Stop Puppy Biting
Now I’m guessing that your new puppy is gonna be without a doubt the cutest thing in the world and you find it really cute when he or she takes a playful bite at you. Well, you need to stop puppy biting behaviour as quickly as you can.
Most new puppy owners just do not realise that this puppy biting can turn into a whole heap of trouble later on, with dominance and even aggression problems as your cute bundle grows up.
Normally most puppies learn that it’s a good idea to stop puppy biting behaviour when they’re quite young. It’s pretty simple really, if there’s 6 or 8 (or more) of you, you play, you bite and WHOA you get bitten back. Mum will also let them know it’s not a great idea to bite her either. So, normally by the time they’re about 8 – 10 weeks old a pup should have learned that this puppy biting thing isn’t such a good idea.
In The Early Days
Now really you shouldn’t be taking a puppy home much before 8-10 weeks old really, but if you do and you have one that thinks biting is a great game then you need to take quick, positive action to stop puppy biting.
Most importantly, you must never hit your pup in response to a bite. You can be causing problems again for yourself later on, with fear problems and other anxieties which could lead to aggression problems down the road.
To start to stop puppy biting, it’s important that you get right to the root of the problem. In order to do this effectively, you need to be encouraging with good behaviour and discouraging with bad behaviour. You really don’t want to be playing games which will encourage biting, such as wrestling games or a tug of war with a toy. No matter how cute you think it is, or how much your pup enjoys this.
Early, when you’re trying to stop your puppy biting, you should redirect the behaviour to something which is constructive like a chew toy or a play bone. You should say a firm “No!” and then give your pup the toy instead, this will positively reinforce your Alpha status which is good, and also your pup will very quickly learn that fingers and toes are a NO NO, but the chew or toy is OK.
A different but equally effective method is to make a little hurt type noise when you’ve been nipped. Your pup will recognise this as similar to when he bit his nrothers and sisters in the litter. That soft yip noise will let your pup know that he or she casued pain, which is something that it definitely didnt want to do. You need it to be loud enough to startle him into letting go, but not so loud that real fright occurs.
Above all, you must be consistant with your messages to your pup at this stage, it’s very easy to let them get away with stuff because they’re so cute and most times it’s actually quite funny.
But you really do have to get to grips with this early on, you really are doing this for his own good in the long run.
This whole thing of teaching your pup to stop biting is very important groundwork and ideally your pup by 12 weeks of age will have learned that biting just isn’t done. This will make the chances of other bad behaviour like chewing up your house and aggression issues much less in the future.
You will be happier and so will your new furry family member.
