Hoping you all can help me. I am new here, I have a golden retriever named Addie. She is high drive in the agility ring. We have been training for about a year. She has great potential and is fast. My big problem is when she, gets excited, she growls and starts nipping my hands and wrists. Now, she is the sweetest dog I know and is normally low key, except when we are doing agility. We haven't strarted competing yet, but we go to run-throughs. Last one I had to take her off course because of this behavior. She seems so focused on my hands, all most to focused instead of the obstacles. It doesn't seem like aggressive behavior, just excited. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I'm not sure if this will work in the agility ring, but the way we taught our dog not to nip or bite when she was a puppy was: when we were playing with her and she would bite or nip us, we would yelp really loud. Not yell, yelp like another dog would. If the yelp didn't work and she kept biting, we would get up and walk out of the room. After about 20 seconds or so, we would go back in and start playing again. It basically taught her that if she bites, the fun stops.

It was kinda slow going at the beginning, but it totally paid off. She doesn't put her mouth on any person now, and if we're both going to a toy, she will leave it alone if my hand is on it. If I put my hand in her mouth, she'll try to spit it out lol. ^_^