Just About Jacks

Archive for October 2nd, 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. Among the targets is the skin on your hands and feet, any loose shoes you haven’t put away, and well, I am sure you already know nothing is safe.I have listed a few good ideas for helping you deal with your puppy’s biting and chewing stage.

• One of the first things to do is provide some chew toys to your puppy. Since your puppy is teething and definitely needs to bite something, these toys are great alternatives to your skin.  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. Hold his mouth closed with your hand until he stops resisting your grip. He may squirm around because he won’t like his mouth being held shut-so soothe him with a calm voice and hold him still with your other hand. Using a firm but calm voice, tell your puppy “no biting”. You want to use the calm but firm voice so he doesn’t become nervous and continue resisting longer. The sooner he relaxes, the sooner he will submit. Now that he is once again calm, it is the perfect time to offer him a fun chew toy.  Get him to take the chew toy in his mouth, and then give him lots of praise and affection. Repeat this each time you play with the puppy and he will associate the positive reinforcement with chewing on the toy instead of you.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.Make sure the entire household is on the same page, for the training to be effective. If some people are yelling or hitting the puppy when he play bites, this will undermine your own approach and cause the puppy to be confused.

• A good way to prevent household damage when you can’t supervise your puppy’s activities directly, is to keep him in his crate. If you let the puppy have a free run of the house,  he will very likely find something tasty to put in his mouth-your slippers, furniture-pretty much anything he finds. Make sure to put some chew toys inside his crate to serve his chewing enjoyment needs.

• Just use common sense to stop your puppy from biting easily findable 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. You can imitate her, by yelping with a very high pitched voice to let the puppy know he is biting too hard. Even if you feel funny doing this, it is a very effective communication to your puppy.

• A more vigorous demonstration that you want him to stop biting is to hold his mouth shut with your hand and at the same time stare him in the eyes and give him a growl or snarl. You may have seen a Mama dog do this sometime or other.

• You might not want to get fur in your mouth like a Mama dog does to make your point, but you can certainly grab the scruff of his neck with your hand until he is submissive again to let him know that you are the boss. Don’t stop the correction until he has really shown you he understands that you are the boss, by becoming  submissive.

• In order to discourage your puppy from biting, don’t play rough house games (such as tug of war and wrestling) with him. 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. I didn’t realize at the time the rough playing was not a good idea because it could increase his aggression level.

Try out these tips to stop your puppy from biting you and your household. For more great tips and advice on how to train your puppy or doggy please visit www.BehaveDoggy.com.

To read my review of the best of the Internet’s dog obedience training programs, please click here.