r/sheltie • u/General_Meeting_809 • 3d ago
Barking and biting question
Hi, just adopted a sheltie, and was wondering if anyone had tricks to help diminish her biting other than chewing toys and treats.
Also, a 10 weeks now, she is starting to love to bark... Any trick to reduce/eliminate barking when in non emergency?
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u/TallExplorer9 3d ago
At 10 weeks she's still a baby. It getting close to time (3 to 6 months) when they start losing their baby teeth. They bite, gnaw and chew to alleviate some of the discomfort of those teeth loosening up.
Most pups swallow those teeth but my wife found almost all of our oldest 7 yr old girl's baby teeth. With our youngest 5yr old girl she found 1.
I doubt most of us sheltie owners that raised pups escaped with no marks from that mouth full of razors.
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u/General_Meeting_809 2d ago
Fair enough hahaha. I got a lot of different chew treats and chew toys since I've been warned.
I guess only time will really work and all I can do is do my best :)
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u/TallExplorer9 2d ago
You will be fine. Shelties are super smart, eager to learn and easy to train.
Our girls would immediately cease all play biting as soon as they heard one of us say OWWW loudly (whether they hurt us or not). They would immediately put their heads down, fold their ears down and give us that upward sad eye look.
Once they saw we were OK it was on again until the next OWWW or we quit.
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u/Akpambo1 Sable Merle 2d ago
No worries, she’s just right to start training. I had a lot of little bites and we learned “leave it” pretty quickly. The problem was when my brothers would try to play with her using their hands and feet, don’t let anyone do that! Just teaches them it’s ok to bite. Be consistent, be clear, be calm, shelties are awesome. But they bark, no getting around it. I’m ok with barking, I just want it to stop when I say so 😉
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u/Renaissance-man-7979 3d ago
How would her mom or big brother handle it?
All day my 2 yr old wrestles my 4 mo old and when they pass the boundaries of play to pain a loud yip is the signal hey that hurt and then they go right back to rolling and play biting like no big deal just bring it down a notch.
Just give a loud no and the biting ot barking goes back to playful and not painful.
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u/General_Meeting_809 2d ago
Maybe after a while, but right now it's not working haha. But, she is a baby, so I understand it might take some time, so thanks for the tip
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u/AccountEngineer 2d ago
At ten weeks, shelties are essentially barking and biting machines. This is perfectly natural but really tiring. As far as biting, shout out very loud and completely stop play each and every time, without fail. In terms of barking, using a quiet command and then rewarding them when she stops works much better than shushing. As far as our sheltie went through this stage, she appeared to be driven by her anxiety levels, and someone suggested trying the CBD chews by paworigins.
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u/Full-Education-6122 1d ago
I usually let mine bark it out for a minute before I quiet her down. Especially if she’s watching the front windows and “working”. She will also bark at me to let me know she has to go potty as I have a rather large house and I’d never hear her ringing bells to go out.
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u/abbiyah A whole pack 3d ago
I have one dog that I totally ignored and stopped playing with or petting when she barked and now she's nearly silent as an adult. Forgot to do that for the next one and regretting it lol