Puppy Biting - How to Stop Puppy Biting
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How to Stop Puppy Biting?
Puppy biting is normal canine behavior. Puppies will try to put everything into their mouths because they are curious about their surroundings. Puppies also play with each other through play-biting. Play-biting, and wrestling, help puppies learn social rules and boundaries from their mother and siblings.
There is nothing wrong with dogs or puppies biting each other during play, but it is crucial to teach them not to bite on humans.
A puppy who is not taught this lesson may become a danger to all the people around him, including his owners. Play-biting with humans, especially with seniors and children, may accidentally cause injuries and ultimately result in forced euthanasia.
If your puppy is biting you or others, it is best for everyone not to engage in rough play with him. Also, do not play dominance games such as Tug-of-War.
When Your Puppy Bites ...
When your puppy is biting you, it is important NOT to jerk away. If you jerk away you will likely get scratched. In addition, sudden and quick movements will make your puppy think that it is fun dog play, and this will encourage him to bite on you more.
In the worst case, quick movements can activate your puppy's prey drive and make him aggressive. Therefore it is important to control your reflex to jerk away and stay still. Then either give a No command or yelp as a puppy might do to his litter-mates when they are playing too rough.
I usually yelp when it is an accidental dog bite, for example when my dog gets his teeth on me while taking food out of my hand. Yelping is also appropriate for puppies that are still learning. Otherwise, I use the No command for adult and adolescent dogs who should know better.
Bite Inhibition.
Some dogs may have low bite thresholds (i.e. they resort to biting/aggression even with fairly low, seemingly harmless stimuli).
One of my dogs, a Shiba Inu, can get mouthy when he is excited or frustrated, when you restrain him, when you try to force him to do something, etc. Because of this, it was extremely important to train my Shiba Inu to have good bite inhibition.
You should start bite inhibition exercises as soon as you get your puppy. Even though puppy teeth are sharp, a puppy does not have the jaw strength of an adult, and is not capable of doing as much damage. Once your puppy has a soft mouth, you should stop him from biting on any and all humans.
Hand-feeding is a good way to teach your puppy good bite inhibition. Hand-feed your puppy at least some of his kibble every day. If he bites too hard when getting his food, do a sharp ouch or yelp and ignore him for a few seconds then start feeding your dog again.
If your puppy is taking food from you gently then praise him and keep the food coming. You can also combine hand-feeding with obedience training and dog grooming sessions. Hand-feeding also helps get rid of food aggression issues so it is good to continue this practice throughout your puppy's life.
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After You Get Your Puppy
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You can also get Ian Dunbar's book After You Get Your Puppy, for an overview of bite inhibition, and how to best train your puppy to have a soft mouth.
Note that Ian Dunbar may come across as somewhat alarmist and you may feel that if you don't meet his somewhat unrealistic dog socialization and puppy training demands, things are going to go badly. I just try to ignore the alarmist talk and focus on the bite inhibition and handling exercises which are quite useful.
Believe me, you will be thankful that your puppy has a soft mouth. Because my Shiba Inu has good bite inhibition, we were able to solve many of his problems which would have been difficult to deal with if he was biting at full strength.
Stop Puppy Biting Techniques
While dealing with puppy biting issues, it is important that you stay calm and assertive at all times.
If your dog is causing puncture wounds; or escalating his dog aggressive and dominant behaviors, (e.g. humping your leg) it is best to get professional help as soon as possible. It is much better to catch problems early and fix them before they escalate in degree and frequency.
Stop Puppy Biting Technique 1
Redirect your puppy onto a toy.
This technique is especially useful for an untrained puppy. It lets the puppy know that it is ok to bite on a toy but not ok to bite on humans.
My dog gets excited and starts biting when I scratch his tummy, so initially, I used that as a training exercise to get him to bite on a toy instead of on my hand. Since I can start the exercise anytime I want, I can control the environment and make sure that I have multiple soft toys nearby for use.
A toy can also be useful for those cases where your puppy is losing control (too excited, too frustrated). Giving him something to redirect his excitement or frustration at may help calm him down.
Puppy Training
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How to Raise a Puppy You Can Live With
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Stop Puppy Biting Technique 2
Push your hand (fist) into your puppy's mouth.
Some trainers suggest making your hand into a fist (so your fingers are safe), and then pushing your fist in (not too hard), when your puppy bites. This is uncomfortable for the puppy, and he will likely release your hand.
While it did get my puppy to release my hand, it did not reduce his biting behavior. In fact, my dog responds badly to any aversive methods. Doing this made him want to bite on me even more because he got a reaction and now has something (my fist) to "fight" with.
Stop Puppy Biting Technique 3
Spray water on your puppy's muzzle.
This worked initially, but only for a very short period of time. Once my puppy figured things out, he started attacking the spray bottle.
Some trainers suggest hiding the bottle, but I wasn't able to do that fast enough. Little water guns are easier to hide but they leak, run out of water quickly, and do not have a strong spray.
As with all other aversive methods, it is difficult to trick a puppy into thinking that the bad stuff is not coming from you.
Stop Puppy Biting Technique 4
Time-out.
Most dogs value their freedom to roam around the house. Dogs are also pack animals and like being with both human and canine members of the family. Since a time-out takes away both of these things, it is an extremely effective method of dog discipline.
When giving your dog a time-out, make sure you put him in a really boring room with no windows that he can reach. Make sure that there is nothing in the room that he can chew, play, or interact with in any way. Finally, make sure that nobody gives your dog any attention during this time.
My dog's time-out area is in my laundry room. It is better not to use a crate for timeouts because the crate should be a happy place where your dog feels comfortable going to for some peace and quiet, sleep, and eating.
A time-out is the most effective way to stop my dogs from biting. I only use it when my dog is deliberately acting out and not for accidental biting. As with all other time-out offenses, I first use the No command as a warning. If he stops, then I praise him and let him continue with his regularly scheduled program. If he continues to bite, then I say Time-out and quickly remove him to his time-out area.
Initially, I start with a short 1 minute time-out. If my dog continues to bite me and others after he comes out of time-out, I return him to the laundry room for a much longer period of time (about 15 minutes). Be flexible with your time-out duration and adjust it according to your dog's age, temperament and behavior.
Some trainers do not believe in long time outs while others may ignore their dogs for hours or even days.
Do not use time-outs for training mistakes or lack of motivation.
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Comments
Hi Jim. Thanks for sharing your story. Most dog bites I think are preventable with some training and management. And it is probably not a matter of liking you or not, but rather responding to the type of energy you were projecting. It has been my experience, with my own dogs, that when I project fearful energy, they start acting out.
I think it is really awesome that your past experience did not prevent you from getting a dog of your own. She sounds like a really fun and balanced dog.
my dog keep fighting what do i do iv tryed everthing so far.sometimes they are the nices things ever.they are a bull-dog&a boxer.the bull-dog mostly starts the fights but then my boxer goes him.AHHHHH!they are called frank&bruno.the boxer is called bruno&the bull-dog must be called frank!
Thanks for visiting ellie. How serious are the fights? Break skin? puncture wounds? Do they also bite people in the house? How serious are those bites? What have you tried so far?
If the fights are serious (e.g. puncture wounds) it is best to get a professional trainer, who is familiar with these more dominant, powerful, breeds, to come over and help you. There is usually a lot going on wrt. body language, triggers, etc. that may lead to a fight, and a trainer will be able to observe the root of the problem and address that.
In the meantime, it is best to carefully manage your dogs so that they are always supervised when they are together. Otherwise, keep them separated. You want to stop them from practicing any kind of aggression. Exercise will also help. The more tired they are, the less frustrated energy they will have, which can frequently trigger a fight.
I have tried some of these techniques but my chihuahua has learned to fear children from past experiences before we owned him. He has scratched my nephew's skin with his teeth- never punctured skin. Now we have a toddler and he snarls and jerks his neck toward her as if to bite, but doesn't. THe vet told us to get rid of him soon. If a dog has a bad past- we got him when he was 1 and now he's 5- is there any hope for re training. He autmoatically reacts in fear toward kids, but our child has never hurt him- she is vey gentle and always monitored around him.
I think that most dogs can be retrained, but (why is there always a but?) it may take a lot of time, and the end result may not always be perfection. It is easier to teach dogs when they are young because then, their mind is open to new experiences, and they are very eager to learn. It is also easier to prevent a behavior than it is to break a bad habit that has already been reinforced time after time.
The most important thing about fear aggression, I think, is the energy of the humans around the dog. Usually, when a dog shows aggression, our natural reaction is to become fearful ourselves, and that will make the dog even more fearful and more aggressive - leading to a vicious cycle. For now, you may want to put a basket muzzle on your dog when he is around children. This usually helps to put everyone at ease because there is less danger of anyone getting hurt. Only do this if your dog is not stressed or fearful of the muzzle or it may worsen the problem.
Do controlled desensitization exercises several times, every day. First start off the dog at a distance from the child. It has to be far enough so that the dog is still calm. Ask the child to ignore the dog. Reward and praise the dog for being calm in the presence of a child. It also helps to ask the dog for some simple commands, e.g. "watch", "sit", and reward him for doing that in the presence of a child. Then you can *slowly* reduce the distance. If the dog starts acting out, then you have moved too close, too quickly. Move back and restart. Make the sessions short and fun so that your dog starts to associate good things with children, and learns not to be fearful of them. At other times, give the dog a nice quiet area away from children, so that he does not practice his aggression.
Have you seen the show DogTown on NatGeo? They are a dog shelter, and they often take in many dogs with aggressive histories and then retrain them. I really enjoy the show and it always makes me feel very hopeful. Last season they even took in Michael Vick's dogs and retrained them. Quite amazing.
I would definitely try desensitization exercises and consult a positive reinforcement trainer trainer on this. In cases of aggression, it always helps to have a trainer observe the dog and identify what exactly is causing the dog distress, and the level of distress. Hope this helps. Please let us know how things go.
Very helpful advice especially about the desensitization techniques. Will check out that show on National Geo also. It's amazing how quickly people (even our vet) tell us to get rid of our dog, but I would like to have some hope that things will get better. You give me some hope. I would even be willing to try a trainer specifically for this isuue too. One more thing... would you have the child give him a treat sometimes too, when he is behaving well around her? Do you think the training will help him be better around other kids in general too, if we just train him around our child? We put a muzzle on him when we walk him because kids run up to him (he is tiny and cute so very hard to resist) and he has snipped at them.
Thank you for the wonderful advice- you know dogs for sure!
I would start with having the child toss a treat to him first. Make sure to only do this when he is calm and not being insistent about wanting the food - i.e. nosing, whining, etc. Make sure that the dog never uses aggression to try and "bully" the food from the child.
Generalizing the training to a variety of kids will definitely help, but it is important to only do this with kids who are good about following instructions and who can stay calm, so that the dog doesn't get distressed during the training sessions. It can often be a challenge to find kids who are willing to do this :)
Definitely consider getting a professional trainer. The aggression may come from a variety of reasons. A good trainer will be able to read the dog and accurately identify the root of the aggression. Good luck! Let me know how it goes.
My dog is quite older , he is addicted to me and stays away from my mum and dad he humps my leg and growles if anyone shouts at me or touches me and has bite 3 times hes a lovable bichon frise but I cant fix this problem no matter what advice I get , I really need help and my stupid dad says that if he ever bites him he will get him put down immediatly i'm sooo worried Its partly my fault because I never discipline him but can anyone help ?. WB immediatly before its too late Thanks Vry much
Hi Asherlééi. The situation you describe is actually a pretty common one. It happens when different people in the house treat the dog differently. As a result of this, the dog sees you and him as belonging to the same pack, and your parents as being in a different pack, i.e. outsiders. Your dog sees himself as the leader and you as his follower, hence the humping. The growling is him telling the outsiders (your parents) that you belong to him so they cannot touch you.
I highly recommend that you get the help of a positive reinforcement trainer. A trainer will be able to observe the dog and accurately diagnose the key issues. A trainer will also be able to give you detailed instructions and show you what you need to do to fix things. Visit this site to find a trainer near you:
http://www.apdt.com/po/ts/default.aspx
To fix this issue, everyone has to participate. You need to pratice a lot more discipline and your parents need to participate in training, feeding, and doing other activities with the dog. The dog needs to see the whole family as his pack and not just you. All of you need to come up with some house rules, and be totally consistent in how you deal with the dog. Make sure that you only reward the dog (including affection, food, freedom, etc.) when he is doing something good and desirable. Many people make the mistake of giving affection to a dog all of the time, even when he is misbehaving, and this encourages the dog to keep repeating those misbehaviors. Training, feeding, and walking are all activities that can help improve bonding with the dog, so your parents should be the ones to do that for a while, and you can focus on the discipline aspect.
The dog also has to see all of you as his leader. If not, he will likely become more and more aggressive. As the leader, he has to protect his pack, and he will do so by biting. As leader, he will also not heed the words of his follower (you), and this could make him dangerous to others as well as himself. Dogs really need discipline and structure, or they will get stressed, possibly aggressive, and develop other behavioral issues. The first thing to do is to follow the NILIF program. Everyone in the family has to follow it religiously.
http://ezinearticles.com/?NILIF---Nothing-in-Life-
Also do short obedience sessions with the dog every day. The best thing is to enroll the dog in a class. If that is not possible, then get a good positive reinforcement training book. Everyone should participate in training the dog.
There is much more that you can do, and certainly much more than I can write here. That is why the best thing to do is to get help from a professional trainer.
Hi
I have a 12 week old male shih-tzu who is real calm except that a couple of times a day - usually early morning and late evening he will lunge at my feet and bite - will also lunge out at hands and has drawn blood. He has a coupel of toys that when he is in that 'state' he will shake vigourously form side to side and get real angry with. Otherwise he is calm.
From reading your comments I think its dominance aggression so am practicing lots of calm assertive behaviour and correcting him but when he's in 'a frenzy' he's hard to catch and calm down. Should I just time him out then? Any other advice or tips very very welcome.
Hi Jeannie, From your description, it sounds like it could be a case of excess energy. Dogs are crepuscular, and tend to be very active in early morning and late evening. One thing to try is to take him out for a walk during those times (before he starts his crazy, aggressive, behavior). Another thing that I do is make my dogs work for all of their food. I stuff it in all kinds of toys and they have fun digging it out. At the same time they get some mental stimulation while figuring out how to get at the food. Here are some of the toys that I got for my dogs:
http://hubpages.com/_srec/hub/Toys-for-Dogs-best-d
Playing games can also help with bonding, energy release, and stress release.
http://hubpages.com/_srec/hub/Dog-Play-Fun-Games-t
Note however, that you are absolutely right in not allowing him to escalate his aggression. It is best to try and reduce the number of aggression displays with exercise and obedience exercises, but if he does get aggressive, it is important to stop him from escalating. Time-outs work best for my Shiba Inu but different methods may work better for different dogs depending on their temperament. To make it easier to catch him, you can try putting on a drag-lead. That way when he runs, you can just step on the lead. Make sure to cut off the loop on the lead so that it does not catch on anything, and make sure to only use a flat collar (NOT a choke, prong, or any other training collar). Good luck. Let us know how it goes with your little guy.
Hi shibashake!
I was wondering if my "woof-thud" method would work here. If it does, I have a good mind to patent it! Please help.
:)
*Poke* - Don't make me come over there and seek my dogs on you!
In any case, I still think you are a dog lover at heart. If you are willing to do Mission Impossible type stunts to feed your landlord's dog; I can only imagine what you would be willing to do for your own dog :D
I want to know how to get my dog ginger to stop biting me and everybody in our family PLEASE HELP yours truly Sarah at age 14
if anyone knows anything about how to stop dog biting I would be happy to listen to it I know ginger is a good dog but she has a bad habit of doing it PLEASE HELP by telling me what I should and should't do then please tell me Im crying because I don't know what to do Sarah age 14
Hi Sarah, Could you tell me a bit more about Ginger? How old is she? Did this biting behavior just start or has she always been that way? When does she bite? (e.g. when you try to pet her, when you play with her?) Have you tried to stop her from biting? If so, what have you tried, and how did Ginger react?
There are a variety of techniques you can try (including the ones listed above) to control non-serious biting (just mouthing, and no breaking of skin). For more serious biting issues, it is usually best to get a professional trainer who can come over and observe Ginger. In this way, the trainer can accurately assess the reasons for Ginger's biting behavior, and come up with a training program to help you and Ginger communicate with each other more effectively. Dog misbehavior is commonly a result of mis-communication or mis-understanding between dog and human.
Thanks for the reply!
Haruki is doing much better now! He understands very well the meaning of the quiet room! He's not so aggressive towards my hands and only nips....but mostly he knows he's not allowed! Thanks to you, he's much much better. He's finally acting like a puppy! I have guests over and everyone is saying that he's great and calm! I really can't thank you enough!
He's only three months, so I know there's going to be the "challenging phase" lets hope it doesn't come, but if there's anymore concerns, I'll definitely turn to your blog for more info!
You're so great for sharing your experiences! Really appreciate in what you are doing! If there's any way that I could send you a coffee, please let me know!
Hello Tsuki,
I am very glad to hear that Haruki is doing so well! Want to exchange Shibas? :)
"If there's any way that I could send you a coffee, please let me know!"
lol - a happy Shiba is a good enough reward for me. And your nice words are also greatly appreciated. I would love to see Haruki though, so send some pictures over when you have the time :)
Hahaha! Exchanging is not possible. Hehe!
Sure! Images I can do! I'll photoshop a coffee in along with Haruki's naughty face! ^_^
My Norweigan Elkhound was super-mouthy and what has worked best is a loud, sharp "ah ah, no!" or "tsch!!!" sound and then I give his body a quick poke with my finger and say "Ouch!". Then show him where he 'hurt' me, so to speak. After a while, he began to show remorse and would give kisses if asked. Cute!!!
Hi Mona,
I love the look of the Norwegian Elkhound! I have been thinking of getting one. How old is yours? When did you get him? How is his temperament? He sounds like a sweetie.
The "ack-ack" works well for my Shiba too. Finger pokes worked initially, but only for a very short time. In the long-term, redirecting onto a toy, or withdrawing my attention (time-out lite) seems to work better for my Shiba.
hello I have a 7 month old shiba who looks just like yours. He's still mouthing on me but i'm still working on correcting that. 3 days ago my girlfriends mom gave him a steak bone to chew on in the yard. While he was working on that bone my girlfriends brother walked in front of him and all of a sudden he got up on all four, hair standing up, and started screaming and yelling at him guarding his bone. He tried to bite my girlfriends brothers foot so right away I grabbed his leash and pulled him towards me and away from my girlfriends brother. He then got a hold of my hand and started biting and chewing on it. Well he broke skin and my hand was bleeding all over the place. That was the first time i've ever seen him like that..any advice? He is currently enrolled in obedience class but i'm starting to think he needs one on one training since he only wants to play with other dogs while they are listening to their owners.
Hi John,
Re food aggression:
Here are some things to try:
1. Don't give him any bones or other high priority items such as raw meat etc. You want to set him up for success and reduce the number of instances where he is showing aggression over food.
2. If he shows any aggressive behavior, you should non-mark him (No or Ack-ack). If he continues, remove him to timeout. Make sure you are safe at all times though, so wear thick gloves if necessary when you are taking him to time-out. This way he learns that aggression gets him nowhere and that if he is aggressive with people, he doesn't get to be with people.
3. If he is not overly aggressive over food, you can try hand-feeding him. Only do this if he is not overly aggressive and will not just go for your hand right away. If you are able to hand-feed him, then you can start training him on bite inhibition exercises.
4. I would also start to make him work for all of his food. Use food for training, grooming, etc. Put the rest in interactive food toys so that he has to work for everything. Also follow the NILIF program - this means he has to do something for you first (e.g. Sit, Down) before he gets anything in return - including opening doors, getting a toy, getting any food, etc. This will show him that you are in control of all the resources, and the fastest way to get what he wants is to do what you want first.
5. Make sure to remove all resources when you have guests over. This will keep things safer while you are re-training him, and it will also reduce the number of aggression episodes. The less he practices it, the less it will be a habit.
Here are more food aggression techniques:
http://hubpages.com/_srec/hub/How-to-Stop-Your-Dog
Re classes: You are right in that private classes will be very helpful. Initially I attended both group and private classes.
The private classes I mainly used to come up with strategies for dealing with bad behaviors at home.
The group class is also useful because it helps you practice getting your Shiba's attention in highly distracting environments. It also helps with dog-dog socialization, which is very important for a Shiba because they tend to get dog aggressive as they get older. The techniques you learn in group class will also be very helpful in the private sessions when you are trying to troubleshoot particular issues, for example food aggression issues.
In this way you can just focus on the problem behaviors during the private sessions, rather than learning how to do specific commands.
Hope this helps. Let me know how it goes.
Thanks for the help! I will keep you posted on how everything goes.
Thanks for the suggestions. We got a 7 week old black lab 2 weeks ago. She gets very excited when she sees us and jumps up and bites. We are trying hard to break the habit but some days are worse than others. I'm hoping that once she's had her 2nd innoculation in 2 weeks and we can start walking her that it will calm her down. We've tried timeout which is quite successful but sadly we haven't anywhere particularly boring for her!
Hi Tiger,
One thing that really worked well with my dogs is to do the following -
1. Fold you arms up.
2. Non mark her - ack-ack.
3. Turn away from her - don't move back just turn away. Keep turning away as long as she is jumping and ignore her.
4. As soon as she stops jumping - mark that behavior - good girl. Ask her for a sit, and give her affection while she is calm.
5. If she starts jumping again, non-mark and repeat.
Playing with other dogs will help with energy a lot. If you have any dog daycares near you, they will usually have puppy classes and/or puppy play sessions. The one that I have near me organizes puppy play sessions for free. It helps with socialization and really helps get the zoomies out.
Dog Biting in the News
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jim10 says:
11 months ago
I am thankful for the hub. I was bit by the same dog twice when I was little. It was my aunt's dog and I don't remember doing anything that could have provoked him. The first time I was patting him normally I had been around other dogs without issues. (So I don't think it was me, but I was about 10.) I guess he was tired of it and bit my hand. The next time we had a cookout. I was just getting my food and he stood in front of me then lunged at me and bit me in the face. I think that dog bit my cousin too. But not badly. From what I can remember my uncle always played very roughly with him. But I think he just didn't like me.
Well on a more pleasant note. Last year my family and I got the perfect dog. She is part Black Lab and part Chow. She is the friendliest and kindest dog I've ever seen. She did mouth a little as a puppy and the vet suggested yelping whenever she touched skin and it worked great.