a treat.'
I think if you give her a treat AFTER she has let go on her own without being tempted with a treat would help her realize that she is being rewarded for letting go.