Training bite inhibition when none exists

[williesfriend]

We have what we think is 1.5-2 years old shelter dog who resource guards (getting better, but prone to relapses) and has zero bite inhibition except when he wanted to ‘mouth’ when in cuddle mode after sleeping or eating. I stop cuddle mode when he does this, and he hasn’t really mouthed in awhile. The shelter warned of his bite behavior, but because he’s a small breed and young, we didn’t take it as seriously as we should have. We thought he’d calm down after a few months of adjustment, especially since he was neutered shortly before we adopted him. All other times, the force of his bites is about level 2-3. His jaw force is enough to bruise and sometimes break skin. He does give a snarl/raised upper lip growl warning before he does it, but lately he’s not giving much warning.

We can’t trust him around groomers. I gave up on that, and I’m semi successful grooming him at home except recently, I feel like I have to wear a hockey mask to keep him somewhat decent. Body armor for clipping nails. My arms have some interesting bruises. We’ve gone through a few different muzzles and he’s managed to get out of all of them easily.

So now I am desperate for advice about training bite inhibition — is it possible to do in the teenage period if he’s not play biting or mouthing anymore? How do I approach this? He’s going from 0 to 60 in an incredibly short duration.

 

[kotunspecial]

@williesfriend Hes biting you to hurt you, if he bites softly during mouthing than the chance of him knowing bite inhibition. You need a professional trainer for these types of things. Stop ignoring your dog boundaries, there's a reason why instead of warning he goes straight to biting. Understand nervous behavior such as whale eyeing, intense stare, stiff body posture, licking lips, yawning, . . . etc. Also edit to add you're going for grooming the wrong way. Really wrong. You need to slowly introduce him, and stop when he's uncomfortable. give treats with each pet, or touching paws. Do not ever ever just clip his nails like that. Each time you're doing that you're breaking his trust with u. These types of issues takes years to fix. Let him keep the long nails and walk him daily so they won't be that long.

 

[williesfriend]

@kotunspecial Thanks so much. Oh, you’re right he’s biting to hurt. It’s like he doesn’t mouth anymore, just kill bite.

We did a ton of ‘touch’ object sensitivity training with a trainer and practice a LOT with him. But when it comes down to actual grooming or touching paws, he goes bezerk. We put the clippers near his bed and treated him every time he looked at them. We treat when we touch his paw. He attacked me when I gave him a treat.

It’s not the objects that’s triggering him — it’s anyone touching him. Baths are fine. Blow dryer is fine. Brush is fine. But any scissors, hair clippers, or nail clippers that go anywhere close to his body where he can’t “touch” with his nose, he will clamp down without warning.

He does the whale eyes stare all the time when we try to groom him. We even ignored it just for a week just to give him a break, and he started getting a few mats, which is painful to him. So we had to do something because it seems no groomer wants to even try when we warn them of his bite history. He pawed three different muzzles off his head in less than a minute each. This after we patiently muzzle trained him to the point where he would stick his nose in expecting a treat.

The bite is REALLY hard, vicious, and repetitive. I cried in the bathroom for an hour looking at my hand and arm. He came over to me and licked my arm for about five minutes, and ngl, I was a bit terrified.

 

[kotunspecial]

@williesfriend that makes sense as matts do become painful, but you should try brushing him about every few days so they won't become matted. Use a different type of brush, for example deshedding.( I must've misunderstood your post as u said brush is fine, I want to clarify through edit. Brush him like every few strokes, throw treat on ground. if he's starts feeling uncomfortable stop. Do this every day until he's slowly getting used to it. use kong filer treat. or something very high value such as cheese. If he showing any discomfort stop, and slowly build that)I would stop trying to groom him myself and let it grow, until he's comfortable with it. I would seek a groomer that are familiar with aggressive dogs, and sedate them/put them to sleep. Honestly since this is a foster dog, it sounds like he had a terrible experience with grooming hence is why he's acting crazy. I would completely stop doing everything that triggers him. Though if pets trigger him, just stop with it, Unfortunately this is a serious issue and if he was a bigger dog he would be been put down. I would highly highly recommend a dog trainer for this, and expert one non the less. Also see a behaviorist to see if they can give him any meds.

 

[kotunspecial]

I would also like to mention if he goes bites your hand for treats, do not put your hand near his face. Throw it on the ground. If he starts randomly attacking you. hide into a corner tuck your face and arms inside, and show your back to him. So he can't reach for you. My dog likes to nips at me and I taught him bite inhibition, so he doesn't bite. Though he bites harder now, because he wants my intention but I ignore him ( he playful bites). So I was taught by a dog trainer to tuck my body in and redirect his bites to a toy. But it depends if they're playful bites or aggressions. My dog doesn't go after me anymore and now only goes after the toys that's on the ground. Try having kong to relax your dog. like fill it up with yogurt. I honestly wish I can help you much further but I am not an expert on dogs and only learn this from research and dog trainers. Ive had the privilege of having my dog as a puppy and train him to not be aggressive. I take his warning signs very seriously, if he licks his lips while petting him I stop.

 

[williesfriend]

@kotunspecial Thank you. How did you teach bite inhibition? If I give him a chew toy so his mouth is occupied while trying to cut his hair, he’ll drop it and go to bite HARD whatever human limb is near him. He loves frozen kongs and even that can’t overcome his aggressive behavior during grooming.

 

[kotunspecial]

@williesfriend so unfortunately typically bite inhibition is taught during a certain period and a different method has to be approached. I taught my puppy ouch. Every time he would bite I would yell ouch, until he bit softer than softer. If the dog goes after you, after you drop the toy. hide your arms and duck your body, until he stops. reward when he stops and calms down. your goal is to make him stop biting u.

 

[christianityfacts]

@kotunspecial When my dog was a puppy, I had a specific wrist brace I would wear to play with him since he was already 80lbs at 6 months old(when I met him) for specific games where if he was too rough and couldn't be gentle despite being told it was too rough, we'd stop playing immediately because I was using myself to teach him very good bite inhibition so I knew beyond shadow of a doubt that he would be able to know exactly how much force he can safely use on a human whenever a human ends up in his mouth whether it's he accidentally grabs a hand instead of a toy or food or he needs to gently mouth me as an additional form of communication with me since I can't see his body language very well(I'm functionally legally blind). Now when he does intentionally put his mouth on me, there's never a mark because it's just some pressure or a small bruise at the most and it's typically an accidental nip because he missed the toy(only time he leaves marks with his teeth) or he's gently mouthing me for communication purposes but he doesn't do that very often. He even as a large puppy never broke skin and everything I've done with Bruno regarding bite inhibition and additional ways of communication is not something I would do with an adult dog that I don't know extremely well because I've worked with him on all of this the entire time I've known him so it's easier for him to communicate with me and with me being functionally legally blind, I don't have the ability to see small cues in a dogs body language so a dog who's not familiar with how to communicate with blind people may decide to bite me as they think I'm intentionally ignoring their warnings not that I couldn't read their warnings due to it being literally invisible to me which is completely understandable. Add in the fact that I have perfectly normal dog behavior from unfamiliar(to me) dogs like playing as a PTSD trigger from the shit my exroommate pulled that resulted in me getting some serious injuries like concussions when I was already dealing with brain damage, that makes it even more important that I make sure that unknown dogs and I don't interact in certain ways until the dog and I learn who the other one is as a being to prevent either of us from having a bad experience with each other

 

[kurat]

@williesfriend Resource guarding is often genetic and can never be “trained out” all the way. If you have been trying to “train” him not to resource guard (scolding when he growls), stop. It will only make things worse. You end up with a dog that no longer growls, but instead goes straight for a bite.

Instead, focus on management and set your day up in a way he doesn’t have an opportunity to display the resource guarding behaviors to begin with. If he guards his food bowl, feed him in the crate or close him in a spare room for meal time alone, then pick the bowl back up afterwards once he has walked away. If the issue is with toys/bones, keep those picked up and he can’t have them at all. If the issue is he gets on your couch and guards the space, have him drag a leash in the house so you can safely remove him from the situation without having to get near his face.

As for grooming, if he is that uncomfortable that he whale eyes and lashes out immediately, talk to your vet about short acting situational medication. You can keep meds on hand and give him a dose before you need to cut nails or use the clipper. Personally, if he’s a non-shed breed prone to matting, I would keep him clipped very short so mats don’t have a chance to form. Every 12 weeks or so, dose him with meds, and clip him down.

 

[williesfriend]

@kurat We worked with a trainer for positive only training, and have his resource guarding very managed with a lot of positive redirection. I developed some additional positive reinforcement regimens that works specific to our dog’s behavior (i.e. take, drop, leave it, or redirect to treat or another object).

Thank you for your advice about possible medication for grooming. As I explained, we’re trying to keep him with short hair except he goes bonkers whenever certain grooming tools touch him. He has no problem touching them with his nose on command. Brush is fine. Baths are fine. The issue is while doing required hair cutting or nail trimming. If I give him a treat, he will even bite hard the hand giving him a treat because he is so stressed out. We tried different locations in the house, and even that doesn’t matter.

So we’re looking for advice to lessen the bite strength. He’s going to bite no matter what. And when he bites, he bites HARD in multiple places. So we stop and give him a break. He calms down. We try again. Same thing happens. No professional groomer wants to take him on.

 

[kurat]

@williesfriend Definitely try meds, they can be a game changer for situations like this. Rather than focusing on lessening the bite, focus on lessening the anxiety so he doesn’t reach the threshold where he considers biting to begin with.

If a human is terrified of the dentist and screams really loud when they touch her teeth, we wouldn’t say hey, let’s practice screaming more quietly. Screaming is the outward show of underlying fear/anxiety. So let’s give you a Valium or some gas to lessen the anxiety, then you won’t reach that panic state and scream.

 

[williesfriend]

@kurat Thanks so much, this makes sense.

I wish dogs understood we’re trying to lessen their pain, not trying to torture them. We got our reactive dog over so many behavioral hurdles, this last major one feels like all the work and training we did was pointless.

 

[tiernon]

@williesfriend Check out the book Mine! by Jean Donaldson. It's a comprehensive overview of resource guarding and is very well-regarded.

You should also look into "consent based grooming" (I unfortunately don't have any references to recommend, just the term you should research.)

One way to teach bite inhibition is to allow the dog to mouth on you, and only end the mouthing session if he bites too hard. That's how he can learn "oh, this much force is ok but that much force is too much." That said, it doesn't really sound like he's hurting you by accident.

 

[williesfriend]

@tiernon Thank you for the consent based grooming term. I’m researching that now! We have his resource guarding very managed with a trainer’s help and our own positive reinforcement regimen unique to his behavior.