Licking

Comments

• asia

  November 2008 edited November -1

  Hey, I missed the thread about the no-licking in the Anderson pack!! Good Call Osy!
• dlroberts

  November 2008 edited November 2008

  Osy: None of the Nihon Ken are big droolers. If they do drool, it is usually a sign of stress and will be a bit foamy rather than dripping. As for minding if you dog licks you...you won't be able to resist, especially if you get a puppy. The first time you're holding that little fluff ball and it looks up at you and gently licks your nose or cheeks you're done for. There's no turning back. :-)
  
  As for teaching them not to lick, I wrote this in a thread while a back:
  
  This is one of those cases where to teach your dog to stop doing something you will have to first teach her to do it on command. I was able to do this with Lucy without a clicker, but now that I've started using one I'm 100% confident it would be a LOT easier to do using a clicker.
  
  If she isn't clicker trained yet, you'll want to start with another behavior like "touch" so you can get the hang of clicker training before you work on the problem behavior. I would suggest reading a book on basic clicker training first. If you don't want to, the idea is very simple. First teach her to associate the click sound with a treat. Five to ten times just click and treat a second later for nothing at all. Then, slowly start shaping the behavior you want. In the case of licking, I would first start clicking and treating when she gets near you. After she gets that down a couple of times, then only click when she touches your skin, then only when she licks. Once you've got her licking you reliably, start adding a cue. I uses "give me the kisses" when I want Lucy to lick me. After she gets that down, stop clicking her for licking you when you haven't given the cue. After a couple of practice sessions like that, you can stop using the clicker and just randomly ask her to give you kisses throughout the day. Let her lick you, but only give her a treat once she stops. Once you've done the initial work with the clicker, never reward her in any way for offering the behavior without the cue. That includes petting, verbal praise, and food rewards. If she does lick you without a command, move away from her and ignore her. If you are on the couch and she has jumped up to lick you, put her (gently!) on the floor and ignore her. It took me a month to get Lucy to reliably stop licking me all the time (and she still has slips every now and then). I'm sure with this approach it will happen much much faster.
• Sangmort

  November 2008 edited November -1

  Amber - haha he mentioned it in one of the threads, that he's allergic to dog saliva so he's trained them not to lick him.
  
  Dave - I love you so much! It sounds so simple...I'm printing that out & putting it into my "Dog Training" folder
  
  With dogs / puppies of people that I know I don't really get grossed out, but when a customer brings in a dog to the store at work, I get excited go to pet the dog, and he drools & slobbers all over my hand, then I get kind of grossed out ~
• tsukitsune

  November 2008 edited November -1

  Agreed - drooling is usually a sign of distress or other problem, none of our dogs drool (but Hachi did when she saw food... she was just a piggy)
  
  Great explanation Dave!
• cas12

  November 2008 edited November -1

  Ozzy only licks one person in our house and that is my mom he seems to do this to make sure she is ok. Missy will lick you to death if you let her and she holds ater in her mouth then drops it all over you she seems to think this is funny lol
• baanton

  November 2008 edited November -1

  I trained our former dog, Joe, to respond to the command "No Lick". This was necessary because some people in the household thought his licks were OK (hubby, both kids) and others (me) thought like Lucy Brown """Ewwwh... dog germs!!!". The interesting thing is that I could also tell others visiting or that we encountered on a walk or in the park to tell Joe "No lick" and he would immediately stop/not start. Not sure at what age this became a totally reliable command that he would follow without fail... maybe 3 years or so when he was getting beyond puppyhood, etc. Anyway, I just was totally consistent about motioning or pushing him back from me while saying the command, turning my back, etc. He totally got it eventually, and it didn't stop him expressing his "lovin' by lickin'" with the people who thought it was great!
  
  Josephine is very much into licking, again as a way of expressing her affection, I think. I am working on her not to lick me, but it's very slow... she is still very young (maybe 19-20 months)... She does not slobber, but will "foam" a bit as described by others. I mostly see this with her at the off-leash park, and this seems to be where a lot of dogs drool, foam or (totally gross!!!) develop big amounts of slime emitting from their mouths. I don't know if its distress... they all seem happy to be there, but it could be just the sheer exhilaration of the freedom and the numbers of other dogs, present and formerly present, that they can smell, see chase after, etc. For example, Josephine nevers foams at the farm but she is off-leash and totally free to roam there, but there usually are no other dogs there with her.
• tobyshiba

  November 2008 edited November -1

  Toby drools/foams when we're at the dog park, but he gets over excited and drinks from millions of water bowls. I don't believe it has anything to do with stress in his case. If it was stressful, he'd show signs of stress like pacing around, avoiding other dogs, ect. He never does any of that because he's too busy chasing all the dogs and play bowing and such.