Just About Jacks

Posts Tagged ‘stopping puppy biting’

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.

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Are you currently in close combat with a boisterous puppy that doesn’t seem to understand that nipping people is bad? Is your puppy more likely to take a playful bite at your hand, leg or ankle? There’s really no sleepless nights nor expensive stuff needed to get the dog to lay off the biting habit. Here are a few tips on what you could do with your adorable but sadly annoying land shark.

The first step in training puppy not to bite is to discourage it immediately. Your puppy needs to learn that putting its mouth on a human is not at all acceptable. And this does not only apply to puppies, but even adult dogs are capable of learning bite inhibition.

In dealing with more depth to puppy biting, experts suggest a method wherein the biting puppy is startled. Just as the puppy digs into your skin, surprise the puppy with a quick, high-pitched, and loud noise. This is an exact copy of the noise the dog would make if its littermate bit it. You would know if it was performed properly of the dog instantly withdraws its mouth with a bewildered look on its face. At this point, offer the dog a toy that it can chew on (then praise it if it takes the ball). The successive actions just described will make the dog realize that there is no approval from you for biting you, but there is for taking the ball. You may need to do this several times to get the dog to realize the bigger picture. If making the noise makes the dog more excited instead of stopped, try a different tack.

Aside from the strategy of showing the dog that being nipped is painful, another method you can use is to show the dog that it loses friends if it keeps behaving that way. The next time the dog bites, leave the dog immediately (some insist, “dramatically”), sweeping out of the room. Children being plagued by the dog may want to use this method. Soon enough, the dog realizes that it loses friends and playmates if it keeps on behaving as such.

As you help your puppy to see that biting is not an acceptable behavior, you will need to stop playing tug of war with it, or chase, wrestling, or other things that will excite the dog and make it go after you. As everybody knows, physical punishment does not add anything constructive to the solution of this behavior issue.

Putting into action these tips for stopping puppy biting may seem like an uphill battle. But as the leader of the pack, you will of course carry them out with patience, determination, consistency, and hardwork, which means the teaching won’t last longer than what you think!

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.

Are you currently at odds with your puppy that is clueless as to how annoying and painful it is to be nipped? Is your high-energy puppy treating your hand, leg or ankle as some sort of bite-bag (vis a vis punching bag)? Worry not, because we will go over some facts and advice below that will illustrate how to get a dog to give up nipping.

The first step in training puppy not to bite is to discourage it immediately. Your puppy needs to learn that putting its mouth on a human is not at all acceptable. And this does not only apply to puppies, but even adult dogs are capable of learning bite inhibition.

In dealing with more depth to puppy biting, experts suggest a method wherein the biting puppy is startled. Just as the puppy digs into your skin, surprise the puppy with a quick, high-pitched, and loud noise. This is an exact copy of the noise the dog would make if its littermate bit it. You would know if it was performed properly of the dog instantly withdraws its mouth with a bewildered look on its face. At this point, offer the dog a toy that it can chew on (then praise it if it takes the ball). The successive actions just described will make the dog realize that there is no approval from you for biting you, but there is for taking the ball. You may need to do this several times to get the dog to realize the bigger picture. If making the noise makes the dog more excited instead of stopped, try a different tack.

Aside from the strategy of showing the dog that being nipped is painful, another method you can use is to show the dog that it loses friends if it keeps behaving that way. The next time the dog bites, leave the dog immediately (some insist, “dramatically”), sweeping out of the room. Children being plagued by the dog may want to use this method. Soon enough, the dog realizes that it loses friends and playmates if it keeps on behaving as such.

While you work on getting your puppy to see that biting is unacceptable, and that it needs to stop it, you need to refrain from playing tug of war, wresting, chase, or other activities that will foster biting and nipping. Physical punishment will never contribute to solving the problem. Despite what you expect, corporal punishment never contribute anything.

Following these steps in stopping puppy biting is quite a task, but thanks to hardwork, patience, consistency, and determination, the challenge may be shorter than you imagined!