biting and stealing food

Question
QUESTION: My 5 12 month old great Dane "George" is a very sweet boy. That said, he steals food from the counter, high chair and trash can (regardless of how many things are on the lid).
 The major problem we have with him is biting! He has "crazy" periods when he jumps around and jumps up and tries to bite us. I have 3 girls and he likes to bite their arms and my husband and mine's hands. We try to speak calmly to him, press his jaw's together and say NO, ignore him, and put him outside on his "run". He is 75lbs so needless to say he's HUGE! I am reaching my breaking point, I resent him and want to love him again.

ANSWER: Shauna,

I apologize for taking so long to get back with you, I never received your email in my personal email box, because I usually answer back within the day. As far as stealing from the counters, high chairs and the trash can, he needs to be taught that he is not allowed in the kitchen when there is food on the counters or high chair...Teach him to remain outside the door into the kitchen, or put a place mat somewhere where he can see you and you can see him but he will not be able to come into the kitchen, if he does, tell him "out" and put him back on his place. As far as the garbage can is concerned, there is one trick that will usually work to get them to stay away from the garbage. If you go to any party store and get a blow horn what you are going to do is watch him when he goes to the garbage can and as soon as he goes near it, or touches it blow the horn, this will startle him and probably cause him to not go back to it...you may have to repeat it a few times...Dogs really do not like loud noises as they have much better hearing then we do so it will almost hurt them or irritate them, causing them to not want to go near whatever causes the noise.

As far as his biting is concerned, obviously it is no acceptable for any reason. You need to continue to say no, but one thing that I would also do is anytime he bites you, you need to put one of his toys in his mouth so that he understands he can chew those and nothing else. Every time he puts his mouth on any of you, he needs to get put away, if you do not have a crate for him, you need to get one...and utilize this tool to use as a place for timeout. He needs to go in there for 5 minutes. If he also has crazy periods, he may not be getting enough exercise, which I highly suggest you do, as this will keep him from using you and your family as a chew toy because he will be too tired.

Great Dane puppies still should be walked at least once a day, but twice would be better...You can also try to find some kind of puppy play groups so that he can go and run around with other puppies and get some extra energy out!!!!

Let me know how it goes and if you need any other help be sure to reach us back on here, as I am here to help!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank-you very much for your advice. One question we have is, He sleeps in his crate over night, in our bedroom. Will putting him in as a punishment confuse him at bedtime? Or, should we have a second crate for that purpose only. Also, he has wabblers disease, what type of exercise would you reccomend that he does? Walking throught the neighborhood doesn't always go well, he trips sometimes.

Answer
I would not use the same crate as his time out crate...If you have a wire crate, then get a vari-kennel which is the travel type kennel, like the ones that are airline approved, or vice versa, if you already have one like that, get the wire kennel. You want to make sure that you distinguish the two crates so that he understands there is a difference. Keep in mind, this is going to be a really repetitive process...It may only take 2 times, but it may take 15 before he understands the concept that only his toys are for chewing and not your arm, or your husbands or children. I will also add,  that because he is a puppy, you need to make sure that you are rotating his toys, you don't want to make him bored, and this what tends to happen when you have a "basket full of toys". You want to have only three toys out at a time, and you may need to buy more so that you can rotate easier to make him more interested.

As far as the CVI(Wobblers) is concerned, I will need a little more background on how he was diagnosed, who diagnosed him and when. Does he knuckle over when you are walking him? If he does knuckle over, does he right it? Take his foot and flip back and see if he puts his foot back into a normal standing position.