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Hello everyone we have a 4 month old border collie lab mix and three kids. The pup loves to play with my son but starts to nip or bite him and its getting annoying. My son wants to play tag and tug of war with him but the dog tries to dominate him and we are not sure what to do. We give him a quick correction when he does this but he just continues on. Should I get my son to umbilical him as well so he will respect him? Also the dog barks only at me - the primary care giver. He barks when he wants to play and he won't stop until I do. Should I be correcting him on this and play only when the time is right for me? Thanks in advance!

Hi kooka:

We have a 6 month old Lab who used to be VERY playfully nippy - for awhile there it felt like we were living with a canine version of Jaws LOL! We thought she’d never stop, but don’t worry - the following method worked for us, but everyone in the house must follow the same rule and be consistent with it.

The best way to deal with your little shark-mouth is to yell, ‘OUCH!!!’ whenever he bites, and immediately stop the play and ignore him for a few minutes. He’ll then start to realize that, ‘gee, when I put my teeth on them they stop having fun with me... that sucks!’ lol.. This may take several weeks for him to learn, but good to ‘nip it in the bud’ now (no pun lol..) while he’s still a pup. It is VERY important to get this across to the kids also or your pup will never learn that teeth on human skin, or on anything human, including clothes, etc., is a big no no.. It’s difficult with kids, especially when they’re younger – they’ll want to play with him all the time, which will get the pup all excited and prone to nip, etc. - but the lessons they learn with respect to training the pup will be invaluable for them.

Not sure how others feel about your son doing umbilical in the house, whether this is necessary or not. Have your son feed him his breakfast for awhile, and have him take the pup for walks regularly with the leash umbilical – this may help. Our pup is the same with the kids – she treats them more like litter-mates and tends to be a bit more playfully ‘pushy’ with them than my hubby and I.

Good luck hun!

I have a Texas Blue Heeler (cow herding dog) and the nipping in puppyhood was TERRIBLE! Herding dogs, like the boarder collie, are the most inclined to nip beyond belief. I did everything to control his nipping behaviour only to find nothing worked. In fact, the more I tried to stop him the worse he got - including yelping like a puppy (I thought he had no sympathy what so ever). Turns out it was the cattle dog behaviour causing him to keep coming after me over and over again on exciting moments like greetings and play time. Tug of war was out of the question since that just stimulated his dominance senses and cause more nipping. The solution I finally found was using Brad's version of Puppy Jail in his E-book. Everytime he nipped I would quickly grab his collar without saying a word and attach him to the high lead I had placed to force him into a sit or stand. Maximum 10 minutes for really hard nips. When I let him off, I would ignore him and SLOWLY warm up to him for 1 hr. The nipping that drove me nuts for over 1 year was over with in a matter of two weeks!

As for kids, my guy still play nips them when they try to play with him since he views them as fellow puppies. Stopping every and all play right away I found works really well. Unfortunately, when a child tries to do umbilical work Jessie will just nip them in play - he doesn't get the same lessons out of it for kids as he does adults.

Perhaps my experience may help you if the nipping continues.

Thanks for the replies. I will first try to ouch method and get the kids on board with that as well. Then move onto puppy jail if necessary. I think I'll take out the tug of war and see how he does. Its funny becasue he does see the kids as puppies more than me and hubby.

Thanks!