# Need some serious guidance !!! Ten month old mouthing way too much!!



## MikaTallulah (Jul 19, 2006)

Outside = Funny and excitement for him. He needs to leave to relax outdoors since he has already learned it indoors. I would put the training outdoors. You jump or mouth and the fun stops.


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## inge (Sep 20, 2009)

It sounds like he wants to tell you he doesn't want the outside play to stop...does he also do this when you take home for a walk on the leash? Or only when running free in the garden?


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## laprincessa (Mar 24, 2008)

Can you let him out alone for a few minutes and let him run off some excitement before you go out?


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## Kinjal (Dec 26, 2011)

inge said:


> It sounds like he wants to tell you he doesn't want the outside play to stop...does he also do this when you take home for a walk on the leash? Or only when running free in the garden?


He doesn't do this on a way back from walk... Only when he's running freely in the backyard. Well so far only in the backyard, wouldn't want to jinx myself


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## Kinjal (Dec 26, 2011)

laprincessa said:


> Can you let him out alone for a few minutes and let him run off some excitement before you go out?


I am actually doing that, he outside ten min before I join him .... Hes a beautiful boy, there are areas we are working on but this seems to be the biggest issue...


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## Kinjal (Dec 26, 2011)

MikaTallulah said:


> Outside = Funny and excitement for him. He needs to leave to relax outdoors since he has already learned it indoors. I would put the training outdoors. You jump or mouth and the fun stops.


My issue is stopping the fun is difficult, folding my arms means he starts lunging at my back biting at clothing and crossed arms.


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## dkt (Jun 20, 2011)

My boy is exactly the same--wonderfully calm and obedient inside, but gets overly rough and excited outside. He just turned 1 yr. Hoping for lots of suggestions for you (and me!). Letting him out before I go out to run off excess energy only makes it worse when I do come out, because he's sooo excited that I came out!


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## Kinjal (Dec 26, 2011)

That's exactly my issue dkt! 

Anyone want to have a go at helping us out a tad?


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## mooselips (Dec 4, 2011)

I have the same thing with Bridget, 7 months.

But I find myself sometimes getting her wound up without realizing I'm doing it.

I always "ask" her wanna go for your walk? and other excitable sentences.

This a.m. I'm going to try just a calm approach to the walk, no warning beforehand.

She FINALLY is beginning to understand my FIRM voice.


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## Tayla's Mom (Apr 20, 2012)

I have a similar although more intense issue. When we go for a walk at some point she will display the same behaviors, but with Tayla, 8 months old next week, she has broken skin. She is very mouthy in the house, but on a walk she can and does turn into Cujo. We have her with a behavior specialist/trainer and our vet so I'm hoping we can get this resolved soon. I've actually been told to stop the walks for a while. Tayla is great in the back yard and I play fetch games with her multiple times a day without any problem. She is the worst on walks. Her antics can last from 1 minute to 3 or 4 minutes until she calms down. You can get really bruised in that time. Good luck to all of us.


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## Charliethree (Jul 18, 2010)

Kinjal said:


> Hi, Gabbar was doing really well from four months to eight months. But he's now close to ten months old and is still mouthing us too much!
> 
> It happens always in the backyard. Whenever we go outside he starts lunging at us biting our arms, wrists or legs/ankles. He's using his entire mouth around us and it's not hard enough to break skin but it still hurts a bit and is uncomfortable. When he starts I tell him to sit and he doesn't listend for a couple of minutes. Turning around is not working and ignoring doesn't work. I grab his collar and tell him to sit. He eventually does and I praise and cuddle him heaps. He is wonderful inside, really calm and obedient. Outside he goes nuts.
> 
> If I ever turn to walk towards the door he starts, in between play he goes off, I'm at my wits end! Hellllppp!!!


 
The root of the problem is that he doesn't know what 'sit' means when he is outside and excited, he has learned that sit means 'I get to 'chew' on someone for a few minutes' highly rewarding. Then when that someone holds my collar, it is time to sit. Work on getting reliable responses to the 'sit' command in the yard. Take him out on leash, ask for a few sits, reward him with some high value treats for each one, then ask for a sit, remove the leash and let him go play. Practice as often as you can, when he is playing, interupt, get the sit and reward for it, with a high value reward, and release to go play. As dog owners we often make the mistake of not helping our dogs generalize well enough, changing the context, location, anything, can affect the dog's ability to respond to a command because he has not been taught that command in that situation.
Sometimes we have to change our thinking, rather than focusing on stopping a behavior, we need to decide what behavior we do want and train for it.


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## Moonbridge (Aug 26, 2014)

Hello,
I know this is a thread is from a few years back but it is exactly what I am looking for! My 8 month old boy is sooo calm in the house and pretty good when out for walks alone with me. My biggest problem is when I try to play with him in the yard or the rec room in the evenings. He'll retrieve the ball and run around nicely for 15-20 minutes and then something "snaps" and he starts lunging and biting my arms/hands. He's ripped a few coats, destroyed 3 leashes in a week and everything I've tried fails.
He is a dog that will only listen when a treat is involved. He doesn't have the desire to please that my other golden and previous dogs have had. He's very independant.

I need to get this under control. With the warmer weather, I want to be outsdie more but obviously won't have the protection of a winter coat for my arms.....ouch!

Oh, the whole time he does the lunging/biting, he's wagging his tail. As soon as I get annoyed he drops to the ground and crawls up to me and then if I make any move, he lunges again and again and again.

I'll try doing the sit command on the leash in the yard. I just can't afford new leashes every few days. I bought a chain leash and he figured out VERY quickly not to bite it but go for me instead.....


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## Moonbridge (Aug 26, 2014)

He gets walked for an hour every morning and then has 2 play sessions outside each day. He has chew toys inside and seems very happy to be calm inside.

He does still pee on everyone that he meets except his three family people that he lives with. Meeting people is frustrating but I continue to work on making him sit. As soon as attention is given even if he was calm, it all goes out the window. He's knocked several people over as he pushes against them to be pet and pee on their feet.


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## quilter (Sep 12, 2011)

Casper did this as a teenager. So annoying!

Here's what fixed it for us, but it might not be possible for you. We went on a vacation and my husband got sick and ended up in the hospital. Our two-week vacation turned into a month. When we got back, Casper had apparently completely forgotten about that particular behavior. (In training speak, it's called "being extinguished.") He still gets zoomies in the backyard in the evening, and he does like to grab sticks when I'm doing yard work, but I'm no longer the focus of any of that.

You can use extinguishment (is that a word?) in this case, but you'd need to figure out all the triggers and avoid them. Also, replace what you do in the backyard with something else. So, for example, if 4 retrieves gets his so ramped up that he does this, then you should only do 3 retrieves. 

The "be a tree" thing never worked with Casper. Much more effective is me leaving and putting a door between us. Triple goodness with this approach - 1) he can't practice the behavior, 2) I'm not doing anything to reinforce the behavior, 3) if done quickly, he can figure out that his behavior caused me to go away. Oh, and 4) it gives him a chance to settle down.

Another thing you can do is train folding your arms as a visual cue for Sit. I have read that dogs are more visual than auditory. You have to train this while the dog is not crazed. The dog is in no shape to learn while jumping around at you. Another benefit of folded arms is that it prevents you from waving your arms around, which just makes you look like prey.

Here's a good story about how this can turn out. Casper and I are taking an online class about bonding with your dog. One exercise is to wander slowly around the backyard and see what your dog does. Casper (four years old) followed me slowly around the yard. When I stopped to sniff some flowers, he came over and sniffed the flowers with me. It was so cute!


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## Moonbridge (Aug 26, 2014)

Thanks Quilter. Some good words of advice and I'll keep working on it. I know many people go through this with pups in the teenage phase so I'm not alone.


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## MoltenGirl (Aug 4, 2015)

I'm at a similar stage Moonbridge. 

Mozart acts like a Barbarian on walks and will suddenly jump, run, and lunge at my son to catch up to him. Walks at present are best done with one person. 

Today he jumped at me while I was snapping his harness on and I grabbed him and firmly said "NO" in a loud, affirmative voice. Then I just stood there for a good few seconds before going back to what I was doing. 

I think it's over-excitement to be honest. And Mozzie isn't neutered yet which may contribute to the problem but I'm aiming to get him fixed at 18 months (if we can last that long)

It's frustrating and what calms him down is the crate. When he's all riled up and won't' settle, I guide him into his crate and close it. 

I've also started putting him on a leash again inside the house to gain more control over what he does and restrict his freedom. He goes where I go and that also seems to settle him down. 

I'm praying that this phase doesn't last long and there's a light at this end of this seemingly dark tunnel.


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## Moonbridge (Aug 26, 2014)

I met another a half sibling of our boys. (actually I spend an hour with her every day) She's just 12 weeks old and my goodness do they have a spitfire!!! She is smart as can be and VERY VERY persistant. I didn't really appreciate how mellow my guy was until I see more "normal" puppies.

I really can't complain too much, the biting and lunging is already getting better just in the few days I've worked on it.
Most of the time I walk Watson on just a plain flat collar now and although he pulls, he responds really well to corrections and self corrects more and more. Today he had a tantrum infront of a construction crew, lunging and jumping at me and biting me anywhere he could. I said no firmly and when he didn't listen the second time, I calmly stepped on his leash and he immediately laid down and calmed down. I kept him in a down-stay for 2 minutes and then we resumed our walk as if nothing had happened.

There is definitely light at the end of the tunnel.

I loved my boys mom to pieces but perhaps the fact that the breeder always locked up his full sister who was just about a year old at the time, should have been a warning sign.....Perhaps she was still in the teenage wild girl stage....


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## MoltenGirl (Aug 4, 2015)

Moonbridge said:


> I met another a half sibling of our boys. (actually I spend an hour with her every day) She's just 12 weeks old and my goodness do they have a spitfire!!! She is smart as can be and VERY VERY persistant. I didn't really appreciate how mellow my guy was until I see more "normal" puppies.
> 
> I really can't complain too much, the biting and lunging is already getting better just in the few days I've worked on it.
> Most of the time I walk Watson on just a plain flat collar now and although he pulls, he responds really well to corrections and self corrects more and more. Today he had a tantrum infront of a construction crew, lunging and jumping at me and biting me anywhere he could. I said no firmly and when he didn't listen the second time, I calmly stepped on his leash and he immediately laid down and calmed down. I kept him in a down-stay for 2 minutes and then we resumed our walk as if nothing had happened.
> ...


Hello puppy-partner in-crime! 

I keep telling myself that our boys will be like their Moms one day. :crossfing


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## mhampton (Sep 23, 2015)

my Morgan girl is 8 months old and is still very biting - I have tried everything to correct it. She is so good most of the time but does like to lunge and get me. My right arm is so bruised from her sharp teeth. Any ideas would be helpful. My other golden did not do this at all. Thanks!


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