[gracielove]

I found that bully sticks really helped us with Gracie when she was going through her terrible terrier puppy days. They have such an inborn desire to bite and the bully sticks helped her to wear off some of that mouth energy. Lots of exercise helped, too.Teaching her to play fetch used up energy in play that did not involve biting my hand. These dogs have tons of energy that needs to be run off a couple of times a day at least. A tired puppy does not bite....usually.

I did have to keep her calm as a puppy. At least we never played tug or anything with our hands. Moving a hand in front of a young terrier is asking for trouble. you

Once Gracie learned her boundries we were able to do things we could not even attempt when she was "Jaws." Terriers just have that genetic instinct to bite and shake so keep your hands from being the victim of a play rodent attack. I think Yorkies should come with a written terrier warning. They have brains programed to bite and shake.

Now that Gracie is an adult she will sometimes bring one of her stuffed toys to me and I then have to shake the toy so she can attack it and have some sparing practice. After a couple of minutes she will take the toy in her mouth and shake it so hard I can't believe her neck can tolerate such force. She will spend a little while "killing" the toy with scary sounding growling going on the whole time. It's kind of funny to see a little 5 pound dog acting so violent. After she is done she goes back to being her sweet little self. She just has those terrier urges that have to be let out now and then I guess.

Just remember you don't have an ordinary dog. You have a rodent killer.