I have a 5-7 month old Border Collie/Aussie or Kelpie mix pup named Emma.
I am no stanger to dogs, especially the herding breeds, but I have never
seen this type of behavior before. When Emma and I take our almost daily walk, she
constantly nips my knees and ankles. I have been advised that this is due to
her breed and just a natural herding instinct to keep me in check. She never
intends to hurt or bites hard enough to puncture. She gives these to nips my
10 year old also. On several occasions Emma and I end up in a tangle of
leashes on the asphalt, my other dog looking very embarrassed. She also nips
the leash every so often as if to tell it to mind it's manners. I have
another older Belgium Sheepdog/Aussie mix that has never displayed this type
of behavior. Can you tell me if this is just a bad habit and if so, how to
break it? If it is just an instinct to her breed, we will just have to
start wearing knee pads!
A 5-7 month old Border Collie / Aussie or Kelpie Mix would, indeed, have a
instinctive inclination to nip our lower body parts. However, just as we
control a dog's natural, instinctive inclination to evacuate waste (peep &
poop whenever it feels the need (called Housebreaking) - we certainly can and
should control this problematic behavior.
Your problem sounds like it is compounded by having a 10 year old child (a
very tempting target for your pup) and another dog in the family (a very real
distraction for you).
Because of these, I would recommend using a collar device that controls the
dog's head and mouth. There a few on the market, I like the Halti brand
collar because of the way it benignly closes the dog's mouth with very little
pressure. It sometimes takes up to a week for the dog to become tolerant of
having something on its mouth.
Because the immediate results are purely collar driven, use it religiously
for several months so that the behavior has time to be fully instilled into
the dog and so that the behavior overtakes the collar.
Put the knee pads on hold for now.
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