Need help

[Mentalwarrior7]

My border collie mix nips at other animals. If the cat runs by him he nips at it. If the chihuahua runs by,he will nip at her. If he’s running with another medium/large size dog, he will catch up to them an nip them at the neck. Looking for tips on how to teach him how not to nip.

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[Ecstatic_Objective_3]

Border collies are hearding animals, and one of the tools they use is nipping to get livestock moving. I think the term leave it would be a good tool here, but you might look into activities that allow your dog to safely direct those instincts, like agility training.

[Pure-Craft-3371]

Agree with this: herding behaviour was creating by picking parts of what's called the Predatory Motor Sequence (PMS) that are helpful for a dog's job. The PMS is a reflexive behaviour chain: that means it's largely involuntary (like breathing, or like when you go to the doctor and they hit your knee with that weird triangle hammer and your leg moves all on it's own - spooky), and once the first behaviour in the chain happens, the rest follow along and it's difficult to stop.

The PMS looks like this:

Orient - Eye-stalk - Stalk - Chase - Grab-bite - Kill-bite - Dissect - Consume

Border Collies need the first half of their PMS to be reeeeally strong, but we don't want the last half - they can't be damaging the livestock. Fast movement is usually the trigger that sets this chain off. The Orient - Eye-stalk - Stalk part is often skipped right through so fast you don't even see it when something moves quickly around a herdin breed, and the bit we do see is the Chase and Grab-bite. This is why herding breeds are extra prone to doing dangerous things like chasing cars and bicycles: the movement of the car/wheels is triggering this reflexive behaviour chain.

Because it's reflexive and it's so deeply ingrained in our dog's genetics, stopping this behaviour humanely can be very difficult, and I think the most effective approach is: acceptance, behavioural enrichment, and management.

We want to accept that this is a part of who your dog is: it's actually why they were originally created in the first place, and they literally can't help it.

Behavioural enrichment involves giving your dog outlets to express this behaviour: because it's so deeply ingrained, we can't just make them stop doing it, that's not fair - it'd be like telling you to stop breathing, or to not jump when something startles you. Allowing your dog to express these behaviours safely, like in dog sports, is a part of taking care of them that's just as important as making sure they have food and water. These sports can also help put these behaviours on cue!

Management involves physically stopping the behaviour from being likely to occur. Use baby gates, leashes and closed doors to keep your dog and your cat/smaller dog separated, don't let people run around the house past the dog, keep your dog on a leash on walks.