How to Deal with a Biting Puppy | Dog Training
Puppy nipping and mouthing is a completely
normal behavior.
Puppies nip, mouth and chew not only because
they’re teething, but because that’s really
how they explore their world, using their
mouth.
They’re all about the mouth, and that’s fine
except we don’t want them using their mouth
on us, our clothing or our furniture.
So the best thing to do to make sure that
you can control your puppy, especially when
they get in those kind of bouts of excess
energy and mouthing is to have them on a long
lightweight indoor leash.
This way you can simply hold your puppy away
until they calm a little bit and redirect
them onto an appropriate chew toy.
Fortunately for me, this puppy is really engaged
in his chew toy, and I’ve been keep encouraging
that, and he’s not chewing on me.
What your puppy is going after and what they’re
chewing on can give you some guidance on what
type of chew toys to give them.
Right now, this puppy’s really pleased with
his little soft toy and he’s enjoying that.
However, if that wasn’t working for him, I
might give him a food stuffed toy some sort
of a rubber bone or something that has a bit
of a nice tasting meaty treat in there so
that if the fluffy toy wasn’t quite doing
it for him I would give him something a little
higher value that he wouldn’t be able to resist.
But this, I’m going to put my foot on it so
it doesn’t roll away.
There you go.
And then he can gleefully chew and lick at
that instead of at my shoes.
Another option might be something that he
can chew on in whole, like this little stick
made out of dry bully.
Lets see if he likes that.
Gives me a little object exchange too.
The important thing to remember is not to
get angry at your puppy when they’re mouthing
or biting at you.
They’re not trying to do you any harm.
But with that said, you don’t want to allow
it to happen.
You don’t want them to practice behavior that
you don’t want to see in an adult dog.
So as your puppy’s parent, you’re going to
guide them to what they’re allowed to chew
on and play with with their mouth so that
they’re not learning to do that to you, with
gentle guidance and redirection onto appropriate
items.
