Stopping Puppy Biting in Your New Dog
25 Sep 2009
If you are looking to dealing with a puppy addicted to nipping at your fingers, hands, or ankles, nothing could be simpler than trying out the following. Experts suggest trying out a technique where the offending dog is surprised. Then just as the puppy begins to bite, let out a loud, quick, and high-pitched noise. Now this noise is quite similar to what another puppy would produce if its littermate were to hurt it.
How do you know if you did it right? You would know if the dog immediately withdraws its mouth, and is gaping at you in confusion. Divert the dog’s attention by offering it a toy or ball it can play with. These steps will help your dog realize that there is no fun at all in biting you, but there is praise from you if it takes the ball instead.
But things will never change in one day, and perhaps you will have to repeat the above over a stretch of days. Stay calm and control your emotions throughout. Always keep in mind that when you are trying to stop puppy biting, your dog must never see you angry. So the above steps will do a lot of good since these simply aim to tell the dog “Do not do that.” Correction is definitely not for scaring your pet, but for shaping its behavior so the dog fits into the norms of human society. Your efforts to stop biting puppies is just a case in point.
The problem with not taking action soon is that it simply paves the way to yet more bad manners. Puppies have a poor memory of things (even if only five minutes passed!), puppies are deprived of learning that nipping is not good. At the roots of puppy biting is instinct, and if this is left unchecked, a puppy starts nurturing a crude habit. So start stopping puppy biting as soon as you can!
The same idea of correction can get applied to other undesirable behavior. One worthwhile mentioning here is some dogs’ tendency to jump on people. Nothing could possibly be cuter than a puppy jumping to reach your leg; but it is not, in the case of a playful Great Dane, or a Pyrenees! So get your act together and just walk past the puppy or dog trying to rest its weight on you. This will encourage the desirable behavior, and teach the dog to wait for you to express your greeting.
