Puppy Biting
Puppy Biting
Ouch Puppy Biting is painful! This is potentially one of the most destructive habits a puppy can have; those sharp little teeth can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. If you have a puppy that bites, you need to get it under control as soon as possible, or it can become a real problem later on.
Puppies like to play a lot, and biting is a natural occurrence in their play; they naturally use their teeth, because their play is also a preparation for life as an adult. A dog in the wild would need to know how to skillfully use their teeth for hunting, and defense, so it stands to reason that they are going to be practicing these skills, so they will be able to survive later on in life.
So how do you stop puppy biting? In order to control and stop it, we need to look at nature, and understand a little bit about how life it the litter works. Take the mother dog as an example, when she is feeding her puppies and one of them bites her, she won’t tolerate it, she will let them know immediately that the biting is not acceptable. The way she does this is by yelping loudly when she gets bit. This yelp is loud, high pitched and startles the puppy which makes it stop biting immediately. Of course the puppy isn’t trained that quickly as the mother will probably have to repeat this process a few times before the puppy associates the yelp with the biting, but with consistency the training occurs.
Another example we can observe in the litter is the relationship between litter mates. When two or more puppies are playing, and one of them bites a little too hard, the one that got bit will let out a yelp just like the mother mentioned above. The results are the same, the yelp, shocks the biting puppy and all activity stops for a short period of time. Each time this is repeated it teaches the biting puppy that he is causing pain and each time he stops biting.
Nature is a good teacher especially when looking at how animals learn. We can take the same example and use it to our advantage to stop puppy biting, here are 4 steps to quickly and easily get it under control and stop the frustration.
- Hold your puppy and play with him as you normally would. When your puppy bites, let out a yelp, the puppy should stop biting immediately.
- Take your hand away from your puppy right away
- Ignore your puppy for a few short seconds
- Love on your puppy and let him know he is a “very good puppy”!
As mentioned earlier, you will probably have to repeat this process more than once, but stay with it and very soon your puppy will not to bite you. Happy training!
