Breaking Bad Habits

Larry is fitting in with our family quite nicely. He’s adapted to his routine and is over all a good dog. We do have some challenges, though.

Right now, the biggest challenge is that when he’s excited to see you, he mouths. He has a soft mouth and isn’t in danger of hurting anyone. He certainly doesn’t bite. But he like to have his mouth around your arm or your hand.

If it were just us, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. But we have other people come over to our house. Some of them are children, some of them are even non-dog people (shocking, I know), so I’d like to get this habit broken.

We’re working on it by telling him “No” and removing our hand/arm from his mouth. Then we get him sitting or laying down and pet him from there, letting him know that we’re happy to see him, too, but that there are better uses for our hands than being in his mouth.