Border collies jump at my face!

ivanthehunter

I have two border collie pups and TBH there not so bad but the have this bad habit of jumping up and biting at my face in a gentle manner. I have refrained form using physical force on their noses with the news paper but it has got to the stage now where i am worried about any possible interacting with children and 'easy target type people'.
What sort of steps can i take to remove this bad habit from their behavior, they are two bitches for the one litter and they are about 6months old now.

Any ideas would be greatly received..
Thanks lads

peasant

Turn away and ignore

A growly snap in their general direction also works. (basically "bark" / "growl" a NO! at them when they are right in front of your face, combined with a sharp turn of the head in their direction ...a fake "attack" like a dog would do it)

And if that doesn't help, put your hand over their snout (gently! at a right angle with your thumb under their chin) push them back and tell them "NO!"

(only as a last resort though (and not often/regularly), as touching their mouth in that way is quite a severe reprimand)

ValerieR

People indeed get very scared when a dog jumps up at them like that. We have had the same problem with our dog. He is growing older now and is 'more' reasonable but when little, he has on one occasion split a friend's lip that way. No need to say that she was not impressed.
I think the issue was linked to the fact that we would hug him and place our faces very close to his or even kiss him. In a way, I think he was trying to return the compliment by trying to kiss people when happy!
I haven't tested it, but I heard recently that folding your arms discourages a dog from jumping ... It might be no harm to test that one out.
Best of luck !
Valerie

Intothesea

Hello there. I'd agree with Peasant's approach,
with additional training to instill a 'meet and greet'
routine as well. This involves perfecting the 'sit'
command and requesting it every time they
encounter any human. If you practise this with
every human subject you can the dogs will
eventually sit down in order to get positive
attention on meeting -- and not resort to
jumping generally. HTH

luckat

This is puppyness. It will pass.

You might train two behaviours that are useful to a dog (and its humans) - one is "sit on meeting" - train the pups to "sit" on command, and always give them the "sit" command when they meet someone new.

My dog does this instinctively, and even a *very* disturbed dog that I briefly had (+RIP+ - she ran under a car before I learned much about training) did this after short training.

The other is "four paws on the floor", which is, obviously a behaviour incompatible with jumping and snapping.

Take a look at www.clickertraining.com and you should find methods for training both behaviours.

Intothesea

That's interesting, apparently my advice is
so sage it has to be repeated! :pac:

/Waits for Luckat to develop backache

ivanthehunter

Thanks folks i'll get on to it asap;)