Serious help needed with rescue.

Hi guys,

I've had my new rescue Boomer for a little over a week now. In many respects he coming on great, his commnds are good, housetraining has kicked in and he is very loving.

However, he snaps at faces alot. He seems to be playing but he nips and arms, chests and most worryingly faces and he esculates the amount of force he uses very quickly. He starts licking but quickly moves onto biting, sometimes he gets a "look" and suddenly lunges for the face, i'm not 100% sure this is playing but i most admit it can be a bit scary, he bit me on the chin earlier and while it didn't draw blood it could have.

I'm very confident with dogs and don't want to give up on boomer, but, if i'm 100% honest something just does not seem right with him, i think i'm worried he is suddenly going to "snap" as it where and do some real damage. Ignoring him, telling him off, pushing him away or putting him in the "sin" room for 2 minutes or so, none of these seem to make a diffrence so any advice you guys can offer would be great. I'm worried one of these bites could be serious and there is no way he could go back to a rescue home like this so i want to explore every possible avenue with getting him out of this habit.


Thanks in advance guys, i really want to do the best for Boomer!

Oh, Mike, I'm so sorry for both you and Boomer.

I'm afraid I have no advice to offer regarding this, as have never experienced it first hand.

Having said that, there are some brilliant people on here with all sorts of experience, and I'm sure you will be guided towards some things to try with Boomer.

Good luck mate - if anyone deserves to make it work, it's you x

One of my dogs nibbles on your face, she licks then nibbles. maybe it is the same thing but he gets a bit out of hand having never been taught boundaries? Have you tried 'yelping' when he does it as you would a puppy who mouths?

Sorry I can't be of more help, hope you manage to sort especially as I know you had trouble with finding a dog to rescue in the first place. Best of luck. x

Thanks Random and Vicki

I'm sure this is connected to boundaries as it seems he has been taught nothing at all. This may calm down in a few weeks, i just need to be sure on of us is not in hospital beofre then. I should also mention that he growls alot at noises, and i've hidden in a diffrent room and he growls to himself for no reason when he thinks he is alone!

I just lost my last post, but what i was trying to say was that i've never met a dog i was wary of for no specific reason, i do feel like this about Boomer though.

If we manage to get this sorted, i'm not looking forward to bonfire night, i guess i'll stock up on sedatives early!

Thats a shame, it is a problem of course with a rescue that a lot of the time we don;t know much about their background and how they were previously treat. Be careful with him, you don't want to get hurt, that is no good for either of you. It is good though that you have experience and are not nervous around dogs, hopefully things will improve.

I'm not experinced with staffies as a whole, but one of the dogs I walked at the rescue would sometimes kind of jump towards you with a bit of a snap, no contact was ever made, he was rehomed a quite a while ago and has not been returned so I presume he was fine. I think I have read on here that it';s a bit of a trait for staffies to mouth (forgive me if that is totally worng!). Have you asked the resuce to see if he did it to any of the staff there, was he in the shelter long beofre you took him home?

Hi Mike,

Its a hard one as Janet is right its very difficult to know what has gone on in the past with a rescue,

My experience with Bruno and with many staffies is :

they do like to mouth, kiss nibble etc. It does sound like he doesnt know when to stop though as has never been taught.

Bruno and my Oh play a game where Phil talks to bruno right at his mouth and Bruno will "talk" back and then snap at him and then kiss him - all the while growling away - he is a growler but he hs different growls for different things - I have yet to hear him do a real serious growl. But if people didnt know better they would think he is growling at us, my son etc - but its definetly "talking"

What i am trying to say in the waffle is perhaps Boomer is a bit of a talker and a kisser but just hasnt been taught his boundaries and when to knock it off.

I would suggest contacting the rescue though to enquire about any nipping, snapping etc.

Also he does sound like he is boisterous so perhaps its all just good clean fun he just doesnt realise he is actually doing damage ...
However if you are a bit nervous of it he will also pick up on that too - vicious circle.. Has he had a thorough vet check lso to rule out any problems?
sorry its not more helpful. As for the growling when no one is in room - what kind of growl- could you record it perhaps ???

good luck and keep us posted

Some good advice already here .
My Missy is a "talker " too. She always makes silly little growly noises when she is playing , and she is VERY playful.She will also growl and bark when she hears unusual noises outside. She did start a habit a while back of trying to grab my sleeves during play. One day she nipped my skin through a thick jacket and it hurt ! It left a bruise on my arm and from that day onwards , I stopped play immediately as soon as she started getting interested in my sleeves.
She can get overexciteable when she is playing and although she doesn't mean to hurt me , the play can sometimes get a bit too rough. I always get up and walk away from her when she starts to play like that. I tell her NO , That's BAD. She'll look disappointed for a few minutes but then goes and gets one of her toys to play with instead. This is a dog who wouldn't play with toys when I got her , but by making it more interesting than chewing on my sleeves , she will now very happily play on her own. She has a toybox in the corner of the room with a selection of rope toys , stuffed teddies and rubber chew toys. She will often get several out at a time and engross herself in chucking them about , pouncing on them , shaking them then unstuffing the teddies . ( Terrier hunt and kill instinct ).
She also has a treat ball which she will chase around for ages trying to get the treats out.
If she is playing "rough" with a rope toy or a ball , I'm always careful about picking it up as she does tend to try to grab it from my hands.She's caught my fingers a couple of times doing that ! I found distracting her by teaching her to "swap" the toy for a treat or another toy , stopped her from trying to grab .
As for growling , she growls when she is playing but it sounds like a puppy growl . I have heard her growl seriously only once and it sounded really nasty ! There was a man in one of the gardens opposite us , and his children , all little girls. The man had a long pole which he was showing the girls how to twirl and throw up in the air , like a majorettes baton. The little girls were all laughing and squealing , as little girls do sometimes , and Missy raced over to the window when she heard them. She started growling quite loud , but it was a deep throaty growl nothing like her puppy play growl. She had her ears down against the side of her head and just kept staring out the window growling. I reckon she thought the man was hurting the little girls and she wanted to stop him ! ( A big man waving a stick in the air and little girls squealing , what would you think if you were a dog ). I managed to distract her and put her collar and lead on . Then I took her out and across the road to let her see the man wasn't hurting the children ! She was back to her happy little self by then and the man and children were all making a fuss of her and rubbing her tummy. Now when she sees him , she gets all excited and wants to go outside , her wee tail whirling round like a helicopter .
What I'm trying to say by my post is , try to distract your Staffie away from hands and faces by using toys , treats , even clicker work , but always be aware that they can be really quick to grab things through excitement and forget that their teeth hurt us. I hope this helps and you can enjoy having a Staffie as they really are fantastic little dogs when they are trained properly.

When we adopted Missy she too was a bit "bitey".

Best advice I can give is what we did, take Boomer to see a behaviourist (maybe the rescue has one)

Last thing you want to do is inadvertently make it worse.
But someone with more knowledge needs to see the behaviour so a programme can be devised to remedy it - and you need to have the confidence that it can be remedied.
Wary of your own dog is not a good place to be.

We had four weekly visits, charged at £25 per hour ( his rescue rate!) and within the month, no more nipping at faces.

Every dog is an individual, you need to see someone to make a programme specifically for Boomer and his needs.

I have a rescue growler too. To be honest it was worrying me to begin with as I had never experienced it and worried for me and the kids.
I have realised now a few weeks down the line thats that is what he does and is not mailicous in any way and now find it sweet now I can relax round him.
Roxy was a nippy and bitey dog and it was consistency teling her 'no biting' which she understands now. But I didnt have any doubts about her temperment, she was just excitable so please be careful with your new addition.

We have a Staffy at in ouir dog training class, and as others have said, he growls a lot but as far as I can see, there is no mailice in it at all, it just seems to be him talking, though at the first time I heard it I did wonder! Interestingly, these growls don't seem to wind the other dogs up at all!