The behavior: Stealing! Objects of choice... anything that fits in his mouth. Ex: Socks (an all time favorite), undies, pieces of paper (tags, stickers), pen cap, my Vera Bradley wallet, and most ridiculously..... a hotel bar of soap. Yes this was all yesterday morning!!!
Theory 1) Someone/thing taught him how to be bad.
Theory 2) No one disciplined him at all while we were away, leading him to forget how to behave.
Theory 3) He has been possessed by the devil.
It's annoying enough that every time I blink he stealthily sneaks out of the room to reappear with something new in his mouth, but what's worse is that his jaw is just recently too strong to pry open. His eyes turn to devil eyes and his jaw locks shut when you try to pry it open. He even has the nerve to growl!
He does in fact know the command 'Drop it.' He will drop his toys into your hand (half of the time) when playing fetch. This makes it all the more frustrating when he refuses to do so with your belongings! (And now we can add my earmuffs to his list!!)
For nipping we were told to try using a spray bottle. Every time he nips, spray him. We used to do this when he would latch onto our clothes and refuse to let go. The spray worked pretty efficiently, one squirt and he would immediately let go. So, out came the spray bottle again. Squirt, no response.... squirt... nothing... squirt squirt squirt... nada! He had water dripping out of his nostrils, but intently stared me down with those devil eyes! The only thing that works is offering him a treat, which I then evilly refuse to give him..... I don't think this is right, but I don't know what else to do! (Pick up the house better I suppose..... but seriously, I don't know where half of the things he finds ever were, and I swear the house isn't that messy!) He gets plenty of exercise: multiple walks, or jog/walks, etc. I know a tired puppy is a good puppy, but we can't just walk 24-7!
The baby gate has now been put up across the bottom of the stairs to keep him from sneaking up there.... :sigh: I feel like we are regressing with his training!
"Me? Naughty? Never...."
hi Ramsey and mom, ya know this dawg would really make lots of friends with Monday Mischief blog hop... anyway, i wud like to let ya know that i'm passing ya the Liebster Blog heart award. Here's the shortlink of my post mentioning ya: http://wp.me/pPYET-sM xoxox Vanilla Bean
ReplyDeletep.s. squirting won't work and its annoying