With every puppy there is a moment where they are no longer adorable little puffs of fur and, maybe just for a second, they become little monsters. This moment usually occurs as their teeth connect with your skin.
Ow.
If you’ve ever spent time caring for a human baby, you know that for a while just about anything that isn’t nailed down goes into their mouths. With puppies it’s quite similar, except being nailed down is no guarantee of safety. Puppies don’t have hands and fingers, so they experience much of the world through their mouths. This starts out being cute, but loses it’s luster when the puppy becomes strong enough to do some damage to you, furniture, shoes, gloves, hats, cell phones, and even remote controls.
When tackling this problem there are two important aspects to keep in mind: lower the frequency of inappropriate biting, nipping and chewing but only after teaching your puppy how to control how hard she bites.
This second part seems counterintuitive to some. Let your puppy continue to bite so she can learn how? Yes, absolutely. Stopping the biting dead in its tracks offers immediate relief to an annoying problem, but if she never learns that her mouth can inflict pain and how to bite without doing so, then we may have a serious problem. If she is provoked or frightened as adult what could just be a warning bite could instead be a deadly and damaging attack.
The first step is to tell your puppy when biting hurts. Say “Ouch!” and pull your hand away. It’s that easy! If she pauses for a second and stops biting, praise her, ask for (or lure) a sit, and allow play to resume.
If she doesn’t stop, say (or yell) “Oww!” louder and leave the area. (If you have a habitual biter make sure you are playing in a room that you can safely leave her in.) Return in 30 seconds, lure another sit, and allow play to resume. Repeat.
These steps rely on a simple principle: your puppy wants to play with you. If she bites too hard, play stops. She should learn very quickly how to keep play going. Puppies play this same “game” with each other in the litter (and in puppy kindergarten, which you should attend with your puppy!) and teach each other the same bite control lesson. Human children should not do this. Their “ouches” are probably very squeaky and will very quickly get your puppies too excited.
After some time the bites will stop hurting. You are going to pretend that they still do! You want your puppy to think you must be made out of tissue paper. Eventually biting and nipping should effectively be only mouthing.
When you reach the mouthing stage, it’s time to turn it off. It’s time for zero tolerance. If your puppy’s mouth touches you, you say “ouch!” If it persists, use the same “Owwww!” as earlier and leave the room.
The entire process will take several weeks, but at the end you will have a dog that has learned bite control, a very valuable lesson that can save someone from a serious bite in the future, as well as saving your dog from consequences of that serious bite.
A good puppy kindergarten class will help you implement this, as well as providing your puppy will a valuable chance to exercise control with other puppies.
Related Posts
- What are the most important things you can do for your puppy? Part 4 – Puppy Proofing
- What are the most important things you can do for your puppy? Part 2 – Socialization
- Puppy Diaries: Back to Kindergarten
- What are the most important things you can do for your puppy? Part 3 – Get a Crate!
- The Puppy Diaries: Life With a New Puppy
6 Comments
Great post! Simple, but effective training method that is clearly explained, as well as the logic behind it. Awesome as always, Eric!
And I can vouch that this method has worked very well for my pup (11 months now) who now can “play-bite” my 3-yr-old boy and have it be nothing more than mouthing him. Very important since he's been harder to train the her when it comes to not instigating rough-housing with the puppy!
Thanks! It's great to have a dog with a “soft mouth,” isn't it?
Thanks! Isn't it nice to have a dog with a “soft mouth?”
Thank you for this post Eric, it was a great reminder for me.
Our young horses need to learn a bit of bite inhibition! They are at the stage where they are so oral! Everything goes into their mouths— fingers, sleeves, jacket zippers, my hat, my hair, my pants, my shoes. It is more mouthing than actual biting, but they need to learn better as they have fairly strong teeth and could do damage if they wanted! Also, it's important they learn some manners, as down the road, other people will probably not be as tolerant about their mouthiness.
Mary
I know about horses other than I find them a little intimidating at times.
Do you practice bite inhibition with them?
yes? no? I'm not exactly sure.
I'd say the majority of horse people use punishment techniques to suppress biting and other “naughty” behaviors.
Many of your young ones like to nibble, sniff, mouth and occasionally nip or bite. Generally, the stuff I don't mind, sniffing, a bit of mouthiness, “grooming” me with their noses, I allow. The bites and nips I'll shake my hands a bit and walk away.
So, probably not bite inhibition in the same way it's trained for dogs. However, I do continue giving attention for “acceptable” behavior and remove attention for unwanted responses.
Mary
One Trackback
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rod Burkert, dogspelledfwd. dogspelledfwd said: Does you puppy bite and nip everything in sight? http://bit.ly/4UVxJB [...]