Hello guys,
Before I explain my issue, just want to apologize for any grammar issues since English is not my first language.
This is my first ever time posting on reddit but I think this is the only option I've got atm. I've got her when she was 2 months old, she's 12 months old now and she's a West German Showline with amazing and sweet parents. I've never had an experience with owning a dog but I was around them pretty often so I had some base to work with but I never imagined that it would be this hard. Since in my country there are no great trainers that I could trust, I decided to stick with youtube and reddit to start with the basic training such as sit,stay and etc. and she was amazing, it took me only 5 minutes to teach her to sit, till this day she does not have any drive for her kibble so I did all my training with treats such as cheese, sausages and some treats from the pet store.
Here's the issue, she never grew out of biting even after I've tried multiple ways to stop her from biting and nipping, for the first 2 weeks, I tried ''Stop the fun'' method when I would just stop playing with her and leave as soon as she would bite me (Even made the ''yelp'' sound as many suggested to others), there was 0 progress, like literally no realization on her end that biting meant something bad. Then I got a crate and whenever she would bite me, I would just put her in crate for like 10-15 minutes and would just leave the room, I kept doing that for like 3-4 months without any progress whatsoever, after coming out of the crate, she would be chill for like 2 minutes and then the shitshow would start all over again with her coming to me or anyone else in the room, nip and run away. If you would try to pet her, she would bite or chew on your hand (Not aggressively ofc). After that method was not working, I tried the redirecting method and as you might've guessed, we had 0 progress. After reading so many posts on reddit and asking around in my friend group who owned a dog, everyone was saying that she would eventually grow out of it so I just decided to stay calm and just let her literally grow out of the biting thing but nothing was happening so the last resort was to hire the trainer who introduced us to a prong collar (I know that many of you guys are against prong collars and you have every right to be, but this is not the issue here). So what I would do, at home, I would put the prong collar on her so that it didn't pinch her without actually popping the leash and just be near her 24/7 just for the safety, and as soon as she tried (or actually did) to bite, nip or chew, I would pop the collar and she would stop, she did realize that biting=pop on the prong so that was a huge difference from what we had before, but then there was another issue, as soon as I'd took off the leash from the prong collar, or as soon I'd took of the collar itself, she realized that there was nothing stopping her from doing it again and you get it... I don't want to have my dog on the prong collar all the time (I don't want her to have prong collar at all but well..) just so that she stops biting but I don't know what to do anymore.
She's sweet, playful, she literally loves everyone, never ever showed any aggression at all towards anyone that she ever met, she wants to interact with everyone she sees, but this has really become an issue because:
She has been doing this since the beginning and before someone asks, I've never hit her, and never did something to her that would make her afraid, I don't think she's even afraid by doing what I'm about to say but I'm still clarifying.
Whenever me or anyone wants to pet her, she just ducks her head or leans and tries to avoid being pet, really rare occasion like 1 out of 20 attempts she will allow you to pet her, she always wants to interact with me or my mom and is always excited and literally follows me to every place I go but that is something that I don't understand, sometimes I just really want to sit on my couch or lay on the bed and have her beside me and just pet her and be chill for like 5 minutes without her getting away or starting to chew on my hand.
Thank you very much if you've read this much and thanks to everyone who will provide any sort of advise, hell even if someone criticizes me for doing something wrong, please do because I really want to have a healthy relationship with my dog since I love her dearly.
Before I explain my issue, just want to apologize for any grammar issues since English is not my first language.
This is my first ever time posting on reddit but I think this is the only option I've got atm. I've got her when she was 2 months old, she's 12 months old now and she's a West German Showline with amazing and sweet parents. I've never had an experience with owning a dog but I was around them pretty often so I had some base to work with but I never imagined that it would be this hard. Since in my country there are no great trainers that I could trust, I decided to stick with youtube and reddit to start with the basic training such as sit,stay and etc. and she was amazing, it took me only 5 minutes to teach her to sit, till this day she does not have any drive for her kibble so I did all my training with treats such as cheese, sausages and some treats from the pet store.
Here's the issue, she never grew out of biting even after I've tried multiple ways to stop her from biting and nipping, for the first 2 weeks, I tried ''Stop the fun'' method when I would just stop playing with her and leave as soon as she would bite me (Even made the ''yelp'' sound as many suggested to others), there was 0 progress, like literally no realization on her end that biting meant something bad. Then I got a crate and whenever she would bite me, I would just put her in crate for like 10-15 minutes and would just leave the room, I kept doing that for like 3-4 months without any progress whatsoever, after coming out of the crate, she would be chill for like 2 minutes and then the shitshow would start all over again with her coming to me or anyone else in the room, nip and run away. If you would try to pet her, she would bite or chew on your hand (Not aggressively ofc). After that method was not working, I tried the redirecting method and as you might've guessed, we had 0 progress. After reading so many posts on reddit and asking around in my friend group who owned a dog, everyone was saying that she would eventually grow out of it so I just decided to stay calm and just let her literally grow out of the biting thing but nothing was happening so the last resort was to hire the trainer who introduced us to a prong collar (I know that many of you guys are against prong collars and you have every right to be, but this is not the issue here). So what I would do, at home, I would put the prong collar on her so that it didn't pinch her without actually popping the leash and just be near her 24/7 just for the safety, and as soon as she tried (or actually did) to bite, nip or chew, I would pop the collar and she would stop, she did realize that biting=pop on the prong so that was a huge difference from what we had before, but then there was another issue, as soon as I'd took off the leash from the prong collar, or as soon I'd took of the collar itself, she realized that there was nothing stopping her from doing it again and you get it... I don't want to have my dog on the prong collar all the time (I don't want her to have prong collar at all but well..) just so that she stops biting but I don't know what to do anymore.
She's sweet, playful, she literally loves everyone, never ever showed any aggression at all towards anyone that she ever met, she wants to interact with everyone she sees, but this has really become an issue because:
- I can't interact with my own dog without getting her teeth on me
- If someone wants to pet her she might end up unintentionally hurting someone
- Sometimes it really fucking hurts and I think it's just the matter of time before she literally tears my skin apart.
She has been doing this since the beginning and before someone asks, I've never hit her, and never did something to her that would make her afraid, I don't think she's even afraid by doing what I'm about to say but I'm still clarifying.
Whenever me or anyone wants to pet her, she just ducks her head or leans and tries to avoid being pet, really rare occasion like 1 out of 20 attempts she will allow you to pet her, she always wants to interact with me or my mom and is always excited and literally follows me to every place I go but that is something that I don't understand, sometimes I just really want to sit on my couch or lay on the bed and have her beside me and just pet her and be chill for like 5 minutes without her getting away or starting to chew on my hand.
Thank you very much if you've read this much and thanks to everyone who will provide any sort of advise, hell even if someone criticizes me for doing something wrong, please do because I really want to have a healthy relationship with my dog since I love her dearly.
Yep I've tried the first method and it didn't work but I haven't tried poking, seems like something that could actually work, will see how it goes!