Play bitting H U R T S...

Post by **chris** » Fri May 19, 2006 10:12 am

Hi all, new to this forum.
we have a new chow chow, well he is 7 months old and his name is Steel. (named after the pittsburgh steelers "husbands idea" ) anyway he is the 3rd chow we have had now. He is great, protective to a point, loves the kids and us, loves to eat, listens pretty well... he is a good dog. BUT.. He loves to play rough. Which, I do not mind but he bites and I dont think he realizes how hard he is bitting. I have done everything from pretending that he hurt me and Im crying, making the loud noise... spanking his butt, tapping under his chin, saying NO BITE, "trying" to get up and walk away.. (he follows and trys to tackle you... lol), holding his head so he is looking at me and saying no bite.... any suggestions? When you are cuddling with him and petting him, sometimes he doesnt want you to scratch certain areas (under his arms or sometimes his butt cheeks ?do dogs have butt cheeks? lol ... ) anyway, when he doesn't want you to do that he will grab your hand in his mouth and move it, but he does it VERY gently. So, he is only bitting hard when he is rough housing (playing) .
Thanks for any advice in advance.

VTCHOW · Post by **VTCHOW** » Fri May 19, 2006 10:58 am

Unfortunetly, I have the same problem with Sadie. I have been able to keep her from playing rough and biting me about 60% of the time. Which is great cause she used to do it all the time. Whenever were playing she gets carried away and wants to start biting and playing rough so I will just stop in the middle of play and walk away saying no. I won't even acknowledge her for about 10 min. I feel this technique would work a whole lot better if my husband would stop playing rough with her. Ahh here lies the problem and what do you know hubby is starting realize that Sadie's biting and rough play hurts him to.

Post by **chris** » Fri May 19, 2006 11:12 am

so is Sadie the problem?? or Hubby...

I have the same situation... but I will try your tech... thanks

Jeri · Post by **Jeri** » Fri May 19, 2006 11:25 am

In my situation, hubby is the problem... He would and still play rough with Saydee and when it came time for me to play with her, I was the one that got hurt... Still to this day she will come up behind me and wrap her front paws around my leg and "dig" in... I know that she is not meaning to hurt me, but sometime it does... I just "shake" her off, grab her mane and tell her no and walk away... Sometimes it works, sometime it doesn't.... It is hard to be mad at her, when it is hubby's fault....

Jeri, Saydee & Kaspur

Jeri · Post by **Jeri** » Fri May 19, 2006 11:25 am

In my situation, hubby is the problem... He would and still play rough with Saydee and when it came time for me to play with her, I was the one that got hurt... Still to this day she will come up behind me and wrap her front paws around my leg and "dig" in... I know that she is not meaning to hurt me, but sometime it does... I just "shake" her off, grab her mane and tell her no and walk away... Sometimes it works, sometime it doesn't.... It is hard to be mad at her, when it is hubby's fault....

Jeri, Saydee & Kaspur

VTCHOW · Post by **VTCHOW** » Fri May 19, 2006 11:28 am

Sadie bites me 60% less. She bites my hubby 100% because he thinks its a game that the both of them share yet he complains that she's biting???

Since I am the caregiver, I think it hurts her feelings when I just get up and walk away when she's biting therefore she has learned not to bite mom.

VTCHOW · Post by **VTCHOW** » Fri May 19, 2006 11:34 am

Jeri,

Ahh the old leg hold I know it very well. I will tell you that I bought some "biter apple" spray and sprayed it on my legs and feet to keep her off. That worked for awhile but I wasn't consistant with that. It was kinda of pain to remeber to get the spray before you start to play.

Jeri · Post by **Jeri** » Fri May 19, 2006 12:03 pm

I don't understand how some replys get posted twice...

I never had a past chow do the leg hold like Saydee does.... and usually when she gets the hold, she goes for the area right behind the knees...
aother thing my hubby would do is put his arm out and tease her saying that she wasn't very tough and give her a little push back... Boy that is all it took and she went wild.... Running & jumping all over the house... One time I tried playing with her like that and I walked away with bruises on my arms.... Saydee doesn't understand why daddy can take it but mommy can't....

Jeri, Saydee & Kaspur

Jeri · Post by **Jeri** » Fri May 19, 2006 12:03 pm

I don't understand how some replys get posted twice...

I never had a past chow do the leg hold like Saydee does.... and usually when she gets the hold, she goes for the area right behind the knees...
aother thing my hubby would do is put his arm out and tease her saying that she wasn't very tough and give her a little push back... Boy that is all it took and she went wild.... Running & jumping all over the house... One time I tried playing with her like that and I walked away with bruises on my arms.... Saydee doesn't understand why daddy can take it but mommy can't....

Jeri, Saydee & Kaspur

chowfrnd88 · Post by **chowfrnd88** » Fri May 19, 2006 12:47 pm

I've been very lucky in this respect. For some reason, Special plays completely differently with me than with my husband. He is quite gentle with me. He pulls gentler when we play tug. He doesn't jump up and push on me like he does whith my husband when they run around together, with me there's just running, no jumping. I find this especially wild because I have never even had to tell him not to play that way with me.

In our training class, they tell us to let out a high pitched "ouch" to mimic yelping and then walk away. But clearly that's not working for you!

Keep us posted as what to what ends up working. He will still mouth our hands once in a while during play and we're still working on discouraging that, so I'd love to hear what works for you. Good luck!

LEO's mum · Post by **LEO's mum** » Fri May 19, 2006 12:53 pm

You are not alone. This is our story. LEO thinks I am her litter mate. Altho to a lesser extent now that she is 7m/s old, she would bite me in the arms and hug/mount my leg

I have yelped in a high pitch, told her no in a low voice, put a finger into her throat, bit her back, sprayed her w/ water, told her NO w/ a growl into her face and called "time out" and disappeared for 3 min(yes, she used to attach herself on to my jeans at the calf while I was getting myself out of the living room). I got her in Dec.at 10wks old & was sure glad this was happening in the winter when I had to have long sleeves and thicker pants on. I am not sure if it registered w/ her or not. But the occurance is less frequent now. I think she did want to play w/ me when she got bored. So telling her to sit and putting in a short training session was a good deterent. She will bring her chew toy or a tennis ball for me to hold while she chews on it, now. She will not bite my husband, she adores my husband, showers him w/ kisses, but would dare not bite him. I think low voice command of a man works better for her. She was told off & was spanked w/ a rolled up newspaper once play biting my dad, she still loved him to bits but never attempted to bite him again. She has not gained any fear of newspapers from that incident, either. She loves to tear any paper into bits

Post by **chris** » Tue May 23, 2006 10:45 am

HAHAHA, Steel does the same thing with attacking or grabbing your leg to bring you down. Other times, yes.. he does the "LOVE YOUR LEG" thing..

And yes, Steel also LOVES LOVES LOVES to tear paper up. He had a ball at Christmas. And when my kids go to school and tell the teacher "My dog ate my homework." he really did.

AND, he does tend to go crazy and run run run run run all over the house, to the couch to the other couch to the floor around the table to the couch to the other couch to the floor to the stairs up the stairs to each bed then down the stairs and then to the back door. He is quite amusing, and entertaining. I will continue to work on the bitting with him. I always wants to play which I do not mind.. I just dont want him to bite so hard. I will let you guys know what works for him. Hopefully something will. (tried bitter apple, didn't work... LOL)
BTW, this is a great web site.. Im glad I found it.