Lost treats will stay lost from now on.

This weekend I noticed Ellie has lost 4 teeth! Little ones in the front. Poor thing, it looks so painful to see the tooth underneath trying to poke through.

So needless to say Ellie is a chewer. She chews on EVERYTHING. Furniture, toys, walls, arms... anything she can get her mouth around... and even some she can't, for example the grout she manages to dislodge from between the kitchen tiles. Ugh, sounds painful to me.

The books say to teach her "bite inhibition". This is essentially how to bite without actually hurting. They call it "soft mouth". Apparently Labs are supposed to be really good at this... some can carry around raw eggs without breaking them. Ha, I'll believe that when I see it!

So, to teach her bite inhibition, I'm supposed to yelp like a puppy every time she bites - this is supposed to mimic her litter mates and startle her to stop. I stink at this. My yelping does NOTHING. Sometimes it even makes it worse! I have to leave the room to get her to stop.

Well, today I did it! But unfortunately it wasn't in response to her biting me.

She was sniffing, sniffing under the couch. This HAS to mean there is a treat under there and I had better get it or else she'll start chewing on the furniture in order to get it herself. So I get down on my hands & knees, put my hand under the couch, I feel the treat but manage to push it farther. So after a wide sweep of whatever is under there I pull out not only the treat but a dead *****. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwww! (I can't even type it. yuck. and no, it wasn't a mouse)

I screeched a screech so high pitched Ellie didn't know what to do with herself! I told her to stay, sit, go away... all of the above!! I didn't want her anywhere near it. But she didn't move an inch!! She was SO thrown my by reaction she was stunned stiff! So I picked her up and ran us both into the kitchen where she stood stiff still completely confused with how I was acting.

I'd love to learn from this experience and apply my newly found voice to Ellie's biting, but the memory of that is so horrible, I'd rather have Ellie bite my arm all day long.