my dog has just bitten me..........what do I do ?

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I have a normally very placid bearded collie.
She is 14 months old and has never liked being bathed. Today I decided that I couldnt put it off much longer and I decided to bath her.
Once she realised what was going on she ran away and when I managed to catch her she bit me.
I shouted at her more in shock than anything else and she is now in the garden hiding.
Can anyone offer some advice ? She also snaps when being groomed but as both myself and DH do this we can usually manage to restrain her.
She has never had a bad experience being groomed/bathed she just hates it.
I am still in because we have a great relationship as I am at home all day with her and follows me everywhere

has she drawn blood? if yes you need to have your hand seen by a doctor.
wrt dog. have you done training lessons with her? could you call the trainer for advice?

no she hasnt drawn blood altho it was sore.
She is now back in the house and looking really sorry for herself.
Yes she has been to puppy classes but perhaps I need to take her back again

Muzzle her when you bathe her and tell her off when she snaps at you when you're doing it.

My dog (a retriever of 17 months) can get a bit snappy when he feels trapped - so for example he needs some ear drops at the moment and is a bloody nightmare (the ear is very sore which doesn't help). The vet was competely unconcerned by his behaviour, as he's clearly a friendly dog but said he was obviously anxious when held down. He said to muzzle when applying the ear drops, to tell off when he does snap - even with the muzzle on, but to give lots of attention when being good. And also to spend a lot of time grooming/desensitising him - esp in areas where he is sensitive - so to do it in a friendly relaxed way. I've bought some T-touch books as well as he does seem very sensitive in certain areas (doesn't snap, but will push me away if I home in on certain spots if that makes sense).

thanks for the advice. I think because I chased her into a corner she has felt trapped and snapped.
I will have a look at the T touch books

Do not muzzle her and tell her off when she snaps!

She doesn't like being groomed or bathed. Perfectly normal reaction for a lot of dogs. She has limited means of communicating that she doesn't want to be bathed. Today she tried escape. I'll bet that there was some element of growling too when you cornered her? And when that didn't work she escalted to a bite. If she'd have meant reall damage, she's have drawn blood. Sounds more like a warning snap to me because she REALLY didn't want to be bathed, you had her in a corner and she had no defence mechanisms left.

Regardless of whether you think she's never had a 'bad experience' or not, grooming is probably uncomfortable and may actually hurt at times..do you remember having your hair brushed when you were a kid? I do...and the tears and tantrums that often went along with it because getting those tangles out fucking hurt!

You need to develop positive associations with the bath and grooming. I have a heavily coated dog that requires intensive grooming. She used to hate it and would growl and snap at the sight of a brush. We manage her using good old fashioned bribery...big bowl of her favourit treats (cooked chicken or liver) and DP distracts the head end with food while I groom. She still doesn't particularly like being groomed but once she sees the bowl of treats, she knows what's coming and will sit patiently and let it happen so long as someone offers her food periodically.

same can apply to bathing...just have treats available and reward her for standing quietly. You may need to work up to it by first rewarding her for being near the bath, then in the bath with no water and then work up to actually adding water and shampoo.

In purely practical terms, when you do get her in the bath, use plenty of conditioner as this will help to keep tangles to a minimum (assuming she's not a show/working dog and coat texture isn't critical). Also, you can but detangler products which help take the pain out of grooing a bit as they help to break down knots easily. We use one call Cowboy Magic (avaialable on ebay).

But NEVER punish her for grumbling or growling or trying to escape and if she does then back off for a minute, distract her with a treat and then start again. If she feels that growling goes unheeded then she is more likely to resort to a bite.

I should clarify the muzzle thing. I don't mean muzzle all the time and tell off all the time, I just mean if you are doing something you know will set her off but which has to be done (I suppose a bath is debatable - although sometimes it's needed for their sake as well).

So for example with the ear drops at the moment, if our dog wasn't muzzled we just couldn't get them into him. Long term the plan is of course to de-sensitise, (generally, but actually particularly wrt having things poked in his ears as he swims so is likely to be prone to ear infections and it would be a lot easier to prevent if he'll let us stick stuff in his ears). That's the long term plan. At the moment he has a raging infection, needs treatment and so the safest way to do this is to muzzle and get on with it as quickly as possible.

I agree with muzzling out of necessity in circumstances such as yours but I cant agree with telling a dig off or punishing them in any way for expressing their displeasure with something they don't like or fear. It's a bit like smacking a child for making a fuss about swallowing medicine...they don't understand that the nasty thing you're doing to them is for their benefit and there is nothing to be gained from punishing/shouting except lending weight to their belief that its a Very Bad Thing.

Incidentally, swimming doesn't equate to ear infections. My dogs swim several times a week and we've never once had one, thankfully. I never clean ears either or put cleaning fluid down them. I just check them regularly to make sure there is no obvious obstructions or irritation Hopefully yours won't have any further issues once you get this one cleared up.

Well, if she hates it then every time she's groomed/bathed is a bad experience, isn't it?

I think it's a swimming several times a week plus breed/type of ear thing tbh. It seems to gumble a lot. Although if anyone knows of any massages or anything I could use regularly to help prevent it in future please let me know!

I do tell him 'uh' when he snaps with the ear drops - although not for anything else (and do take your point). One vet I saw got really funny about him nosing her away from an operation wound which I thought was a bit daft as he was being very gentle indeed considering she was poking at inflamed stitches.

Ok lets use some common sense here.
You have a beardie who if like other beardies has a long coat that can get tangled easily.

Any type of grooming would be uncomfortable for the dog so the dog has already learnt that however gently you are grooming it is uncomfortable. Not rocket science so far .

Believe me your dog could have drawn blood if they had wanted to - so actually they were quite restrained and for that you should be very grateful and be aware that you have a very scared dog.

You do need to desensitise and it can be very easy to do - you could also have the beardie clipped short if grooming is a major issue.

So get a very very soft brush and hold some lovely smelly treats in you other hand with you hand slightly closed. Let the dog get the food from you hand but make them work to do it - at the same time move the brush in pretend brush strokes over the dog - do not touch the dog. Then stop do this as many times a day as you can by the second day I am sure you will be able to gently put the brush on the dog and then move on with this each day. Any sign of anxiety then go back a step. Do not do it for more than 5 secs each time but soon you will have a dog that loves grooming.

Next step to move to the bathing. If you use a bath stand dog in bath and treat get dog out of bath, stand dog in bath touch tap and then get dog out of bath etc.

It takes a little time but once sorted you have a happy dog that will love grooming.

Re ear drops if you start to get your dogs used to having ears looked at as a puppy this is never an issue, so daily you should look at dogs teeth and eyes, paws tummy and ears. I even get my pups to wear a plastic collar for a while so nothing will phase them when they need vet treatment.

But if you have an issue as you do with ears then lift the ear flap whilst feeding liver etc do this 100s of times a day and one time pop in the drops the dog will soon lurrve to have his ears done.

Do not tell your dog off for snapping she has no other way of communicating her fear and discomfort. She does not hate you, she still loves you etc etc, It just hurt her

OK will try that, but the biggest problem I have (in general with him actually) is finding a strong enough reinforcer. If he doesn't want something done then no reinforcer is strong enough (ditto out and about actually, I haven't found a food treat he's interested in enough to pay any attention to outside , ones that work inside to teach basics don't work at all outside, he won't even eat them. He does love fetching a ball so iI use that as reinforcement outside iyswim).

He lets me play with his ears, massage them etc, if sore doesn't like them being picked up obviously,- but freaks at the insertion of drops etc. Everything else is fine up until that point, then he goes so crazy - and really crazy. I can't treat anyway as he's freaking (not that there's a treat that's strong enough iykwim). He's the same with sore patches of skin, ticks etc. All fine until you home in on the spot, then freaks.

Having written that I wonder whether it's the holding still and down in one position that's actually more of a problem for him that touching the spot. Hmmm. Sorry for hijack OP.

It is interesting I hear this quite a lot from clients. You do have to work on the reinforcer. Some dogs will gobble down a treat so quickly it is not reinforcing at all others don't like treats but will love a toy, some with do anything for a stroke.

So work hard to find the best thing for your dog. I don't like to generalise as dogs forever surprise me but the dogs instinct can hep to find the best reward. Once you have found it you build up to getting the dog to work for it with distractions. Start small and then get bigger distractions then you have a dog that will do anything for you in any situations although it takes time to build up to that.

If he is freaking out you are way over threshold and need to back track to get him back to under threshold. He will not learn anything when he is over threshold.

No I realise that about the small and getting bigger but it's 0 to 60 iyswim. So he's fine, happy to be stroked, happy to be tickled, but then need to home in one spot - e.g. to remove a tick and whoosh he's gone. (Same with ears, or a sore scab that needs looking at or whatever). But there's no sign of any problem until he needs to lie still and be studied So I find it hard to desensitise because 99% of everything I do is fine. There's no gradual. I think it's the combination of needing to lie in one position and be poked that's the problem. So he's more or less happy lying in one position, but feels threatened by lying in one position and being examined when he goes from relaxed to through the roof.

He does tend to be over excitable. So 0 to 60 when someone comes to the door, and 0 to 60 when it's time for a walk, 0 to 60 when it's time to cross the road so maybe it's that rather than touch that's the problem and maybe it's that that needs working on.

He's very like ds1 when being examined medically (ds1 is severely autistic) which until recently has always had to involved restraint as well (and still does really unless it's something very hands off where he has got better). The doglet definitely fits our family!

OP, if it makes you feel any better, we took on a rescue dog that hated being bathed or groomed, basically because his previous owner had let his fur get very matted. We did the things that Minimuu said, and it took a little time but now he loves being groomed. He is even disappointed when we stop because he likes the attention. We take him to a professional groomer sometimes too because they trim his nails for us and he thinks it's wonderful. And yet in the beginning he would growl if we went anywhere near him with a brush.

Get the clicker out and work on a settle command - that will stop the 0-60 response

Ok thanks that's a good idea. I hadn't really thought of the issue being more about excitability either rather than not specifically liking a bit of the body being touched.

And also, go back to dog training. Puppy classes? What about the rest of it's life? If I had a quid for every member of our dog club who came back a few weeks after 'puppy' classes because their dog no longer behaved itself, I'd have several quid!

Just to be on the safe side, I'd also have a quick chat with your vet. Sometimes a dog that has never bitten before may suffering underlying pain which is making them over-react to unpleasant situations which they may have been able to cope with before.

thanks for all the advice I will have a go today with the treats and soft brush.
She seems to have forgotten our disagreement yesterday and we are best pals again

Also with the bath, use a long rubber bath mat to make it less slippy.