Teach your puppy that biting means “game over”
If your puppy bites you while playing, that means playtime is over, with no exceptions. Yelling at or physically punishing your puppy, as strange as it sounds, is also a type of reward. It teaches them that biting gets some kind of response from you, which is known as positive punishment. This can also make them fearful of being handled. Instead, teach them that biting will get them nothing. Kathy Santo, dog trainer and columnist for AKC Family Dog, suggests turning around and tucking your hands into your armpits.
“It’s actually a calming signal and a minor form of attention withdrawal,” she says. “And be careful not to roughhouse with your young pup in ways that only encourage them to lose control and bite you.”
The good news: in the vast majority of cases, puppy biting and mouthing is EXTREMELY normal, for several reasons:
Lesson 1: No hard biting
It’s tempting to try to cut out all biting and mouthing from the beginning. However, this will miss out a vital step – allowing your puppy to understand the limits of how hard he can press skin before it becomes painful. This is important to learn as it can mean that, later in life when stressed or scared, if a dog does lose control and attempts to nip a person, he will have an inbuilt inhibition against causing harm. To teach your puppy not to bite hard, take your cues from natural puppy play. Gentle mouthing and nibbling is natural behaviour, so let you puppy indulge in this but, when you feel a hard bite, make a yelping sound and let your hand lie still. This will show your puppy that he’s gone too far, and he will learn to adjust. It’s important that everyone in the family adopt this same strategy, so that eventually your puppy will only be doing gentle mouthing, and no nipping or biting.
The BIGGEST Mistake People Make With A Puppy Biting Problem
Is your new puppy biting everything they can get their mouths on? Why do puppies bite so much when they are young? Is it normal, or should you be trying to stop your puppy from biting you?
Here’s a breakdown of puppy biting behavior and what you can do to keep your puppy from biting you.
It’s normal for puppies to use their teeth during play and exploration. Like human babies, it’s how they learn about the world, and it plays an important role in their socialization. And puppies are also going to chew on everything while they are teething.
Puppies learn a lot from biting things, including other puppies, their owners, and inanimate objects. They receive sensory information about how hard they can bite that particular object, what it tastes like, and whether they should repeat that behavior or not.
Depending on the taste and consistency of the object, a puppy may continue to bite it.
When puppies explore their new home, you might catch them biting or chewing on furniture, rugs, carpeting, pillows, clothing, shoes, remote controls, window frames, door jambs, their crate, their bed, their food bowl, etc.