Author Topic: I need help  (Read 4305 times)

Offline Bossofbee

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I need help
« on: December 02, 2008, 10:44:29 am »
Hello Everyone,

  I am hoping those of you out there who are more experienced can offer me some advice.

We have a 4mo old female Fila Brasileiro puppy, she's our second Fila and we love the breed. Our older Fila is amazing, she'll tolerate anything from anyone in the family.

The puppy we've gotten is from a friend of ours who bred her female. The issue we're having is biting.

Not normal puppy biting or protective biting which I would not be worried about. If my four year old touches her toys, goes near her food, or tries to move her when she doesn't want to be moved the puppy growls and snaps. She's made contact a couple times and has bitten her on the face three times drawing blood two of those three times.

I know it's most likely a dominance issue and I've tried working on it. I've tried having my daughter be the one that feeds her, I've involved her in training sessions and I've sat there and supervised while she gives things to the puppy and takes them back again. It just doesn't seem to be working though.

We also have a two year old and there is limited amounts of things I can think of doing to put the girls higher in the pack order. I'm afraid if we cannot solve this we won't be able to keep the dog.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

        Kes.


Offline ZooCrew

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Re: I need help
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2008, 12:34:07 pm »
I'm sorry you are going thru this. 
I think you need to get serious with the training.  It sounds like you may have an alpha female in the house.
Start with NILIF training immediately (Nothing In Life Is Free).  And I agree to keep up with the daughter helping with training.
Basically the dog must do a command before getting anything (food/treats/outside/walks/attention,etc).  She is obviously not thinking your daughter is alpha to her and that has to change.
Good luck to you.

Offline Bossofbee

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Re: I need help
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2008, 02:54:14 pm »
Hello everyone,

  Thank you for the replies and support. To answer Jacks Mom
her breeder is actually very good. The father of the litter comes from one Spain's best fila lines and the mother is one of the top protection dogs in the US.

She's not badly bred she just has an extremely alpha personality. I've dealt with man an alpha dog in the past but it was before I had children.

The breeder is also a dog trainer and a behaviorist (I'm aware they are two different things.) and she gave me some tips on how to solve this. We're going to nip this in the bud quickly before it escalates.

I really like the idea of having the girls feed her handfuls of kibble instead of having them just lay the food down. I'm also going to keep her on a leash while in the house so I can do an immediate correction if she displays unacceptable behavior.

Puppies can be such a pain sometimes!

      Kes.

Offline navarre1316

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Re: I need help
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2008, 05:44:12 am »
Does she snap and growl at anyone else?  Specifically, when you or your daughter pick her up does she squirm and snap to be let down?  My first GSD would do that when he was a few months old and I didn't think anything of it at the time and would put him down, NOT the right thing to do!!!  I should have held him until he was still and THEN put him down, I was only reinforcing that bad behaviour!

I would definitely continue what you are doing, especially having your daughter so involved.  Along the lines of a time out, my mom had a dog that would act out from time to time and she would actually ignore him, act like he's not even in the room.  This drove him crazy and his acting out got less and less, I don't know if this would work with your girls personality.

Good luck!
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