We are still (how long does the land shark stage last?!) trying to convince our puppy that body parts are not chew toys and that he is not to ‘mouth’ us. That’s such a cute term to have a carnivorous predator with a mouth full of needle sharp teeth latch onto your extremities and gnaw on you. When we asked the trainer (still not convinced she isn’t three dogs in a trenchcoat) about how to stop this without resorting to either a muzzle or water spray bottle or possibly chain mail (for us not him) she suggested that instead of reacting to being impaled by multiple sharp pointy objects we ‘play dead’. By which she meant that we allow the limb he grabbed hold of to go limb and uninteresting while waving a ‘legal’ chew such as a toy or nylabone in his face with the other hand.
That’s all very well but he prefers chewing on the squishy body temperature bits. She asked us to explain this to our fae, which we did. She locked on to the ‘play dead’. That bit she got sort of, to the point where I heard her snap ‘no’ at the dog, followed by a thump and some scrabbling. When I turn around she is laying on the ground, completely face planted like a planking statue while the puppy scrambles around trying to determine if this is some sort of game, a threat or if some awful ailment has just overcome his favourite playmate. I needed to leave to stop laughing. On the plus side it did stop him mouthing so I guess it worked, on the down side she now makes like a swoons like a Victorian heroine if he even opens his mouth.
So yes endless treats is a successful training tool but apparently confusion works just as well.
Raising the Modern Fae 