If you have a puppy, you are probably acutely aware of just how sharp those little puppy teeth are!
My goodness, who knew puppy teeth could cause so much damage and even cause bleeding!? Thankfully, this is completely normal, albeit unpleasant, puppy behavior. And the good news is that now is the best time to teach your puppy how to have a gentle mouth.
Puppies need to chew. Puppies need to bite.
It’s what puppies do. This is your opportunity to provide clear feedback to your puppy on just how much his puppy teeth hurt so your pup can learn to inhibit his bite.
Check out this short video (with adorable yellow Lab, Deacon) for ideas to help you stop your pup from biting roughly (and see the tips below!).
Here’s how to curb your pup’s painful nipping.
- Categorize the bites — 4 = blood! 3 = indented skin (you’re surprised there isn’t any blood). 2 = firm pressure. 1 = gentle teeth on skin without any pressure.
- Your reaction will never change, regardless of which step you’re on.
- Have a couple of toys within reach (you may need to leave a toy in each room of the house to make this easier for you) so you can substitute a toy for your skin.
- The first week of the program, you’re going to react only to the 4s. When your pup give you a 4, say “OW!” and stand up and leave. That’s it — just stand up and leave. No lectures, no grabbing the muzzle, no squealing. Just leave.
- During that first week, you’ll also get lots of 3s, 2s, and 1s. Simply offer your pup a toy when you get those bites.
- After Week 1, you should notice a decrease in the number of 4s. This is good news! Now, you’re going to react the same way to the 3s and the 4s “OW!” and leave. If you find that you’re squealing when you say “Ow!,” you can skip that part and just leave.
- After about a week, the 3s should be reduced (just like the 4s did the week before) and in Week 3, you’re going to do the “Ow!” for the 2s (and the occasional 3s and 4s).
- Lather, rinse, repeat until your pup has as gentle a mouth as you need.
Things that don’t work to teach your pup to stop biting.
- Putting your hand over his muzzle, staring him in the face, and saying “NO!” This doesn’t work and will teach your pup to dislike your handling him around his face.
- Shoving your thumb (or fist) into his mouth as he’s biting. I sometimes wonder where on earth people get these ideas, but I hear this one enough to mention it here. Don’t do this!
- Turning him over until he “submits.” Again, way outdated advice. If you’d like to teach your pup to fear you, then do this as that’s the only thing this old-fashioned advice is good for.
Avoid these things while teaching your pup not to bite.
- Roughhousing with your hands. You can roughhouse later in your dog’s life (if your dog likes that sort of thing) after he completely understands bite inhibition. Roughhousing with a dog who understands bite inhibition is actually fun — most of my dogs enjoy roughhousing and are quite gentle with their mouths, which makes them a joy to play with.
- Letting kids play unsupervised with the pup. For so many reasons this a huge no-no. Kids need constant supervision with your pup, no matter how good the kids are with the dog or vice versa. It’s just smart parenting.
Puppy biting is an important phase in your puppy’s life.
While most of us find it annoying, it’s the time to teach your pup how to use his teeth gently. Follow these easy steps and your crazy puppy will be a calm puppy in a matter of weeks.
Fabulous presentation of this information! I hope you don’t mind if I share it.
Yes! Please share the link! I’m putting these videos and this information out there so people will share it and hopefully make the life of dogs a little bit better. Thanks for sharing!
Is there any way to stop your puppy from biting your hand when you give it a treat? I know my puppy is not intentionally biting me when I treat him but it still hurts!
Hi Kayla, thanks for stopping by. I think a lot of puppies bite because they’re not sure when or where the treat will be delivered. So many people feed the pup in a sort of “scaredy” way: they’ll pull their hand back if the pup moves toward the treat OR they sort of dangle the treat just out of reach from the pup. Either of those is a little unpredictable for the pup. Which leads to the CHOMP that people find disconcerting and painful.
Instead, I like to deliver the treat quickly, deliberately, and reliably right into the pup’s mouth. When I click, I move my hand immediately and put the treat directly in the puppy’s mouth. It’s so fast, they don’t have a chance to chomp.
Try it — be quick, reliable, and deliberate. Once your pup understands that the treat will come to him, he’ll quit the bitey-bites. Happy training!
Thank you so much for responding! My fingers are very grateful! I just started doing this yesterday and it is already seeming to help. Your website has been very helpful for the training of our reggie. He is a catahoula lab mix so he will be getting pretty large and your training tips have really helped us control him better before he gets too big.
Thank you again!!
So for the lab pup who’s being trained for hunting, a soft mouth on retrieved birds is a necessary trait. Using your above method, would this lead to too soft of a mouth? Would it be better to stop at level 2 bites in order to maintain enough firmness to keep the bird in their mouth? Or because dogs are poor at generalization, would these actions be distinct enough that it would know “soft mouth” with humans, but use it’s instincts with birds? Awesome videos!
I’ve not trained hunting dogs, but some of the retrieve work that’s used for service dog training may apply here. The dog may need to pick up a sandwich (in a baggie) and deliver it to it’s partner. The dog knows that it needs to hang on to the sandwich tightly enough so it doesn’t drop but softly enough that it doesn’t poke holes into the baggie. This has been easy enough to teach (once you can teach the dog to just hold and not grip-regrip-grip-regrip) that it seems almost a natural concept to the dogs. So while I can’t answer with certainty, I *think* the skill would transfer. Let me know if you experience anything different. It would be interesting to know.
Hi Laurie. I just found your videos and website, I really like your approach. I have just gotten an 8 week old golden retriever. Her teeth are extremely sharp and when she bites she sometimes hangs on so it’s very difficult to walk away. If she grabs my arm often her teeth will get caught in my clothing so I don’t want to hurt her. When I yell “ow” she doesn’t even seem to notice. The puppy in your video is very large compared to my little 8lb 8 week old. I’m wondering if she just doesn’t even understand, too young? Thank you for any advice you can provide.
Hi deeziner, thanks for the questions. Learning is permanent after 5 weeks of age, so you’re pup is definitely old enough to learn bite inhibition. For those puppies that are “hangers on,” I like to utilize a tether. Here’s an article on how I use the tether for house training, but you can still get an idea of how useful a tether would be for a shark-mouthed puppy! http://smartdoguniversity.com/puppy-training-lesson-of-the-day-tethering/ And here’s another article on how I use it for butt nipping. http://smartdoguniversity.com/the-fix-for-a-butt-nipping-dog/ Hope these help!