carian terrier biting

Question
How can I stop my 6 month carian terrier from biting?  He was nipping and growling and we began to hold him down to show dominance.  That has stopped him from growling when he eats but now his nipping has turned to biting.  He gave my 13 year old son a good bite on the leg, breaking skin and making him bleed.  I don't want my son to fear him and will get rid of him if he's a biter.  Please help!

Answer
Mario -

Your cairn is starting to enter his teenaged stage and is testing the limits.  Please understand that terriers in general are tough on inexperienced dog owners, so you are going to have to get right on this problem.  Here's a light hearted but very true brief reading about cairns:

http://cairnrescue.com/general/index.htm#toto

Do not use the holding him down thing like the Dog Whisperer teachs. Very few people should use any of the techniques he encourages.  You will end up with a dog who is a worse biter because he will come up from that situation madder than he was to start with - or afraid and that often causes biting behavior as well.

Please make sure you have a crate.  If your pup is not crate trained to start with, I strongly encourage it for when you are not home.  I encourage you to immediately implement a routine we call Nothing in Life Is Free.  It enforces a higher human status without any physical force.  Here is a link:

http://cairnrescue.com/docs/NILIF.pdf


Secondly, please enroll you pup in an obedience series right away.  The classes are intended to teach you how to think about training your dog just as much as they are for training your dog.

In the meantime, please put a harness on the little sucker, and have him drag a 6 foot leash 24-7.  Every time he even thinks about growling or showing any aggression at all, immediately snatch him up and stuff him in the crate.  The leash allows you to snatch him up even if you can't just grab him by the harness.  I don't even say anything to them, I just snatch and stuff.  Leave him in the crate for 10 minutes and pay absolutely no attention to him when he's there and when he first comes out. Just go on with life he doesn't even exist.  Not being paid attention is one of the worst things you can do to a cairn.

You must also make sure to **never** play any kind of tug games with a dog like this. Because of the amount of force they use to hold onto the toy, they become used to that amount of force when playing... and that often leads to accidental but serious bites.

I would also encourage you to not let him eat unless someone can actually put their hand in his dish. He needs to be taught to not resource guard his food.  I usually start by giving the dog their kibble from my hand one at a time. Once we can do that safely, I move to putting my hand in the dish and dropping in one kibble at a time.  Once we have done that well for a couple of days, I start dropping in a few pieces at a time.  Eventually, you should build up to him sitting nicely while you put down the dish and then give his a verbal release. You should be able to reach for his dish or test him by tugging gently on his tail, etc with no reaction from him.

If he does not cooperate at any stage, back up to the prior step.  If you can't even get started with the first step safely, try a couple of times. Once he has given you a hard time a couple of times, crate him for 10 minutes, and try to refeed again after that.

This takes consistency and patient persistence.  You have to be more stubborn than he is.  Always remember that your personal safety comes first.

Good luck and I hope this gave you some ideas about where to get started so you don't up with a bratty and dangerous dog.  

-Beth