best way to train him is to grab him by the scruff of the neck and give a slight tug while saying "NO!" - thats how his momma would have grabbed him to discipline him.

then you want to give him something he is allowed to chew on and while he is chewing give him some "good boy!" and pats on the head.

also you should work on getting him to let you take back whatever it is he is chewing on. hand it to him and take it back a few times.

also just another note.. whenever you leave and enter the house with the dog make sure you go in or out first. in a pack of dogs the head dog always goes in/out first. the rest know their place..

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if you have ever seen a pit in action you would teach them to not use there mouths on peps. but that is your call you have the dog. As for my dogs they use there mouths feet and bodys on peps. Maybe I'm a bad master I spoil them rotten. any way my big guy Tag would never use his mouth he had no controle and knew it. his sister on the other hand has a soft mouth and we can play all day long she will pull me by the hand or what ever and never hurt me. Don't get me wrong my hands were bruised after a good play but teeth are hard. the little guy only uses his teeth when I grab his tail. It's a play thing not hurting him at all. hehe

my boy braxton is 12 weeks old and weighs 35 pounds his dad was 93 pounds he is Razor bloodline.....i would suggest picking up a book on the breed and reading up, not to sound like a f ing book worm I havnt read anything since this months issue of hightines, but this breed is a very handson breed and need a lot of attention and socialization. take it to dog parks and socialize the pitt with other dogs and peeps....and if your dog ever snaps at another dog dont automaticly assume he is gonna rip the next ten yearolds arm off that walks by, human aggression and dog aggression are two different behaviors and just b;c your pitt may have one doesnt mean he has the other.

Dogs just do the mouthing thing. In my experience, Terriers and the like have a greater tendency to do it, but I have observed it in many breeds. In all of my dogs it have been perfectly harmless. Dogs understand the distinction between gnawing on you and biting.

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our old roomates had 2 pits and the youngest, a male, used the fiance as his personal chew toy lol would chew and slobber all over his arms, ewww lol

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My dog jumped in the river today...went out in the middle..then starting howling until i had to go in and bring him out
i turned him around and he was looking at me and jumped back in
and did the process over

._.


but back to the thread
i love pit's there awesome dogs

i wouldnt take what its doing serious
may just want attention?

Just gotta big note myself for a bit...

We've had a *lot* of dogs in our time...lotsa different breeds and mixes. At one point we had 23 dogs in various stages of maturity. All of them, except the youngest pups knew that there was a 'no biting' rule in our pack. That is, absolutely no mouthing of people or their doggie pack. I'd love to show you some pics of them playing (might do if this thread continues). There was also a rule of 'no jumping'. We implemented this rule so that our dogs wouldn't jump up on kids as a sign of affection. They also, all except the 8 youngest pups that were learning the rule, would sit until we said "OK" at feed time. It's pretty cool to see 15 dogs all sitting and waiting until all the bowls are filled and then waiting for the OK. They all came when called without hesitation. We loved our pack...had to give all except one away when we moved back to town...

Anyway, I'd suggest being the pack leader and teaching him that it's bad form to mouth or nibble. You can do what King Papawawa suggested with the scruff of the neck shake and a big 'no biting'. That's a very strong signal in the dog world, because it harks back to severe puppy discipline from their mother. Just re-inforce it every time he/she does it. After a while (in our dogs' cases), they would sometimes forget and put their mouth near an arm or whatever. "No Biting!" was all it took for them to remember. You could see the "Oh, sorry dude" look on their faces.

Consistency in your actions are what they understand and respect.

For the record, we rarely used harsh discipline on our pack. The worst was a severe shaking by the scruff of the neck and then a hold down with lots of angry words (much like growling and snarling at them but in human terms) if they did something really bad, like going walk about when they weren't supposed to. It was rare, but we had one of our spoiled girls who would lead the others astray. She just couldn't stay around the house when there was thousands of acres around her to explore.

Seamaiden, Lucy and blinkykush are all right on the button re dogs. You are their leader and therefore you have to show them leadership. Otherwise they'll do what they want and start to consider themselves a contender.

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Choofin' on me Billy It's Medicine Jim

I hadn't thought about the jumping, I have a thing that dogs are not allowed to put their feet on me, either. That's because they don't understand that their feet may be dirty one day or I may be wearing something nice another day, I don't expect them to tell the difference.

My Ridgie is so good about the mouth that I will play with her and put my hand in her mouth and she pulls her lips over her teeth and never shuts her jaws. She's gotten quite good about it. Now if only I could teach her to stop with that whip of a tail. Only way I know of to stop the wagging is to cut it off.

I, too, disapprove of human forms of negative reinforcement, no hitting or yelling. They just want to please us most of the time, and they need to know where we stand and where they stand. Once they understand that they're much happier and so are we.

Now... if only we could convince the kids of how to work with their new little terrier (terror is more like it). Smart as a whip and he needs direction, good dog, but again, he needs direction. And his balls cut, he's begun marking in the house.

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Hehehe, Jack, the only pup (three years old going on four) we have left from the 23 we had a couple years back, is a wagger. We're constantly going "Tail Dude!" if he gets too close. He's not a big dog, but yep, he has a steel whip too.

Yeah, Jack just doesn't mouth anymore. He nibbles on my fingers on occasion, but very rarely. Oh, the clothes thing is another reason we have the jump/paws on body rule. He puts his paw up on us when he is craving some lurv though. Then we say "Gimme Five" and he does, and he *always* sits if he wants a pat.

We love our puppy.

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Choofin' on me Billy It's Medicine Jim