Biting during play - Deaf Aussie

Question
QUESTION: We recently rescued an Aussie that we believe may have been breed for herding on possibly an Amish farm.  We took him in about 7 weeks ago he had never been in a home or on a leash - so he really has come a LONG way in those weeks.  In addition, our vet presumes that he is deaf (Though it is hard to tell with his sensitivity to vibrations which makes us think he can hear sometimes) We do have him on Chlomicalm at our vet's recommendations as he was having trouble with being inside we had times he barked for 12 hours straight and was so out of it trying to jump into windows and mirrors to escape)

Anyway we have worked very hard to teach him to play - I think this was just another dog trait that was foreign to him.  Finally we have gotten him to play with balls by putting them in socks and now some other toys we can throw and get him to retrieve - The problem is sometimes he will be laying about jump up and come over wanting to play and he will grab our arms or hands pretty hard (though NEVER drawing blood) it's always during play.  Sometimes he will do it if you are throwing his toys he gets excited and bits hard as you are throwing the toy.   We are trying to discourage this behavior but have been mostly unsuccessful.  

I have read a lot of your responses and i have to say he doesn't fit a lot of the traits - He is great with strangers in fact he will cry if people dont' come up to pet him and he will do everything I can to get near to kids or other dogs or even cats.  He is so friendly - though I'm afraid if he gets excited he will nip them when he gets excited.   

We have been wearing him out in every way possible, he goes to the dog park almost every day or wherever we are going.

Do you have any advice for a happy biter?  With him being deaf we have been using a flat hand in front of his face for no. (He is learning hand signals for basic commands)

If you can't tell we've never had an aussie and got this one because his need was great but I've mostly had greyhounds and we have two terriers right now.  Very different.

ANSWER: Well, the dog may be deaf, but you can still teach him that you do not like him to put his teeth on your skin.  With a hearing dog, you would yelp as soon as he did this, and remove all your attention.  Fortunately, it's the removing the attention part that teaches the dog to inhibit his bite;-)  So, when he nibbles, even in play, simply turn away, or even stomp off into the bathroom or a garden shed, and leave him in his own dust.  Of course, you must do this training in an area where he is safe, such as a fenced yard, or in the house.  Dogs hate isolation, so they learn that the bite makes their playmate go away.  Aussies do have a way of wanting to show affection with their mouths on you, but they also have a way of using the mouth to move you along to do what they want, so it's probably a good rule not to allow mouthing.  If the dog persists, or gets even more obnoxious about putting his mouth on you, you must still ignore him.  If necessary, stand stock still, no eye contact, no movement, nothing, until he removes his mouth for at least three seconds - then you can resume interacting with him.  If he resumes the mouthing, you resume the ignoring.  Your persistence should pay off - if he is never reinforced (even negatively) for putting his mouth on you, and always receives the cold shoulder, he should get the picture.
You may want to check out this site for your other needs raising a deaf dog: www.deafdogs.org


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QUESTION: i have a related question - we have found an individual in our area that has herding for hobby type classes for Aussie's we were considering it as we want Balto to have a job (I'm not sure what we'll actually have him herd..) but I wonder if it would make the biting worse if he was herding

Answer
I doubt that it would, but the fact is that a deaf dog cannot hear the shepherd's instructions, and is often facing away, so hand signals become useless.  I'm not an expert in herding, but you might want to ask the instructor if he/she has had any experience with deaf dogs.  If the sheep are really "dog broke" and the dog can be initially worked on a long line to be sure he won't harm the sheep, then he might have some fun at it, and be able to do it if he were first acclimated to a vibration collar (note that I did NOT say shock collar), but that would be the instructor's call.