Find Dog Items

If your household has a new puppy, I am sure that you have been the victim of his sharp little teeth. That probably has included your family’s hands and feet,  and probably any loose shoes lying around, if not even the furniture.Below are some common sense tips that will help you stop your puppy from biting you and your household, and making sure his chewing is not as much of an issue.

• One of the first things to do is provide some chew toys to your puppy. He’s teething, so he’s going to have to bite something, and these chew toys are the perfect substitutes for your hands and feet.  As you start playing with your puppy and he gets too rough, stop him by placing your hand over his mouth to hold it shut. As soon as he starts to bite you, stop him by holding his mouth shut with your hand. He may squirm around because he won’t like his mouth being held shut-so soothe him with a calm voice and hold him still with your other hand. Using a firm but calm voice, tell your puppy “no biting”. You want to use the calm but firm voice so he doesn’t become nervous and continue resisting longer. The more relaxed he remains, the sooner he will submit. Now that he is once again calm, it is the perfect time to offer him a fun chew toy.  As soon as he takes the  chew toy in his mouth, give him lots of praise.Every time you play with the pup, repeat giving him the chew toy as needed and he will soon associate the praise-the positive reinforcement- with chewing on the approved chew toy.Stay patient and don’t get mad at your puppy for not learning quickly-it could take some time to get the idea across),  and definitely be sure never to hit him for his playing rough and biting you. Hitting or scolding the pup is a negative reinforcement and will hurt your efforts to bond with the pup and slow down his ability to learn properly.For the best results, make sure the whole family knows to only use the positive reinforcement techniques. When someone around the puppy yells or hits him for playing rough, it serves to confuse and hurt your training efforts in the long run.

• Another good method for stopping your puppy from biting and chewing up your household, is keeping your puppy in his crate whenever you are not able to actively supervise him. If you let the puppy have a free run of the house,  he will very likely find something tasty to put in his mouth-your slippers, furniture-pretty much anything he finds. Always be sure to have some chew toys inside his crate for him to bite on while there.

• Use your common sense, and you can easily figure out how to limit access to many chewable items. For example,  try keeping your shoes and slippers, etc. in a closed closet.

• Borrow a trick form Mama dog to let the puppy know he is biting too hard. You can imitate her, by yelping with a very high pitched voice to let the puppy know he is biting too hard. It might sound silly, but if you watch a Mama dog, you’ll see she does this when a puppy is biting too hard-to let him know he is hurting her.

• I have found that a very good way to stop my puppy from biting me is that while holding my hand over his mouth,  I also stare him in the eyes and bare my teeth in a snarl and perhaps even make a low growl to show a threat to him. Mama dogs will do this in order to get the message across very vividly to their puppies.

• You probably won’t want to grab the puppy by the scruff of the neck with your teeth the way a Mama dog does, but there is no reason not to use your hand to hold him still and show him who is boss until he submits. Stick with the correction until the puppy is totally submissive-that is how you  will really know he’s received the message about listening to the boss-by being submissive and relaxed.

• In order to discourage your puppy from biting, don’t play rough house games (such as tug of war and wrestling) with him. I always used to do both those rough games with my puppies, and consequently always used to have bloody hands and wrists and forearms. I didn’t realize at the time the rough playing was not a good idea because it could increase his aggression level.

I hope these tips are useful to get a grip on your puppy’s biting problem. Click here for more dog training tips www.BehaveDoggy.com.

To read my review of the best of the Internet’s dog obedience training programs, please click here.

Find Dog Items

Related posts:

1. How To Stop Puppy Biting
2. How to Stop Play Biting In Your Puppy
3. How to Stop Dog Biting The Easy Way