Puppy Biting
Why Do Puppies Bite?
Since puppies are born without hands, the only way they have to explore the world is with their mouths. And you may have noticed that your puppy is quite the explorer. Everything goes into those little mouths, including your fingers, and those baby teeth are like little needles.
It's completely normal for puppies in their litters to bite each other in play. When they engage in this 'bitey
face' game, we think they learn a little about how to inhibit the strength of their biting. If one puppy bites another too hard, that puppy probably will yelp and stop playing. If that happens enough times, the biter learns to apply less pressure.
But puppies are covered with fur and we're not. The same level of bite pressure that is appropriate during puppy play can hurt us and even break the skin. The inhibition they learn in the litter helps, but it's usually not enough to teach young puppies how to properly interact with humans.
How Do You Stop the Biting?
Some trainers will recommend that you hold your puppy's mouth closed, yell "No," or even push their cheeks into their teeth so that they hurt themselves. If you look at it from your puppy's point of view, this may teach them not to bite, but it also teaches them not to trust. They're not being malicious when they bite you, they are simply doing what they are instinctively programmed to do. There are much better ways to deal with it that don't involve hurting your puppy and making them fearful of your hands coming near their face.
When puppies are biting us in play, it's because they are trying to interact with us in the only way they know how. What they want out of the behaviour is for us to interact back. If you're saying, "No, don't, stop, cut it out!" and moving your hands all around to stay out of their reach, to the puppy you're simply playing back and encouraging them to go after those flying hands. They don't understand your words and moving targets are for chasing. The message you want to give your puppy instead is, do this instead of biting me and when you bite me, I will immediately STOP interacting with you.
Teach them what you would like them to do, rather that focussing on trying to stop biting ,instead, teach them to sniff, lick and explore your hands, rather than bite them.
The yelp, you may have heard about the yelp method, this is where the puppy bites and you respond with a loud yelp, some puppies will respond to a yelp by biting harder because these pups interpret it as a 'squeaky to' game, so we don't recommend using the yelp method any longer.
Stop playing immediately. Don't wave your hands around, but do remove them from your puppy's reach. When your pup is calm, you can slowly offer one hand to their mouth. At this point many puppies will lick the hand. This, or any behavior that is NOT biting, should be rewarded with continued attention. But if you get another nip, move away from your puppy altogether. Let them know that 'biting doesn't get my attention, it makes me go away'.
This is not something that your puppy is going to learn right away. They are biting because it is something they're programmed to do. At birth it's as unconscious a behaviour to them as breathing. They have to learn first to connect to it as a voluntary behaviour that they can control. That's why the initial pull-away after the yelp is often followed by another bite (if your hands are within biting distance). It will take a lot of consistent repetition before your puppy is able to get to the stage where they go to lunge to bite, but stops before making contact.
No Rough-Housing With Hands!
The most important thing you can do when your puppy is a little land-shark is to make sure that nobody in their world is rough-housing or wrestling with them with their hands. If this is happening, then no matter what else you do you are confusing them with a game that in essence tells them, "Go for my hands!" Most puppies love to rough- house, and you can still do it. Just substitute a toy for your hands. While they're going after the toy if clumsy puppy misses and bites your skin or clothing, you can stop, drop the toy and stop playing. That will also help teach them to be more careful with their mouthing.
The Bottom Line
If you do absolutely nothing, chances are your puppy will outgrow this stage on their own. But if you are consistent, persistent and patient, reinforcing calm behaviour and withdrawing attention for mouthy behaviour, you may survive your dog’s puppyhood with less teeth marks!
Soft Mouth Training
Dr. Ian Dunbar promoted the idea of 'bite inhibition training' This isn't
training the puppy not to bite (although that’s another important mission). It is training the puppy to bite softly, so that if the dog ever does bite in adult life, they do minimal damage. If this is successfully accomplished along with socialisation, there are now two lines of defence - the dog likes people and so is much less likely to ever bite and if they ever did, they won't bite hard.
The best way to train a soft mouth is to allow the puppy to play-bite (most puppies do this naturally!) As soon as the puppy bites hard, give him some feedback by reacting with a loud (“OUCH!!!!”), even if it didn’t hurt that much, and give the puppy a time-out. Leave the puppy’s confinement area for a couple of minutes. Then go back in with the puppy and play with him some more, ready to repeat the “ouch” and time-out if they re-offend. Most puppies will make the mistake many times so it’s important to persevere. It’s also important for all family members to abide by the same rules, so the puppy experiences a 'common front'. Consistency is key.
If your puppy cries or barks while they're being timed out, wait for them to be quiet before going back into their area, to avoid rewarding them for the noise-making.
When several days have gone by with no hard bites, it’s time to re-direct the puppy’s biting to his toys. Mission accomplished!