Last July we rehomed a small terrier. It was not well socialised at all and we are unsure of his background. We have had many problems with him but he has turned out to be a really bright lovable little dog. However, one problem has now started to reoccur.

When he first arrived he would let us touch him etc and would mouth our hands a lot during playing but never hurt us. Someone gave him a pigs ear and without even thinking I went to take it away from him and he bit me! Since then, no pigs ears.

Over the last 15 months we have been able to open his mouth to take bits of rubbish out of it, put pills in it and clean his teeth - no problem at all. As we saw his teeth getting brown we decided with advice of vet to reintroduce some proper raw meaty bones. He loves them but when we tried to get it from him he showed his teeth - the bone was taken away very quickly.

Yesterday when we gave him a bone he showed little interest in it (may be it was too late or he was too tired?) and left it on the floor. As I went to pick it up again he showed his teeth - when I told him off verbally he retired to his cushion but was giving me the "look"!

Today I opened his mouth to drop a tablet in and again he showed his teeth. I really do not want to get into a big problem with him and would appreciate some views on how to deal with this as I am already told many things! He is such a good dog and I know he has trusted us so far and we do not want to do anything to destroy our bond so some help please!!

I am sorry you are having problems with your little terrier. I hope the following will be of some help to you :-)

The problem is caused by lack of communication between human & dog, which is a very common occurrence as no two species are able to communicate very effectively :-)

Dogs use their body signals to communicate not only with each other, but with humans as well. They are basically non-confrontational animals who want an easy life. However, if their signals are ignored and the resource they want is of a high value then they will have to "shout" louder in dog language to make themselves understood.

His brain assesses the situation to determine how best to keep the reward (eg. The bone) -

• The dog shows calming signals and turns away, but the human still tries to take the bone
• The dog feels trapped and cannot escape
• It growls a warning to the human
• The growl does not work so it bares its teeth
• This still does not work, so it snaps at the perceived "threat" (the human)
• When this strong signal is ignored it resorts to giving a little nip
• The dog has now gone through its entire repertoire of communicating with the human - there is only one extreme alternative left - BITE them HARD!

Because the dog has had his more subtle signals ignored in the past he has learnt there is not point in using them - he just uses the signal that "works", biting your hand when you get too close.

Not only do you retreat from the confrontation (which by the way is very sensible - no human has the speed to outwit the lightning reflexes of a dog!) you offer it life rewards as well - eye contact or speaking to it.

Your dog is starting to generalise and associate any hand movements around its mouth as being threatening and is reacting accordingly.

There are a number of solutions that I can advise you to do -

MANAGEMENT
Manage the situation so that you can be in control without having to manhandle the dog and get close enough to be bitten. This is done by having a harness on your dog at all times with an approx. 6ft thin "house line" attached to it, trailing along behind the dog. If it becomes defiant or possessive you make a point of NOT looking or speaking to the dog but firmly remove him from the room by holding the end of the line and just walking off.

FLOODING
Secondly you need to have more than one bone (or whatever it is that the dog is finding rewarding - see Chewing). Let him start off chewing one bone then throw another for him to investigate. As he walks over to sniff the second bone quietly pick up the first and praise him for leaving it. Your dog will soon come to associate letting go of one item is rewarding as it means another will be offered as a fair exchange.

If an aggressive behaviour occurs then the dog is quietly removed from the "goodies" using the house line and it gets none. It is up to the dog - good behaviour = bones etc, inappropriate behaviour = no reward & being left all alone with no human nearby. (Isolation time need only be a few minutes as dogs have very little sense of time)

RELIEVE THE LONG TERM STRESS LEVELS
Keep giving your dog the raw meaty bones (not beef bones though as they damage the enamel of a dog's teeth - try raw lamb bones, raw pork bones, chicken carcasses/wings, rabbit etc - any size animal that the dog could naturally kill in the wild). Using its mouth and jaw muscles helps relive the pent up tension in the dog's body and thus lower stress levels. Unless your dog is highly overweight, there is really no need to take bones off dogs as they need access to them to relieve the stress which has built up in their muscles.

Try not to over exercise your dog - too much adrenaline makes a dog more irritable and more likely to bite. Instead tire him mentally by exercising his very good sense of smell. Go to a quiet place (ideally on a harness and very long line so that he can not run off into the distance but can wander around freely with the line dragging behind) and sprinkle high & low quality treats over an area of about 10 yds square. Then stand/sit quietly, without speaking or distracting him, holding the end of the line and let your dog hunt the treats. It will take about 20-30 minutes for him to tire of looking for these scattered treats and he will be mentally exhausted while fulfilling its strong working instincts. = one happy and fulfilled dog who is more relaxed with himself :-)

Other ways of mentally exercising is to take him to new as well as favourite places to "Read the newspaper" and exercise his mind that way.

I hope the above is of some help. The thing to remember is not to confront your dog - you will never "win" and it will not really understand what it is being punished for. Let it learn from its own mistakes - guarding does not work but sharing does. Also sharing with you calm interesting walks with lots of smells builds a very strong bond between you.

See Stress Solutions for more ideas to help reduce the pent up aggression and confusion that your dog is feeling.

Thank you very much for the reply. I shall make sure I read it properly together with all the links and hopefully we can overcome the problems.

I found the Dog Games section interesting and I thought I might suggest to our trainer to try some of it.