NI's and Fighting. Behaviour

Heya,

Jess is 6months old on the 11th of Feb and she is my first Northern Inuit.

For about the last 2/3 months her main focus is on fighting with anyone she can coax to do so, play fighting I mean.

As you know NI's are a large breed and Jess just dosent realsie her size and strenth and im totally covered in bruises, she also gets over excited and the play bites get harder and harder... and she has huge teeth now!

She just wont get the message when I try to stop her, no matter how forceful my tone of voice is and she is becoming a real handful... Im scared one day she will try to fight with the wrong dog or the wrong person and they dont realise she is playing, I shudder the think what could happen.

Im wondering if this is just a temporary stage, and if so how temporary?

She has finished her teething a few days ago, will she be less interested in play fighting now?

Jess has a 12 months old JR friend who she play fights with, but no other dog.

Cheers

kye xxx

Do not let her loose where there are other dogs until you have her properly under your control as many dogs would not take kindly to this sort of behaviour.
Mine would certainly not be happy.

It is - as most things doggy a training issue - you need to make sure she knows that it is unacceptable - I would have zero tolerance for such behaviours.

She is well old enough to learn that this isn't OK - have you got anyone in the home who likes this sort of play? My OH doesn't mind and he allowed play biting with our pup for much longer than I would have - encouraged it really - and it took me a while to train HIM!!!! LOL

Our NI still tries to play bite us and play tug with our hands in the house. Like you say telling them off doesn't work. We are having good results using a water pistol after all else failed. Just a quick squirt in the face when he starts stops him in his tracks and now we only have to show him the squirty bottle and he stops without us needing to use it.

Ours doesn't do it to other people or dogs so it is not a problem outside. I know what you mean about the bruises. Ours has improved dramatically as he was making life a misery with it before.

I would also not allow any playfights with humans as they can't distinguish between what is ok and what isn't. Unless she is biting other dogs I would imagine they would sort it out between themselves as the other dog will tell her if it doesn't want to play.

My Ni isnt allowed to play fight with people and we discouraged it from the start. She only play fights with our other dog (a lab) and her other doggy friends. She enjoys that a lot but never seems to go too far with it, although some of her friends do at times and they have made her cry out before!

The water pistol works well to discourage unwanted behaviour. I would try and rule it out completely if its unwanted behaviour and find something else stimulating to do together such as hunting out a favourite toy that you've hidden or some fun based training.

Hope you get her sorted lol. I know its hard to tell them off with the angelic faces they have but the water pistol or spray does work very well. Vienna hates it lol and i used to use it all the time to stop her bothering Murphy too much when she was a pup.

I don't allow either of my dogs to playfight with humans ( Doberman & terrier ) its just a no-go area especially with what will be a big powerfull dog ;-)

My advice Kye is to nip this behaviour in the bud now while she is still learning practice of behaviour.
Your the pack leader, she see's you as Alpha. You need to be firm now, when Brodie got too big for her boots I bought a spray commander & if she got out of hand one wee spray of air she behaved.
Clicker training is good too.

Ollie would do this if he was allowed,he started to jump up and grab at arms and hands,and his teeth are large also,we found the water spray didn't work he liked it.
When he did it we turned and folded our arms and ignored him know its hard but it can be done sometimes he didn't get the message and got worse because he didn't understand we didn't want to play rough so we then shut him behind the stair gate he could see us but we gave him no eye contact,only a couple of mins,sometimes he would start again he would go straight behind the gate again.He is a lot better now sometimes he tries it on but if we turn our backs and ignore he soon stops now.
Ollie is 71/2 months now and still mouthing and I think still teething I have spoken to many people with large breed dogs and have been told this can go on for up to a year there teeth are settling into their jaw and can be uncomfortable so they still have the need to chew we direct him onto his large hide chew and that keeps him occupied for ages.Spoke to a Bernese owner yesterday who told us one of his Bernese was still mouthng at a year old he did what we are doing discouraging it .
We were pleased to know though that is is not just Ollie that has a problem.Although with hard work he is now a lot better.
Good luck it does get better.

I suppose this is both mine and my partners fault she enjoys play fighting so much as we loved playing this with her when she was smaller, so her wanting to continue this game is as much our fault, if not more. :-(

The thing that started me play fighting with her is guilt, as I knew this is what she would be doing to develop her skills in the pack and we cannot get another dog for her to play with as much as we would like to and I feel terrible about this, although she does have social interaction with other dogs.

I will start using a water pistol/bottle to try and stop this behaviour. Although I bet this quickly turns into a game with her too... :? Maybe a bucket of water will solve the problem lol

Lynn we have been doing the 'ignoring' thing too, turning away from us and folding our arms. It does stop her for awhile once she has caught on that were not playing.
Yet 5 minutes later she is trying to fight again!

We try and get her interested in other toys and games, but this one seems to be her favorite.

Luckily when she play fights with my friends JRT or any other dog she dosent go too far, although the other week when they were play fighting she covered him in blood. We both panicked for a second before we realised it was Jess's blood from her teething...

Hi Lynn,

Jess hasnt finished teething like I said, what I meant to say is she has finished loosing her baby teeth, she still has adult ones coming through.

I hope she dosent teeth for a year, that would be hard work... and alot of bruises!

Teething as they call it can take up to 14 months so ya better wear thick jumpers!

Ignoring your dog will work but you have to be super consistent and that is all of you, it's no good one doing it if another family member falls soft and plays rough again, the message will just get confused and you will be fighting a losing battle, I know it's hard but it's the only real way of convincing her. Don't feel guilty about not rough housing with her as we make pretty poor substitutes as litter mates and at the end of the day you need her to respect you not to think of you as a sibling.

Don't forget that the NI's and Ute's take longer to grow up than most too so they tend to stay sillier for longer :twisted:

Good luck

Ollie didn't latch onto the ignoring tactic straight away we had to keep doing it. Sometimes even now he does jump up when going out for a walk he gets excited and jumps and today when out on the field when doing some long line training he was being a real pain and jumping up and mouthing me but it was just a case of ignoring him and he soon realised there was going to be no game out of it. It is hard and they do lapse.I was just glad no-one was out there to see me with this huge dog jumping at me they would of thought I was in trouble or unable to control him.Keep it up Jess will get there don't forget she is still very young and thinks everything should be a game.

I agree with what everyone has said. Ivan when we got him first was boisterous and mouthy especially of my two youngest kids which was quite worrying. We all worked hard, including the kids in ignoring unwanted behaviour. We would stop all attention and turn our backs. At first this didn't alway work and we would actually leave the room. He didn't like that and soon got the message of what was allowed and what wasn't. Its all about patience and consistency from everyone. She'll be fine don't worry xx

Hi
We didn't think the water pistol would work at first as Skye loves water and the hose pipe. I don't know if it because it is a unexpected squirt in the face but he doesn't like it and I wish we had tried it months ago. We had even tried covering our hands in Citronella which they aren't supposed to like to no avail. It is definitely worth a go.
The clicker training is good too. Ours likes to do games where he has to run round an object to earn a click and get his treat. It is a good way to have fun with them without the play fighting which really does make it worse I think. I hope it does stop at 12 months - only 4 months left to go fingers crossed.

Ours jumps up too on a walk and it is quite embarrassing as people think he is attacking me or I'm attacking him so it it good to know I am not alone.

I would definitely try clicker - ours has improved a lot with it and he is not the most obedient of dogs. Good luck.

Kye, I made a decision early on not to play fight with Inka and Kain, its hard enough with 1 attacking you never mind 2, the thing you gotta remember with the play fight is you have to be the one that stops it so she never feels in control of the fight...I use a scooshy bottle to stop I n K from jumping up, they are 8 months and very seldom jump up now, the water thing does work, I have had other dogs before that I did play fight with, but they were'nt as big as I n K, my 2 play rough and I too worry about other dogs Kain is a lot more submissive than Inka but I have found for the most part that they do take a telling from other dogs and know when the other dog does'nt want to play, if they are all off the lead they tend to sort things out better I think.

Having 3 large breed dogs, I don't ever encourage play fighting with humans. If I do play fight with any of them, it's on my terms. When I've had enough, they know to walk away and not to push it further.

If Jess starts to mouth, or make any attempt to 'rough house' tell her 'no' firmly, and give her one of her toys to play with instead. It's going to take time, but keep at it.

As someone has already posted, N.I's take a while to mature (supposing that they ever do ) She will keep pushing her luck

OK I might go against the popular thinking here but I do playfight with Loki. He loves it and we have a real laugh BUT ... he has wonderful bite inhibition and he understand when enough is enough. I say "finish", give upright body language and do a cross armed 'no more' signal. He seems to understand all this well enough.

We enjoy our wrestling games - I do sometimes end up bruised but Loki is a big, powerful boy (being a Utonagan) and although he exhibits fantastic restraint, sometimes he is a bit over-boisterous.

I think dogs in packs do playfight so personally I don't see a problem with it so long as your dog doesn't tend to take it too seriously, has good bite inhibition and listens when you mean "no more".

Forgot to add - water pistols and their like don't work with Loki - he sees them as a target and thinks they're ripe for a challenge; not much fazes him lolol. My boy has a wonderful spirit!

A lovely way of saying that he's bonkers ;-)




p.s and gorgeous too ;-)

You know him well! Thanks.

Thanks Lucky Star,

I have do admit me and my Hubby LOVE play fighting with her but the problem is (like im always saying) she is still unaware of her size and strenth and although she is careful about the pressure of her ''biting'' at first, she soon gets way too over excited and forgets...

I forgot to buy a spray bottle (I dont want to use an old 'cleaning' one even if it is washed out many times just incase) so I havnt started using that yet, although I did squirt her with abit of my Evian the other day, she didnt seem too impressed so there is hope yet!

Im glad someone else likes play fighting with thier dog, no one else seems keen on here.

Cant think why.... lol