. the other day that happened and when i went to go put him away he lunged at my face, now i have a bruise under my eye from where the top of his mouth hit me. he didnt bite me, he just had his mouth open when he jumped. can someone please tell me how to stop this bad habbit, i know that the easy thing to do is just tell them to stop but i have and they dont listen. one of the cousins likes to jump at him and then runs away, od course the chase gene comes into play and he runs into my yard and tackles him to the ground. he never bites him though, just jumps on his back (he can jump really high)bitting border collie
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doglover228
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Sat Apr 10, 2010 10:14 am
bitting border collie
I have a 1 year old border collie who is such a good dog, he has improved so much since we got him... he used to steal food off the counter, bite peope, and just all around out of control (he was a rescued 3 month old puppy). my only problem is that he has this horible habbit of playing rough. its not really a problem for me because i know how to control him but my brother is not as experienced with dodger and he is very big (50-55lbs) so sometimes he gets knocked down but dodger who will just jump on him for no reason. the other problem is that my cousins come over and get him all wound up and he becomes aggressively playful . the other day that happened and when i went to go put him away he lunged at my face, now i have a bruise under my eye from where the top of his mouth hit me. he didnt bite me, he just had his mouth open when he jumped. can someone please tell me how to stop this bad habbit, i know that the easy thing to do is just tell them to stop but i have and they dont listen. one of the cousins likes to jump at him and then runs away, od course the chase gene comes into play and he runs into my yard and tackles him to the ground. he never bites him though, just jumps on his back (he can jump really high)
. the other day that happened and when i went to go put him away he lunged at my face, now i have a bruise under my eye from where the top of his mouth hit me. he didnt bite me, he just had his mouth open when he jumped. can someone please tell me how to stop this bad habbit, i know that the easy thing to do is just tell them to stop but i have and they dont listen. one of the cousins likes to jump at him and then runs away, od course the chase gene comes into play and he runs into my yard and tackles him to the ground. he never bites him though, just jumps on his back (he can jump really high)
Re: bitting border collie
Well, you have the answer in the question. 
Roughhousing with dogs is bad bad bad and you have found out why. If you can't 'train' the boys, they pay the price by not getting to interact with your dog. You can't train the dog how to behave properly all the while stupid people are undoing your good work.
How you train people is outside my remit. I only train dogs. But I would suggest you read our 'Exercise the Mind' thread for things to do with your dog that don't involve roughhousing, and maybe the boys could get interested in laying scent trails etc. instead.
Roughhousing with dogs is bad bad bad and you have found out why. If you can't 'train' the boys, they pay the price by not getting to interact with your dog. You can't train the dog how to behave properly all the while stupid people are undoing your good work.
How you train people is outside my remit. I only train dogs. But I would suggest you read our 'Exercise the Mind' thread for things to do with your dog that don't involve roughhousing, and maybe the boys could get interested in laying scent trails etc. instead.
A dog is never bad or naughty - it is simply being a dog
SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS
SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS
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doglover228
- Posts: 65
- Joined: Sat Apr 10, 2010 10:14 am
Re: bitting border collie
I have removed rough housing from Dodgers life and he is doing really good now. No more bitting at peoples hands. He isn't as cautious around new people. And he really has calmed down. The only thing is that it made me realize a new problem that he has, he does not like my cousin. I thought it was just because my cousin always wanted to horse around and play with him but it is deeper than that. Yesterday I was working with him off leash and my cousin came over, Dodger bolted at him and jumped on him and grabbed for his leg. I called him
off just before Dodger bit his leg. He was fine when my other cousin came over and when my uncle (who dodger is normally scared of) walked up to him and started petting him. The other thing is that when I put Dodger out on he his lead, my cousin walked over and dodger became very aggresive towards him. His fur was raised, his teeth were showing, and the barks and growls coming from him were enough to scare even me. He has never acted like that. As my cousin walked close to me, Dodger lunged at him. Thankfully he was out of reach but my cousin was terrified, he is only 12 and Dodger is easily half his weight and strong enough to take him down. Can someone tell me why this behaviore is just now presenting itself and how do I stop it?
off just before Dodger bit his leg. He was fine when my other cousin came over and when my uncle (who dodger is normally scared of) walked up to him and started petting him. The other thing is that when I put Dodger out on he his lead, my cousin walked over and dodger became very aggresive towards him. His fur was raised, his teeth were showing, and the barks and growls coming from him were enough to scare even me. He has never acted like that. As my cousin walked close to me, Dodger lunged at him. Thankfully he was out of reach but my cousin was terrified, he is only 12 and Dodger is easily half his weight and strong enough to take him down. Can someone tell me why this behaviore is just now presenting itself and how do I stop it?
Re: bitting border collie
You must listen to your dog, and keep him away from the cousin he is afraid of.
Only the dog knows why (maybe your cousin does too, but isn't saying) and the dog only has you to keep him safe.
So keep him safely away. This isn't about training - you can't train a scared dog to like someone he's scared of, but you can keep him safe in HIS eyes, which will reinforce his bond with you.
Only the dog knows why (maybe your cousin does too, but isn't saying) and the dog only has you to keep him safe.
So keep him safely away. This isn't about training - you can't train a scared dog to like someone he's scared of, but you can keep him safe in HIS eyes, which will reinforce his bond with you.
A dog is never bad or naughty - it is simply being a dog
SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS
SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS
Re: bitting border collie
If he is scared of your cousin and he was on his lead and your cousin was coming up to him. He reacted in the only way he knew how , he was telling your cousin to go away and it worked. He's fearful and that turns into aggression which is what he is doing. I would say start by your cousin been a safe distance away from your dog and fed him, slowly bringing the dog closer, still feeding him so that your cousin makes food not something he should fear. Slowly build that up until your close to your cousin after that your cousin could start throwing food in your dogs direction and slolwy build on that .
Re: bitting border collie
This is not a direct help to your problem but at least you can see how it is with someone else's dog
My Fly has been afraid of my boyfriend's (Paul) dad ever since we got him. Which is almost 2 years ago now. It started with constant barking and of course all people try to come up to the dog trying to shush it, 'calm it down' talking to it, trying to pet it to 'show he's no threat' which is obviously the exact opposit thing you should do to a dog that's trying to make the threat go away. So me being really upset over this an nobody else listening to me or believing anything I said about dog behaviour and how to manage/avoid aggressive behaviour, this aggression was only reinforced by Paul's dad. Of course I wasn't always there when Paul's dad came over or they met anywhere else so the meeting situation was never ideal.
I was however eventually able to have Fly quiet in Paul's dad's presence by keeping his focus on me and on food before meeting his dad. His dad finally listened and stopped trying to make sounds to intice interaction from Fly or holding his hand out to Fly. So Fly was able to be in the same room with him and eventually Paul's dad could talk to him or to anyone else in the room although I still asked him to avoid eye contact. Paul's dad found all this really heartbreaking though because he loves dogs and used to have some lurchers and can't understand why this is happening and one day he entered the room without warning me first, Fly was off leash and attacked him. The whole family was of course horrified and yelled at me to take my dog back. Which obviously couln't happen easily because of all the yelling ' But he's gonna bite him!! He's attacking him! We can't turn away, be quiet and calm down if he's attacking him' well that of course just ruined everything for Fly and I had to take the poor dog home. On top of it all this time Paul's dad was bent over almost directly looking at Fly and talking to him. I know people's instincts are opposite to dogs' but dogs are only off worse for it.
Luckily his parents didn't hold any grudges against me or Fly and we started all over again. Paul's dad feeds Fly treats now almost constantly when they're together, gives him simple things to do and I have taught Fly a 'Mike' command with a clicker
which is to run over to Mike - Paul's dad - and touch him. He doesn't yet move around, we don't visit that often, but I ask him whether we could move this training forward every time we do visit. He has arthritis so he doesn't want to walk around much and I think he's a bit scared too but we'll get there 
But yes the most important thing is to get your cousin to ignore Dodger and keep away from him.
ADDING TO SAY
I have obviously made a lot of mistakes with this but one shouldn't give up
My Fly has been afraid of my boyfriend's (Paul) dad ever since we got him. Which is almost 2 years ago now. It started with constant barking and of course all people try to come up to the dog trying to shush it, 'calm it down' talking to it, trying to pet it to 'show he's no threat' which is obviously the exact opposit thing you should do to a dog that's trying to make the threat go away. So me being really upset over this an nobody else listening to me or believing anything I said about dog behaviour and how to manage/avoid aggressive behaviour, this aggression was only reinforced by Paul's dad. Of course I wasn't always there when Paul's dad came over or they met anywhere else so the meeting situation was never ideal.
I was however eventually able to have Fly quiet in Paul's dad's presence by keeping his focus on me and on food before meeting his dad. His dad finally listened and stopped trying to make sounds to intice interaction from Fly or holding his hand out to Fly. So Fly was able to be in the same room with him and eventually Paul's dad could talk to him or to anyone else in the room although I still asked him to avoid eye contact. Paul's dad found all this really heartbreaking though because he loves dogs and used to have some lurchers and can't understand why this is happening and one day he entered the room without warning me first, Fly was off leash and attacked him. The whole family was of course horrified and yelled at me to take my dog back. Which obviously couln't happen easily because of all the yelling ' But he's gonna bite him!! He's attacking him! We can't turn away, be quiet and calm down if he's attacking him' well that of course just ruined everything for Fly and I had to take the poor dog home. On top of it all this time Paul's dad was bent over almost directly looking at Fly and talking to him. I know people's instincts are opposite to dogs' but dogs are only off worse for it.
Luckily his parents didn't hold any grudges against me or Fly and we started all over again. Paul's dad feeds Fly treats now almost constantly when they're together, gives him simple things to do and I have taught Fly a 'Mike' command with a clicker
which is to run over to Mike - Paul's dad - and touch him. He doesn't yet move around, we don't visit that often, but I ask him whether we could move this training forward every time we do visit. He has arthritis so he doesn't want to walk around much and I think he's a bit scared too but we'll get there But yes the most important thing is to get your cousin to ignore Dodger and keep away from him.
ADDING TO SAY
I have obviously made a lot of mistakes with this but one shouldn't give up
