I Need Help!

Hi All,

I'm fairly new to this group. I have a 9 week old Corgi named Cady and I need some help. Basically she bites everything and everyone in her path. I've tried the following but to no avail:

Saying No Sternly

Yelling No

Spraying Her With A Water Bottle

Picking Her Up

Saying "OW" Loudly And Then Ignoring Her

Does anyone know what I can do to start training her out of these bad habits? I really don't want her to keep these habits with her when she is an adult.

Thank you in advance for all of your help!

Sincerely,

Ev

Wow, 9 weeks old is pretty young. I didn't get my corgi Penny until she was 14 weeks old so I'm not sure what they are doing developmentally at that stage. Corgi's are nippers but when Penny was younger she would pull at our pant legs. She would also chew through everything. She once chewed through a lamp cord, thankfully it was not plugged in. The good news is she grew out of it. The bad news is I can't remember what we did to stop it.

Could she be teething? Try getting some teething toys at the store. Also, negative training, which is what you're doing will probably not get you far with a corgi. They are stubborn and always hungry. Try telling her no, getting her to stop, even if you have to physically get her away from the thing she is biting and then rewarding her for her good "non-biting" behavior. In fact reward her with a small treat anytime she is chewing on something proper or just being quiet and good. She will soon learn what behavior is rewarding and what behavior is not. Remember that mom wouldn't put up with Cady biting. She would probably roll her over and put her in her place. So try putting Cady into a submisive position when she does that. I also reccomend clicker training. Buy a clicker at PetSmart. Whenever she does something good click and then give her a treat. This includes potty training.

Good luck! I remember brining Penny home and on the second day I was in tears. The little 8 pound bugger had gotten the best of me and I didn't know what I was going to do. Five years later and I just left her at home, free to roam the house, for 8 hours while I'm at work. So things do get better! :)

Jen

Oh, and I too tried the spray bottle. It didn't work. It just made Penny more stubborn and indignant and one day she found the water bottle and killed it. Remember that she is supposed to heard 1000 pound cattle so unless you establish your dominance she won't be afraid to push you around.

Hi,

If you can't find an answer here, you might want to try asking on Corgi_L, probably the largest corgi listserv in the country.

http://corgi-l.org/...

When Steve and I got Duncan he was about 12 weeks old and he nipped and we put him in the submissive position like his mother would have and we also kept Duncan well supplied with approved chew toys. He did grow out of it, it just took some patience on our parts. Now, he is free to roam the house when we are at work and he is an absolute angel. I would also get him puzzle toys to keep him busy and even one that we could record our voices and he had to puzzle a treat out of it. Petsmart had a good selection of puzzle toys.
Hope that helps!!

Guess what? I just got my 2nd Corgi and in my experience Both my puppies did the same thing. My 2nd is only 8 weeks, and he is even more relentless than when his older brother was a pup.

Unfortunately, you just need to be on top of them. Everything you are doing is pretty much all you can do. Also, all the other suggestions are great. Corgis are not the most "snuggly" puppies that you may wish they were. They are very tough and rumble. As long as you perservere, you will have an excellent, well behaved dog in about a year.

One advantage we have right now is Hank our year old corgi corrects the puppy in "Corgi style". A lot of times we just allow him to do the corrections because they seem more effective when he is also involved. Good luck!

I think most of the dog training places have classes specifically for this problem. I signed Hamlet up at Teamworks in N. Raleigh and I believe I saw they had a biting class.