Did you ever hear the old superstition "Speak of the Devil and he appears"? On another thread I and a couple of other people mentioned never having seen a dog bite another dog over the top of the muzzle as a dog-to-dog correction. Well, now I have. This morning. On my bed (yes, my dogs are allowed up on the bed to greet me in the morning) So Scooter and Deacon (7 months) jump up for the morning snuggle and Deacon Pup wants to play. Scooter just wants to get his belly rubbed and his ears stroked and he is doing the ignore-it-and-maybe-it-will-stop to Deacon, and twice I tell Deacon Off the bed, make him Sit, then invite him up for petting, because the bed is not a wrestling mat and wrestling gets him ousted. But he's being a dink and comes slithering up to Scooter again and nips his cheek. At which point Scooter let out a yip and clamped down over the top of his muzzle! He didn't bite hard, just held it, held it a little harder when Deacon tried to wriggle free, moved his hold to clamp Deacon's mouth shut when Deacon tried to open it and kept holding it until Deacon said Sorry and began to lick Scooters mouth. And Scooter let go (seriously it was like 2 whole minutes - it was a very deliberate action) and flopped over for more scritches. Whereupon the Merry Young Idiot did it again and they repeated the whole cycle - except the second time it didn't take as long for Deacon to say Sorry and he didn't try wrestling again. There was no growling or major posturing going on, but a very deliberate clamp down on the top of the muzzle as an older dog telling a younger dog to cut it the heck out. I have never seen that before in my life. LOL, Speak of the Devil...
I've seen a dog get to that "Stop that or so help me..." point... but never specifically putting a muzzle on the other one... that's really interesting!
Someone told me once to grab a muzzle like that and squeeze just a tad till wimper just slightly and let go when teaching them I think not to bite. I don't but have heard of it I guess cause it exhibits behavior of other dogs when correcting their siblings and such. I don't know I personally I have not seen it ever either.
I've seen other disciplinary actions but this is one of the ones that you hear about all the time but that I'd never seen. And Scooter didn't squeeze hard - he just held on and when Deacon tried to open his mouth he shifted his hold so he was holding Deacon's mouth shut. Deacon never whimpered. They were both really mellow about it - but it was a very clear and deliberate action. And Scooter kept it up until Deacon got the message to keep his mouth off.
