Why do puppies bite

  • Starts in litter weeks 2-7
  • Littermate yelp and walk away when bitten too hard – bite inhibition
  • Bite us rather than littermates
  • Breed specific traits
  • Boredom
  • Hungry
  • Attention seeking
  • Exploratory
  • Asking to play
  • Over aroused
  • Over tired
  • Not dominance

How do we stop biting

  • Why are they biting?
  • When are they biting?
  • Where are they biting?
  • When is behaviour worst?
  • When is behaviour best?
  • What made behaviour worst?
  • What made behaviour better?
  • Preempt with play – soft toys, pray like, lots of
  • Rotate toys
  • Keep a toy as special
  • Routine; sleep, feed, toilet, training, play – cycle through – not enough of each can make biting worse
  • Don’t
    • yelp – adds to excitement
    • tap nose
    • grab
    • no!
    • sprays
    • pet corrector
    • rattle
    • put in time out
  • Do
    • redirect to appropriate toy
    • move away
    • change environment
    • frustrated – work on frustration control
    • attention seeking – give more attention on your terms
    • bored – give them things to do

Why do puppies chew?

  • Exploring with mouth
  • Teething – 4-6 months – relived pressure and pain
  • Helping teething process
  • Textures
  • Adolescence -7/10 months chewing phase
  • Breed specific – dissect
  • Learned behaviour – stress, frustration
  • Biting is directed at us, chewing directed at objects
  • Chewing ramps up at around 4 months, biting increases irritable, frustrated  due to teething
  • Chewing happens throughout dog’s life, biting should stop by adolescence

How to encourage appropriate chewing

  • What is motivation
  • Replace with something more appropriate – chewing wooden furniture, replace with wood chew
  • When/where are they chewing – management?
  • Don’t panic if pup picks up something – they’ll normally spit it out – don’t chase, will swallow, guard or instigate game of chase – swap
  • Teach drop
  • Puppy proof
  • Lots of chew items scattered around, rotate
  • Puppy appropriate chews. need to be able to score with your thumbnail
  • Supervise, not small enough to gulp

Management skills

  • Don’t allow to practice
  • Houseline – no tugging
  • Confinement area
  • Less temptation
  • Biting and chewing gets better within 6 weeks of working on it

Biting & chewing in older puppies

  • What’s the trigger – why and when
  • Anxiety
  • Mental and physical stimulation
  • Ingesting – vet check
  • Mouthing – over stimulated/frustrated
  • Attention seeking – control of attention
  • Breed – some more likely, gundogs
  • High drive dogs in unsuitable home
  • Agression?

Troubleshooting

  • Keep biting the same thing – manage
  • Not interested in chews – must be easy, selection, check textures
  • Play – check the game, make sure you are still and toy is moving along the floor
  • Too over stimulated
  • Too over tired
  • Children, erratic – separate – don’t try to train both at the same time – hide and seek game
  • Relationship – attention seeking?