Westie Cross Cairn Biting

Question
Hi, my mother has a one and half year old Westie Cross Cairn, was always really good tempered and playful, all the neighbours adore him.
  He understands i'm the boss, but pulls on the lead constantly with my mum. In august i moved abroad for 5 months, i returned home in late october for two weeks, and the dog (Sonny) was the same, we played the same (play fighting and chasing (where i let him play bite me)).
 Since i left again my mum has told me, he has biten two poeple in our local park, the postman and my uncle when he put his foot near the dog when he was eating (no blood was drawn, but all the bites none the less.). He has started urinating on cleaned clothes/ bed clothes of mine since i have left.
 My mum thinks this is all something to do with me leaving again, can u help?

Thanks John

Answer
John

While it's probably not 'because' you left, you have accidentally contributed to the problem.  You also need to know that he is now what is considered to be a teenager, and is testing everyone around him.

When you do get to be with him, please do not permit any use of his mouth, including play fighting, or tug toys.  Terriers, like some of the protective breeds, need to be trained to be bite inhibited.  he simply doesn't understand why it's OK to bite some people and not others.  That's too complicated a distinction to make.

He's also showing behaviors called food aggression and marking.  These must be nipped in the bud (so to speak) or he will just continue to get worse.  We receive a lot of dogs of this age into rescue for just these reasons.

That said, they are not that hard to break, assuming your mom is willing to do the work.  I am going to provide a link below to a training program called Nothing In Life Is Free that I strongly recommend be used with him, but I also strongly believe that your Mom needs to take him through a series of obedience classes.  Since she is the person living with him the most, she needs to understand how dogs think and learn some of the basic techniques for managing his behavior. Additionally, getting him out and about, and in classes helps him be properly socialized.

I also recommend that she crate him whenever she is not home with him to limit his chances to be destructive.

Here's the link I mentioned.  

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

Please let me know if I can give you more details on anything, and how you make out.

-Beth