How to train a Belgian Malinois not to bite?
June 1, 2024
Yes, you can train your Belgian Malinois to stop biting. The first solution is exercising your Malinois, which is the easier way to get good results, and it is almost guaranteed. And when you establish leadership, you will have total control of the situation. But all of that, without consistency, you will not have results.
Any dog has the habit of biting, so don't worry your dog is not the only one. A dog that is frequently biting will not become crazy and bites everyone and everything as time goes. This habit is usual with dogs that weren't disciplined correctly as a puppy. It is an irritating habit, but there are solutions, and as soon as you apply them, things will get better. Below in this article, we will describe the correct way to stop your Malinois from biting.
An irritated dog that is bored for doing nothing and full of energy to spend will bite as much as he needs to stop being bored. Exercising your Malinois is frequently the easiest and efficient way to have a calm dog. If your dog is too young, he can exercise, as long as you be careful with some details as described below.
Before starting the exercise, if you have a puppy, you should first go to the veterinarian and confirm that your dog's health is ready to go along with the activity. Dogs have a bone, name growth plate, which makes the bones longer. In the Belgian Malinois, because he is a large breed, it will take up to 24 months until it is completely grown. The approach during this time has to be more conservative. For example, jump too often during the exercise need to be avoided. If you are using a toy to exercise the puppy, try to use the toy below his head, so the chances of jumping are smaller. A dangerous move is to throw the ball up and down the stairs, which affects your puppy bones development. The injuries resulting from this are broken bones, torn ACL, and torn toenails.
During the exercise, dogs can get a lot of grip and traction. Make sure that the surface you are exercising your dog is appropriate. Avoid hard or slippery surfaces, so the chances of the dog get injuries is minimum.
There are many ways of playing with your Belgian Malinois. We will talk a little about the tug of war since it is an easy exercise, and you can play in the comfort of your house. An essential trick for this game is that the dog let go of the toy when you ask him. To get it from him, while playing tug of war, ask him to let go and stop pulling the toy to indicate what you want and when he let go of the toy, go back to play and repeat it a few times repetition is essential. This way, you will be preparing for the next step.
A part of playing tug of war is to teach your dog to bring you the toy back, and when he did it, you can also test if he has learned how to let go of the toy by asking to drop the toy for you to throw again. Another important strategy for this game is the come around, where you have to lure the toy around you from your front to the back and then throw the toy in front of you, so the dog brings it back to you.
If your Malinois is not a puppy, you can skip this paragraph. The rule for exercise for a puppy is 5 minutes of exercise for each month of age and repeat it twice a day. During the activity, avoid long walks and repetitive movements. Again there are many ways to play, but to make this simple without complicating too much, all you have to do is play tug of war and fetch. Remember to be careful with the pressure on the puppy teeth playing tug of war and thrown the ball as close to the ground as possible to avoid jumps. If the puppy is very excited and is playing by himself, just let him spend his energy the way he knows best.
One exercise that is very important for dogs is mental challenges. These challenges start improving your dog's ability to engage with you and learn how to be more obedient and learn tricks faster. Here is a free eBook teaching the airplane game so you can start right away. For the game, you will need a training clicker where you can find it here.
After the exercise, although the problem is not entirely solved, your dog will bite much less. So now comes the part that can be a little more difficult, now is when you build leadership and show your puppy that you are the one who will tell the right thing to do in the relationship between both of you. With games like the "Airplane Game" described in the eBook, you can start to build engagement with the dog. It is how you have a dog that can see a leader and waits to hear what he has to say before his next step. The owner that has the dog respect has his attention and listens to him right away because the dogs love to hear, love a leader in charge of the situation.
When dogs receive too much freedom, they start to self-reward with whatever gives them pleasure, which is the perfect scenario for a dog that does not pay attention to the owner, developing bad habits. Improving the relationship will not just bring the solution for the biting problem but also avoid the dog to grow developing bad habits.
The first thing to do is, every time there is bad behavior, address the situation, explain to the dog that he can not do that. The dog can not get away without understanding what he shouldn't be doing. Also, everyone in the house needs to put the idea into practice. There are many situations during the day that dogs see as a way to base their behaviors. A good example is a dog that asks to go outside and a dog that makes the decision himself and goes outside. And there are so many others situations during the day where the same thing happens.
When puppy dogs are with their mom, the moment she indicates them to stop doing whatever they are, they stop in a second. The reason why that happens with so much efficiency is that the puppies respect their mother's leadership.
Basics training like sit, stay, come, and stand can help you during the structure process, as you will see now. Teaching your dog who the leader is, does not mean that you have to be mean, talk louder with him, or be aggressive. If you ask your dog, let's say to stop jumping on the couch, and he chooses not to pay attention. The solution can be something as simple as ask him to sit. If he doesn't listen, you ask again until he understands, it looks simple, but it teaches that he needs to listen to you. If the dog goes outside without your permission, you can take this privilege away from him and put him back inside until he understands the needs of your authorization. Most of the time is not about saying no to every wrong decision he makes. It is more about reinforcing what you want from him, as described in the example above. Here is an opportunity you could be missing, every time you give food to your dog, you can build up the leader you are by asking him to do something like sit, then give him the food.
Suppose your dog bites you. Right away, you have to stop and go from a playable person to a body language that shows you are no longer playing and use verbal reinforcement to make sure he understands. It will not work for the first time, so consistency is essential to have good results. After that, you redirect the dog to an appropriate biting toy and reward with a "Hey, good boy!". If he is biting you, make sure it is not correct right away. If he bites a toy and not you, he deserves a reward.
The trainer Kayl McCann from mccanndogs often has their dogs waiting in the crate until put on the leash, and only then he allows the dogs to leave. It is an exercise where Kayl can build more control of her leadership skills with the dog. You can also limit the toys, don't let them all around the house, save the best toys for moments with you. So the puppy can understand that if he wants the good toys, he needs to go to you. While you are not around, let him with a kong toy or a chew toy.
The way you allow your Malinois to go on the furniture or the bed can be beneficial or a problem. It will be better to wait until your puppy develops good behaviors, and after he shows good behaviors give it as a privilege. And if you ask the puppy to get out of the couch, you need to expect that the dog will listen to you. If he doesn't, it is no longer a privilege. Kayl McCann has three elements to establish efficient training, where you have to be consistent, be clear, and fair.
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