@scholasticus Honestly I would get a trainer. Start a basic obedience class and ask the trainer about the specific bite issues. However what I would do when she starts to go for your face is stand up and leave the room for five minutes. She is trying to play with you and when she figures out lunging at your face always means playtime is over she will stop.
It’s the same way you train not jumping on you.
These basic obedience classes are so underrated. Our dogs behavior completely changed in ways we never expected.
@scholasticus I just wanna say, you can "train" your dog to have more stamina and it sounds like that's what you're doing by taking her to the dog park for hours.
I would personally enforce a time-out, because puppies can get nippy and bratty when tired/overtired.
I've never crate-trained before so I won't be suggesting you enforce the time-out in her crate, but force her to stop playing and force her to cuddle.
Force is the wrong term, because obviously you shouldn't get violent with your puppy, but it's the best term I have.
@scholasticus It sounds like you have her out a lot, but as someone who has worked with working dogs: so I don’t know where you live, but you say dog park and home are the main activities. I have experience with herding dogs. It would take a two hour hike to tire one out at five years old or so, let alone a puppy. A dog park wouldn’t cut it. It just isn’t working enough or strenuous. And I say working as in smells and just having stimulation outside of a contained area.
I say this not knowing your dog or being a dog trainer, just as someone who has access to mountains and has been a dog hiker professionally. Working dogs need a lot. But you’ve been in the ER, so I don’t know. But I would personally find a way to devote a lot of physical activity to your pup as well as mental.
@henry_ co-signing this, as a corgi owner. you can see in my comment history what i do to work my dog out - we can do a 10 mile hike one day and she’s still ready for round two the next day. i walk mine 4-5 miles a day + dog park daily, and she’s 2.5 years old. when she was a puppy it was far worse.
if she’s scavenging, does she have mental stimulation toys? treat balls. kong’s. likimats. a cardboard egg carton filled with treats and taped shut. a cardboard box filled with crumpled paper with treats wrapped inside them. corgis are smart. they’re so smart and they need to work for everything. i try to do a mix of physical and mental stimulation because they wear her out in different ways. even sometimes we just sit outside of a coffee shop on a busy street - the constant interaction with people, new smells / sounds / things to see helps wear her out some.
@emnonymous Well, I can try more mental toys. But she hates most od the one got. She won't go near them. She'll just stay back from them and bark at them, besides the kong.
@scholasticus yeah i mean puppies haha. everything is new and weird to them. mine used to run at her treat ball and bop it with her nose and then jump back and then dance around it barking until she got enough courage to run at it again. she got better at it. try different ones. there’s one that’s a pickle that you can stuff treats and things like peanut butter or bits of cheese in, that all my friends who have had puppies swear by. even just digging food out of a kong is good stimulation.
@henry_ Dang. But like I said, she geta worn out definitively, as evidence that if placed in her kennel she will almost immediately go to sleep and will aleeo like 10 hours straight.
@scholasticus My dog is a pointer-pitbull cross (somebody hopped the ranch fence). She calms down in her crate but so much of breeding tells her when she is not in her crate that she needs to be learning everything about everything. If I take her to the dog park, sometimes she will play, and sometimes she will smell the entire perimeter of the park. Being out in a wilder area and running as fast as she wants and encountering, idk, logs and just different things than a more controlled environment entertains and tires her out much more than a leash walk or dog park. When I’m in a pinch, I take her on a run on leash and that helps too. The thing about any herding dog is that they really need so much mental stimulation compared to other breeds, like somebody said above too. They are smart and become neurotic if their instincts for their job aren’t met. You can do it, just combo more physical activity with more mental stimulation.
I’m going to edit this to say that I read other’s comments and they are advising against too much physical activity young and I have never had a puppy who was younger than four months or a pure bread dog like a corgi who might have specific physical issues. I think my main point is just that leash walking or dog park might not be enough ‘work’ for a corgi. I’ve been really surprised at how much my dog benefits from just variety of environment, even, and then at home she has bones and a king, and has to be on her bed or in her crate a lot of the time.
@scholasticus I found that feeding my dog meals in a puzzle ball was really helpful for the constant play/scavenging. When I'd feed him meals in a bowl, he'd inhale the food and be right back into action. The first few times I fed him in the puzzle ball, he was exhausted afterwards. After he got the hang of it, he wouldn't crash quite as hard, but he's still usually a bit more calm afterwards. These things also help satiate their natural instinct to forage for food. I'd say it's definitely worth a try.
Regarding the nipping, let me know when you find a cure lol. I've tried all the techniques that I could find, nothing really seems to stick. The closest I've come is to putting him in a time out every time that he bites by gating him off in a hallway with no toys or anything for a couple of minutes. It doesn't work immediately, but if you're consistent about doing it every time, he eventually gets the idea.
Puppies need enforced nap time or they become overtired and problematic in general. When you're dont playing its time to go in the crate for a nap (at 3 months she should be sleeping the majority of the day)
You've bought a herding breed - you're going to have to train the nipping out of her and it'll likely be a while, its instinctual. In the meantime never give the dog the opportunity to be near someone's face. They need to earn that trust. Have you tried simply ending all interaction with her as soon as she shows interest in nipping? She tries it, then everyone immediately leaves the room and take the toys with you. Like a timeout for a kid.
Train your dog that being calm is rewarding - here is a video on "capturing calmness"
- You need to build that medium mode with this technique, not all dogs come with it
By scavenging you mean sniffing around? Why is it a problem? Regardless, capturing calmness (above) would likely address this.
@fromadaughter It is an issue in that she blocks out everything else when scavenging/ sniffing. And she never ever stops it unless we pick her up and then are doing something else while sitting her down sich as have a toy on hand. And she will sniff the same small area for hours. It almost seems neurotic and I'm just hopeful thst it isn't some kind of issue.
