This time, Ninja and his family seemed a closer unit- Mom has borrowed her husband's confidence and has realized that Ninja's not plotting to murder her. She's got the restraint technique down and Ninja seems to love it now when she flips him into the alpha roll. The injury to her finger has healed (a surface scratch made by his razor-sharp canine tooth). After some soul-searching and a tetanus shot, the gang is solidly glued together. You can almost visualize them all by the piano, singing "We are Family", by Sister Sledge...

The next hurdle: how to get Ninja to stop yelling at people, jumping on them, and playbiting for attention. These are the methods that have worked for him unfailingly, so why should he stop? Each time he barks and snaps at the air, someone has a response, whether it's a jump 3 feet backwards by Mom, a riotous wrestling match with her adult son, or a verbal "no!". My suggestion is to try the best you can to ignore the bad methods and be conscious of when he uses better ones. Give him what he wants (attention) for staring at you and sitting. Or for gently resting his head on your foot. Whatever you guys are into. If the bad ones no longer work, he'll without a doubt come up with a few new ones. And if he jumps up on someone, they can sweep him off in a calm, non-violent way and then ignore him.

Now for the playbiting. He has no idea of the absolute wrongness of this action yet. When we set him up in a situation we knew would make him bite, we were ready to correct the behavior. You have to stay one step ahead of dogs with this behavior. He can't catch you off guard and get away without a consequence. The consequence is, in this case as follows; for each time he lays one tooth on anyone's flesh or clothing, his jowls are slowly held on to by the bitee and he is stared at, point blankly, and told "noooooo" in a very calm but stern tone. Then he is let loose slowly, and ignored for a few minutes. The wrestling match ends as soon as he makes that inappropriate decision. Bite a human= playtime stops.

We ended this week's lesson with teaching him to sit and stay on leash with and without treats. Self control is a virtue for every dog in the land!