Nipping at strangers

Question
I have a foster dog who just messed up his adoption 'interview' because he got a little bit mouthy.  He's a really good boy, but shy when he first meets people.  When he first meets somebody he will sometimes give a small nip.  Not a big deal...but quite a surprise to the person he does it to.  (he doesn't nip hard...never a scratch or blood). And he doesn't do it all of the time - just sometimes.  Once he does it once then he seems to be OK with that person the next time.  But of course, when he's going out on adoption interiews if he nips once then nobody will adopt him.  I don't have a lot of strangers coming to my house so I don't really have a lot of opportunities to work on this with him.  Any suggestions on how I can stop this habit?  He's a 2year old Yorkie mix of some sort.

Answer
Ann,
When he nips what have you been doing to correct this?  If you are ignoring it or just telling him "No"  that will not do it.

Push him to bite you with some play, every time he mouths you, push two fingers down to the back of his tongue and hold his lower jaw for about 5 seconds.  This works, it will take about 3 to 4 times and he won't bite or nip anymore.  If you cannot do this for some reason try a more severe consequence:  again, push him to nip or mouth you and have a bottle of really hot sauce ready to dab in his mouth when he nips (two drops).  You can also use pepper spray, but that is really harsh and I usually only use that on really aggressive dogs.  

Well I hope one of the suggestions works.  I usually don't go past the fingers on tongue, but I don't know if that one scares you, there is a chance in that one of getting a sore finger.

Good luck
nancy