How to Train your Puppy to Stop Biting

Puppy biting is an inevitable part of having a puppy but it can also be one of the most frustrating and painful. Today, we'll cover how to teach your puppy to stop biting you.
Understand that I strongly discourage the use of training collars like choke prong and electric collars that's because those types of collars are specifically designed to train with pain and that does nothing to promote a bond between a person and a dog and put our dogs well-being first.

Have you ever heard that when your puppy is biting you like this that you should say ouch and walk away from them ouch and we can definitely say now what we thought that this was a bit of a shallow way to address this because you're addressing the symptom the biting and not the cause your dog's desire to interact with you. There are two main reasons that bite like this because they're teething or because they're trying to engage the world. This is how they grab things if your puppy is teething you'll definitely want to make sure they have regular access to safe chew toys of lots of different textures. Now it's going to take a few weeks to really resolve puppy biting and dogs can be really nippy until they're about five months old or even longer if it goes unchecked so you must commit to being very patient with them. Right now you and your dog don't yet have really crystal clear communication together and every interaction you have with them needs to be focused on building that communication and addressing puppy biting is one of the best opportunities to do that in addition to the exercises I'm about to cover make sure you have a strong focus on desensitizing your dog to being touched firmly by a person.

Puppies and dogs really enjoy massage so the more they're used to this the less likely they are to nip at you. You know I've even heard some dog trainers recommend biting your dog back so they know how it feels, but those are really silly ways to teach it on if your puppy play bites really excessively then you've probably got a high-energy dog. If that's the case then exercise early in the morning and throughout the day is mandatory if you want relief sooner rather than later chances are if you've got a puppy biter on your hands you're probably getting pretty good at predicting when they're about to be bitey for example in my puppy's case it's all the time simply hoping for the best and reacting negatively when your puppy bites you is not going to resolve this efficiently. Fast success comes when you're one step ahead of your dog now I know you can do this you're a person there a dog most of you are smarter than your dog I hope first let's talk about how you need to get good at using a toy to curb puppy biting since I know that my puppy is likely to bite me when I go to greet him I want to be one step ahead of him by having a toy that I know he likes already with me which is okay to bite but my flesh is not so we want to continually divert our dog's attention to the toy the thing that is acceptable to bite over time your dog is going to start to realize biting the toy is preferable. So there's some things I'm allowed to buy some other things I'm not just they're not born knowing this so you have to take the time to teach it's not reasonable to expect a dog to just be calm all the time your goal should be to get them to release energy and play when we asked them to rather than waiting for them to ask out on their own. Now let's talk about how to use treats to curb puppy biting I mean your dog has to know the proper conduct when encountering a person remember when your dog is biting you they're just trying to engage, we just have show them and teach them that we prefer a different kind of engagement a more civilized form of engagement. Since I know when my puppy is likely to start biting me when I engage with him I've got to be one step ahead of him so I've got a treat right here now ask him to sit fir the treat which has a calming effect and a reward for him. It's worth noting that many puppies who bite don't know how to take a treat gently and they really bite your hands while trying to get that treat so if that's your dog just simply give the treat with open palm it's a good idea to have treats easily accessible at all times if you've got a new dog. Let's take all of that exuberant energy and turn it into learning power now right off the bat when you're using treats that's likely to subdue your dog's desire to bite just because they getting into food mode when a dog is in the mood to eat they tend to be a little less bitey.

Now, you might be wondering "hey, am I rewarding my dog for biting in this situation?" No, you're not, because we asked him to sit first so ideally you asked your dog to do something else. Maybe it's "sit". Maybe it's "lie down". Maybe it's "come". Reward for the thing you DO like. so you can see by training 'like' we're satisfying his urge to want to interact with us and our desire to have a well-behaved dog at the same time.

Initiating a 30 second to two minute training session like this teaches your dog to respond to you, rather than simply behaving impulsively. This is why it's important to make great effort to understand why your dog is acting a certain way rather than simply focusing on correcting unwanted behaviors after they occur. Imagine it if you were really consistent about asking your dog to sit every time you greeted them a thousand times in a row. Your dog would quickly get into the habit of sitting to greet you instead of biting you. How great would that be? Use both of these approaches that we've gone over so far and use them often when encountering any dog going through the puppy biting phase. Now, when you notice instances of licking where your puppy used to bite, you'll know you're on the right track! And you should notice that becomes a bit more frequent with time.

Puppy biting can take anywhere between a couple of days and a couple of months with extreme biters so it's really important to keep your expectations in line. So what do you do if you're just hanging out in your caught off guard by the puppy biting? Well, number-one, promptly initiate a training session like this take them for a good walk then place them in a boring environment for a few minutes until they calm down a bit parents of young kids, understand that it's your responsibility to teach your puppy not to bite.