Helpful Tips to Stop Your Puppy From Play Biting
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009Who doesn’t like to play with puppies? They’re so cute and so much fun! But when your puppy doesn’t understand how sharp and dangerous his teeth are, it can be problematic. It is very important to teach your puppy not to bite or nip. Here are some basic rules to follow for puppy’s playtime.
Use toys when you play with your puppy and do not use your hands. Using your hands to “bat” or shove your puppy around implies that your hands are toys and therefore fair game to puppy’s teeth. Puppy’s roughhouse naturally and their teeth (and biting) are a big part of that.
Keep a variety of toys on hand for puppy to play with. There are many kinds of doggy toys ranging from soft to hard, all made with the same idea that puppies love to chew. And, they’re certainly less costly than a new couch or a trip to the emergency room! The only rule is that the toys should not resemble things that your dog is not allowed to chew on. Chew toys that look like sticks, bones or fire hydrants are fine. Chew toys that look like your cat – definitely not fine.
Use a deterrent like Bitter Apple Spray or similar substance to keep puppy’s mouth off things that aren’t for puppy to chew on. When puppy grabs at you with his mouth, shove a toy between yourself and the puppy to show puppy what is acceptable. Don’t say “no” or anything else to imply the toy is wrong, merely replace the unwanted behavior with the right behavior.
If your dog is prone to chewing, pulling or otherwise attacking your shoes, hands or even your pant legs, you might think that it’s cute when he’s a tiny pup but chances are that encouraging this behavior while he’s a puppy will result in this behavior continuing when he’s full grown. What might be ‘cute’ when they are pups could be downright dangerous when your dog is full grown.
One thing to be careful of. If you react in an excitable or startled manner to your puppy biting you, they are likely to think you’re playing a game – this of course makes them think that this is a fun thing to do. Replacing the inappropriate behavior with an appropriate chew toy is far more effective and soon your puppy will understand that toys are for biting and mouthing and not your hand or clothing.
If you are having difficulty training your dog avoid hitting him, scolding loudly and shaking. Remain calm, pick your dog up and place him in a quiet area such as his crate. Allow both you and your puppy to calm down. Then let him out and continue to play. Don’t be tempted to use the crate for punishment or your puppy will soon associate crating with punishment and will not want to be in the crate for any period of time.
Teach your puppy fun games like fetching, hide-and-seek, and the like. Just remember that if playtime abruptly ends every time puppy has bad behavior, he’ll stop being bad in order to extend playtime.
Having a puppy or new dog is very rewarding, but you must keep in mind that there are many dog training tools out there that will help you train your dog as well. Some of these tools come from the manufacturer Innotek such as the Innotek IUT-300 dog training collar, the Innotek 1000 dog collar, or if you have two dogs that need to be trained you might want to try the Innotek 1000 dog training collar.









