Paddy has this funny habit where he will take your hand in his mouth when greeting you, doesn't hold on, just a grab, only done it a few times and both times I yelped loudly to show disapproval, however today he did it to somebody in the park who was walking past minding his own business, paddy went to say hello and took them mans hand, the man chukkled and said he was just trying to get his attention but I wondered would somebody else have been so understanding. Am I doing the right thing by yelping loudly or should I do more, he has loads of people he meets in the park, training school etc and never does it, it is not often enough to set up a session with friends helping etc. Anybody any ideas?

I know the sort of thing you mean - the Springer half of Bonnie does just the same - Gwen Bailey came to see me about the Puppy School tutors thing, and all Bonnie could do was gently take her wrist in her mouth..... If only I'd known when she was a puppy what I know now............. The 'yelp' has to be perfected - it has to stop the dog in it's tracks, and when it takes a step back, you praise and reward. another trick to use could be the 'leave' command - take a treat in each hand - open one hand, but close it when the dog takes a step towards it - when the dog realises that it musn't move towards it - reward with the OTHER treat (the dog MUST NEVER get the treat in the offered hand. You can then add the command 'leave' as the dog is sitting back -this then becomes a command you can use for alsorts of situations

we do the treat 'leave' at our training club with pups too!

Ive taught all of my dogs that teeth on flesh is a real NO NO! mainly because of the kids. My spaniels have v. soft mouths in any case - so you only got light mouthing and no teeth really from the off. But spud came to me at 10 months and had quite a hard mouth, he is incredibly gentle and didnt mouth but I wanted to teach him to take things more lightly etc. I used treats and showed him manualy (not harshly of course!) but helping him to hold gently seemed to click in his brain that he didnt need to hold things to the point of crushing lol! He takes and give very gently now. I have also used the Yelping method but did find with some breeds at club it seemed to excite them further into reacting and puppy biting more, especially the terriers (I guess some people must sound squeaky toy ish lol!!)


With paddy maybe it was something other than saying hi, how interested is he in carrying things? and how concentrated is he on you/matt physically throwing things for him? Maybe the chap was swinging his arms or something to trigger Paddy into thinking he had something to throw??? Just a thought??? maybe he was checking out if there was something in his hand? If he hasnt mouthed strangers in the past?



ramble ramble ........

Good theory Julie but we don't play retrieves in the park very often and Paddy is not that interested in fetching things in the park. he does love to acrry things in his mouth and has a very soft mouth because he can carry a mobile phone and not leave a mark on it. The only reason I wondered about the saying hello, or getting the chaps attention is because the only time he does do it is when somebody comes into the house, and as I said it is very rare, I will continue with the yelping and do some leave work

Hi Freya,

As I'm sure you have noticed Paddy loves to play with other spaniels.When he was with us he used to play with Sebastian rolling around on the floor..lots of open mouth wrestling & talking used to go on.Providing it doesn't get out of hand maybe its still a form of puppy playing/greeting.

Thats what I thought, and thats why I'm not to bothered, but just thought I should check and make sure I wasn't doing something wrong, he loves to be able to communicate with you, and I think this just one of his ways of saying hi, hopefully he will grow out of it when he matures in about 10 or 15 years (can't see him getting mature and sensible for a long time)
Bilbo and Paddy are play buddies and they will wrestle for hours, they love to play chase in the garden and Paddy loves to hide behind the shed and jump out on Bilbo, you could watch them for ages and the havoc they can cause has to be seen to be believed

William also has a problem with mouthing, my poor hands have been black and blue, we think it's because he was locked up on his own all day from when his first owners had him so he had no socialisation at all, his teeth are rock hard. he goes to school twice a week now so hopefully we can find an answer there, but he is an only dog so has no other company apart from ian and myself and every toy you can think of, he has 4 walks a day and the garden to play in, although it's not huge he manages to have a game of footie with ian, but then he has only been here 2months so i suppose i am expecting miracles.

If anybody could give any help before my poor old arthritic hands fall off

kate

Can you greet him with a ragger to hold, rather than hands?

Migh tthat encourage him to expect something to grab? Could cause problems if you happen not to have a ragger one day or if he's greeting someone when he's out and about....just a thought...

True - but if the habit is so engrained it's going to be VERY hard to break completely - it would just save a few bruised hands if his mouth isn't that soft

Alternatively - teach him to sit and shake hands

The good thing is his mouth is very soft, one of the reasons why I think he would love gundog training, I am looking about to see if there is somewhere near me I can go and get some help with gundog training. I have a pal but he keeps his dogs outside and I am a clickers and cuddles kind of trainer.
I am keeping up the yelping, and I will try and set up some scenarios with people, ideally joggers as they are his favs.

It might be worth having a chat with him as he may understand where you are coming from or you could adapt his methods that suit you both. It's well worth doing a bit of gundog training as they seem to love it sooo much and you both get soo much out of it.

Helen

Purchased the Eric Begbie broadsheets and I am going to see how we do with clicker training combined with gundog training. Looking forward to seeing how Paddy gets on

For some reason my springer always brings me the Sky remote when I get back!

We're on our third - no, fourth - remote!!