[Riggan]

Saul, I would use a gentle leash pop using a flat or martingale collar with a firm “Knock it off!” Then, as soon as the pup stops, praise her. But whenever I have something I want a dog to STOP doing, I take some time to think about what I DO want the dog to do. Then I start training that. For example, I assume that your pup is most likely to nip ankles when you are moving. If the pup is making eye contact with me, she cannot be nipping my ankles. So I would start to capture and highly reinforce eye contact (praise / reward her every time she looks at you, not just when you give a specific command) and also train a “Look” command (Robert has a video on this in the Lessons, I believe). Once she figures out how highly reinforcing making eye contact is, you have set her up to make a decision. Does she go with her herding instinct and go for the ankles, or does she go for the reward and run up to you to make eye contact? Now when she makes the wrong choice (ie, bites your ankles), you can give a firm “No!” and cue her to “Look!” As soon as she looks up at you, even for a split second, praise and reward her.

When you have to tell a dog “No,” you always want to follow it up with telling her what you DO want her to do. If you see her heading for your ankles, you can also now preemptively tell her “Look.” If she complies, HUGE praise and reward. If not, then “No. Look.” I used Look in this example, but you could choose any alternate behavior, as long as she cannot do the behavior and bite your ankles at the same time.

Good luck!