Sometimes Punishment Works

After my uninspiring conversation with Tim's boss, I continued to walk Prince on a daily basis, in spite of the increased ferocity of his attacks.  By this time, they had escalated to the point where they resembled a child's temper tantrum...the fierceness of his nipping and my struggles to stop him literally resulted in our being propelled off the side of the road.  One day, a friend of my boyfriend drove by and saw us in the middle of a large area of shrubbery.  Of course, the instant his truck appeared, Prince stopped attacking me and simply stood there innocently, as if we had somehow wandered off the road and found our way there.  When the truck was gone, he continued his assault upon me. I was so furious that I actually contemplated tying him to a tree and walking home by myself.

"This is it," I said, when he had finally calmed down, and I stalked back home, practically dragging him with me.  Once I got there, I considered all of the options that so many professionals had provided to me (none of which had worked) and then I considered what my father would have done.

My father had trained German Shepherds in the military.  When I asked him once what would happen if he ordered a dog to do something that it did not want to do, he said it would do it regardless....because it would be afraid not to.  While at the time I was affronted, at this point I wondered if there might not be something to this advice when it came to German Shepherds, and I grabbed a newspaper, rolled it up, and hit the wall with it as hard as I could..

"No!" I shouted.  "No!  Don't you ever bite me again!"  Each time I yelled it, I hit the wall with the paper, while Prince stared at me with something akin to astonishment.  Then he did something he had never done before.

He put down his ears, and slunk away from me.

I've heard that there is no point in correcting a dog unless you do so immediately, but obviously Prince knew exactly what I was scolding him for, because he never nipped me again.

Sometimes punishment does work.