New dog keeps biting, what should I do?

[HappyWithLife]

I have a 3 year old labrador who is lovely and placid, and a week ago I took on a 5 year old border collie. I think I'm going to have to rehome him as he keeps biting. All week he has been nipping at people but today he's been worse. My 15 year old's boyfriend was around, and they were messing about on the settee, just being loud as kids are. The dog bit DD1's bf on the knee, launched himself up on the settee and bit him on the leg, then bit DD on the thigh and then her foot. He has left teeth marks on her foot, and big red marks on her thigh.
It's normally a fairly busy and noisy house as the kids' friends are always coming and going, and this seems to really aggravate the dog. Also my youngest is only 6 and I'm terrified the dog will bite her on the face or something. My son takes him for a long walk and a play in the park every day, he gets plenty of exercise...what should I do?

List of APDT registered trainers Call someone one to come and asess and retrain the dog with you.

Supervise him carefully with your ds. And I doubt it was a proper bite. It's either warning nips or a dog who has never been taught bite inhibition as a puppy. A proper bite from a collie would have had your dd in hospital and trust me if it wanted to bite it would have done so.

Collies need mental as well as physical stimualtion so lots of training and games at home as well as walks. And lots of off leash running once recall is 100%.

Undoubtedly it wasn't a proper bite, but it's progressing from nipping to leaving teeth marks and bruising. DD's foot actually swelled up around the mark, although the skin wasn't broken.
I'm thinking that he doesn't like a busy mad house, and maybe would be better off in a quieter house?

How is he behaving prior to the bites? Is it possible it could be rough play from the collie?

My GSD would dive on me and nip me if I was messing about noisily. She just wanted to join in the fun. A few firm "NO"'s and pushing her down was all it took to get her to stop, but she was a very young dog. With an older one I think your best off getting a trainer in.

It is unlikely his behaviour is aggression based. Think what a collie would do instinctively. When something moves eg a sheep it would herd it back into place if the sheep was stubborn a quick nip on the ankles of the sheep would get it to move.

So you collie has misdirected behaviour. However it can be solved.

Do you know anything of its history and where did you rescue it from?

A good trainer used to collies should be able to help you out.

First you need to give the collie time to get used to its new environment. I would have the collie in a quiet and calm area away from the rest of the household but where it can still see what is going on - so a dog gate would be a good idea. Do exercise the dog regulary but it is not true that collies need masses of exercise but 2 good hour walks a day off lead at least. Equally important for a collie is chill out time - they do sometimes have to taught how to do this! But after your walk I would crate him for a while to let his adrenalin levels drop down and let him relax. He may still look like he is up for more but he does need chill out time.

Then the collie will need a job to do so regular short training sessions throughout the day. Clicker training is great for collies as they love to think and use that brain. Work on calm and control. So if you open a door make the dog wait before you let it through, when the dog greets you make it sit before you speak to it. When it is madly chasing a ball make it go down before you throw the ball again. So the collie is getting used to being in a highly excited state but realises that good things happen when they are calm. Never punish if the dog does not realise what you want him to do just turn you back until he gives you the right behaviour.

At the moment I would think prevention is better than cure so do not let the dog in a situation that they can not cope with. As the control exercises grow you will see a huge difference. Have the collie on a lead and let your 6 year old run around, the collie must not show any interest in your DC. Click and treat the dog for looking at you in this situation.

The great thing about collies is that they are so trainable so you should be able to sort this out if you have the time and commitment. They are a bit different from labs though!