Prevent Puppy Biting
16 Sep 2009
If you have a new puppy in your home you must have already noticed his passion for chewing and biting everything he can get his little mouth close to. Obvious targets are your hands and feet, any shoes laying around, and basically everything else, too.Below are some common sense tips that will help you stop your puppy from biting you and your household, and making sure his chewing is not as much of an issue.
- First of all, get your puppy some chew toys to play with. He’s teething, so he’s going to have to bite something, and these chew toys are the perfect substitutes for your hands and feet. As you start playing with your puppy and he gets too rough, stop him by placing your hand over his mouth to hold it shut. You should keep his mouth closed until he becomes submissive and accepts your hand over his mouth without struggling. He will probably not be happy about this, but keep him calm with your voice and hold him still. Firmly tell him “no biting”- but without raising your voice. Be sure to keep your voice calm so he doesn’t become nervous and resist even longer. The more relaxed he remains, the sooner he will submit. Now that he is once again calm, it is the perfect time to offer him a fun chew toy. As soon as he takes the chew toy in his mouth, give him lots of praise.Every time you play with the pup, repeat giving him the chew toy as needed and he will soon associate the praise-the positive reinforcement- with chewing on the approved chew toy.It probably will take some time to sink in, but meanwhile stay patient and don’t ever hit or yell at the puppy for play biting during the interim it takes to get your pup to stop biting. If you use negative reinforcement you end up hurting your relationship with your puppy, and ultimately make training him harder. Everyone in your household needs to understand this, so you everyone treats the puppy’s behavior problems (such as how to stop your puppy from biting) with positive reinforcement. Try to make sure no one else who is around the puppy slows down the training by not following the positive training method.
- To stop a lot of unwanted biting and chewing buy your puppy, keep him in his crate when you can’t supervise him directly. By not either watching or confining your puppy to his crate, he most likely will be found chewing various items around the house. Make sure to put some chew toys inside his crate to serve his chewing enjoyment needs.
- Use your common sense, and you can easily figure out how to limit access to many chewable items. For instance, it is a simple and easy idea to keep all your shoes behind a closed door.
- Use another tip from Mama dog to stop your puppy from biting by letting your puppy know that his biting is hurting you. Yelping out in a very high pitched voice when he bites you, lets him know he is hurting you. You might feel sort of silly, but this is one way Mama Dog gets a puppy’s attention and stops the puppy from biting her.
- I have found that a very good way to stop my puppy from biting me is that while holding my hand over his mouth, I also stare him in the eyes and bare my teeth in a snarl and perhaps even make a low growl to show a threat to him. You may have seen a Mama dog do this sometime or other.
- You probably won’t want to grab the puppy by the scruff of the neck with your teeth the way a Mama dog does, but there is no reason not to use your hand to hold him still and show him who is boss until he submits. Remember, don’t stop the correction until the puppy is clearly submissive, and demonstrates that he knows you are in control.
- Playing rough games with him, such as wrestling and tug of war only encourage him to bite, so avoid the rough play. I, for one, was always guilty of playing rough with my young puppies, and I had the scarred and scabbed hands and forearms to show for it. At the time I didn’t know better and was unaware that this was potentially a way to increase my puppy’s level of aggression.
Try out these tips to stop your puppy from biting you and your household. Please click here to see more great dog training tips www.BehaveDoggy.com.
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