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Prevent Puppy Biting
Monday, August 24th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
I bet if you are reading this, you happen to have a new puppy with sharp little teeth who is fond of biting pretty much everything. 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. He’s teething, so he’s going to have to bite something, and these chew toys are the perfect substitutes for your hands and feet. When your puppy begins to play rough and starts biting your hands you should stop your puppy from biting you by holding his mouth closed with your hand. As soon as he starts to bite you, stop him by holding his mouth shut with your hand. Your puppy won’t exactly enjoy his mouth being held shut, so soothe him with your voice while you hold him. Firmly tell him “no biting”- but without raising your voice. You want to use the calm but firm voice so he doesn’t become nervous and continue resisting longer. The more relaxed he remains, the sooner he will submit. Now that he is once again calm, it is the perfect time to offer him a fun chew toy. As soon as he takes the chew toy in his mouth, give him lots of praise.Every time you play with the pup, repeat giving him the chew toy as needed and he will soon associate the praise-the positive reinforcement- with chewing on the approved chew toy.Just be patient and consistent with this training, and never punish or hit your puppy for playing too rough-that won’t help. Hitting or scolding the pup is a negative reinforcement and will hurt your efforts to bond with the pup and slow down his ability to learn properly.Make sure the entire household is on the same page, for the training to be effective. When someone around the puppy yells or hits him for playing rough, it serves to confuse and hurt your training efforts in the long run.
No-Fail House Dog Training Guide
- To stop a lot of unwanted biting and chewing buy your puppy, keep him in his crate when you can’t supervise him directly. 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. Always be sure to have some chew toys inside his crate for him to bite on while there.
- 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.
- Borrow a trick form Mama dog to let the puppy know he is biting too hard. The way to do this is by yelping in a high pitched voice when he bites you. It might sound silly, but if you watch a Mama dog, you’ll see she does this when a puppy is biting too hard-to let him know he is hurting her.
- 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. This is one of the ways Mama dogs send a very clear message to the pup.
- Of course you probably won’t want to exactly imitate the Mama dog and get hair in your mouth, but use your hand to grab the scruff of his neck as a substitute and give him a little shake. Stick with the correction until the puppy is totally submissive-that is how you will really know he’s received the message about listening to the boss-by being submissive and relaxed.
- In order to discourage your puppy from biting, don’t play rough house games (such as tug of war and wrestling) with him. I know from experience that rough playing with my puppies always led to a lot of bloody tooth marks on my arms and hands-it was fun but painful to play with my puppy. I didn’t realize at the time the rough playing was not a good idea because it could increase his aggression level.
Use these tips to get control of your puppy’s biting problem. Please click here to see more great dog training tips www.BehaveDoggy.com.
To read my review of the best of the Internet’s dog obedience training programs, please click here.
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