Biting

[yeggy]

My 14 week old German Shepherd puppy has started to bite. Hands, feet, shoes. When I stop her she just thinks it's a game. I distract her with a toy and as soon as the game is over she's biting again Does she consider the distraction to be a reward for her biting? I end up confining her in the garden This is really frustrating because she is normally such a lovely companion. We don't play tugging games and have never encouraged mouthing or biting.

[StaceyB]

When she nips/bites make a loud yelping noise and stop play for a minute or so, if she does it again yelp and stop play for a bit longer. If she does it a third time make the yelping noise and stop play completely and put her in time out.

The yelping noise is so she will recognize that she has hurt you (even if it didn't really hurt).

She will eventually put two and two together and realise that biting = no play/time out.

I'm sure other members will have other suggestions for you that may or may not work better depending on your girl, but this method worked very well for me and 12 months on Gypsy never touches people with her teeth - tongue is a different matter all together though

ETA - forgot to mention it only took about 2 weeks to stop Gypsy from mouthing people completely.

Edited July 4, 2008 by StaceyB

[persephone]

Hi...

have a look here

http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?show...=nipping+biting

http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?show...Nipping+mothing

You may get some ideas. It is something that definitely needs stopping... hope you and pup can communicate without the teeth, soon.

Edited July 4, 2008 by persephone

[Leema]

My standard response...

This is just puppy stuff. Dogs don't have hands. They investigate everything with their teeth. There's a number of methods that do work.

Emitting a high pitched yelp when the pup bites. If a pup was playing with another pup, and one hurt the other, the hurt pup would yelp. This is the sound you a mimicking. It is a sound that lets the pup know that you are hurt. Some dogs get more excited by the yelp (so this doesn't work for all dogs).

Say "NO", and press your hand deeper into the pups throat, so the dog gags and spits your hand out. The dog soon learns that putting his mouth around your hand results in discomfort, and will soon stop. This is also a good method as the dog learns that he controls his own behaviour, as he must let go of your hand, not you pulling your hand away.

Ignore your dog when it bites. Leave the room long enough for the pup to forget he was playing with you. He will soon learn that biting means you go away, which he certainly won't want.

'Sin binning' does work, but is harder. Say "NO" and pick the puppy up, holding him away from your body, then put him in a boring place that he will never use otherwise (e.g. the bathroom) and leave him there for several minutes OR until he is quiet.

Say "NO", withdraw you hand, and give the pup a toy instead. Reward the pup profusely for chewing on the toy.

It may help to use a word for biting. For my dog, I used "Vicious". When I wanted him to stop biting, I taught him to become placid with "be cuddly". It may seem a bit backwards, but the dog will learn to stop biting on command. Many people advocate not allowing any mouthing at all, and it's important you have very clear guidelines if you are going to permit some mouthing.

[yeggy]

Thanks StaceyB and Leema and for those links, Persephone. I've had a thorough read and will print everyones's comments out and work out a consistent plan of attack, so to speak.

[Dog Sense]

My 14 week old German Shepherd puppy has started to bite....

Your pup's completely normal and she is *playing* - that's how she learns (that's how children learn too, through play). Thank goodness she's doing all this with her needle sharp puppy teeth, it helps her learn to use her adult teeth appropriately. She is beginning to learn bite inhibition and bite softening. Being a GSD she's also very stimulated by movement so will bite anything that moves, so when she bites your feet, stand still, then throw a toy or something to distract her from you. I much prefer to work with what the dog offers and turn it to my advantage rather than any form of punishment which generally tends to make pups distrustful of us.

I think this article explains it best:

http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/archives/bite.txt

Good luck.

[Amerykus]

good reading there!

[Flaves]

The other thing that worked with Daire was to grab his muzzle and close his mouth and growl a no at him.

He stopped mouthing fairly quickly

If you look at how a bitch tells off a pup it is over their muzzle usually.

Good luck

[Miranda]

If I have a puppy that starts to chew on me I say "uh-uh", take it by the scruff, give it a little shake and put it away from me, if it repeats the behaviour I give it a harder shake. I find that this works very quickly and very few puppies do it more than once or twice.

[GSDhandler]

If I have a puppy that starts to chew on me I say "uh-uh", take it by the scruff, give it a little shake and put it away from me, if it repeats the behaviour I give it a harder shake. I find that this works very quickly and very few puppies do it more than once or twice.

seems a little rough.... but then again guess it depends on how your dog learns. mine isnt learning by glrowling, or sin binning. or the gag response thing so i might have to give this a go.

[Miranda]

If I have a puppy that starts to chew on me I say "uh-uh", take it by the scruff, give it a little shake and put it away from me, if it repeats the behaviour I give it a harder shake. I find that this works very quickly and very few puppies do it more than once or twice.

seems a little rough.... but then again guess it depends on how your dog learns. mine isnt learning by glrowling, or sin binning. or the gag response thing so i might have to give this a go.

Well it works for me, you don't have to lift them off the ground or go over the top, just be firm. I think it's the shock factor that works, I do it instantly as soon as they bite and I usually only have to do it once, after that the growly "uh-uh" works just as well as they associate the sound with the correction. I'm a great advocate for positive training methods, but sometimes it's necessary to give a little aversion therapy and biting humans is not something that I tolerate even when they're babies. IMO the younger they are when they're taught not to bite the better, biting is little more than an irritation in a baby, but it can become a real problem in a 5 or 6 month old puppy, especially if you have young children and even more so if they have friends who come round to play and end up being chewed by the dog.

Problems like biting are one of the reasons that people rehome dogs and surrender them at pounds, it's far better to nip it in the bud at a very young age than to mess around with positive methods that aren't working, some puppies are harder than others and positive methods won't work with them all.

[yeggy]

Thanks, Dog Sense. That article was great. A really creative way to solve the problem.

I haz flava and Miranda, I tried to shaking - no change. Tried shaking and eyballing - no change. Tried roll over until she relaxed. Made a difference but only for a little while. I don't remember having this problem with my previous GSD.

Tried distracting her from my feet when working in the garden. Not much progress.

She understands gentle really well. Today I sat on the floor with her - my feet tucked under - and I praised her and played with her ruff and ears constantly saying 'gentle' and that worked.

Have also just purchased pigs ears for her to chew on - right now she's enjoying one.

Thanks everyone for your input.

[corvus]

The other thing that worked with Daire was to grab his muzzle and close his mouth and growl a no at him.

He stopped mouthing fairly quickly

If you look at how a bitch tells off a pup it is over their muzzle usually.

Yeah, but my puppy at least is a complete wuss about the "muzzle bite". Penny my older dog did it to him just this morning when she was extremely fed up with him. She reserves the muzzle bite for times when she is well beyond her normal level of patience. It's like a "THAT'S IT! Get OUT of my face!" It makes him cry. Quite a lot, really. It's not that he just doesn't like it much, he really hates it, and finds it terrifying. So I'd be careful about imitating dogs and how they interact with one another. They understand what they're doing, but we don't, really. We can only see through our own eyes, and we can be wrong about what we see. And my wussy pup and my restrained older dog are good examples of how something can be taken in wildly different ways by different dogs. Penny certainly doesn't seem to expect the pup to start screaming when she holds his muzzle, but nor does she use that whenever she wants a break. She always snaps first, and oftentimes she just lifts her lip at him or makes the cranky bark at him. I wonder if the muzzle hold is a bit of the old sledgehammer where a chisel would suffice.

Anyway, we get buy with our pup using the yelp. It helps if you do it really loudly and try to make it sound as much like a dog as you can. Failing that, he gets crate time with a tough bone or pigs ear to ease his chewing needs. Pups nip and mouth. That's what they do. I think it's better to let them figure out at this stage how hard they can bite before they hurt you. Our puppy often responds to a yelp by chewing on you with less pressure. I'm okay with him doing that. It shows he's being considerate of us and learning how delicate we are rather than learning just that all biting is out. He'll grow out of it like every pup does.

[sas]

We went through a really bad period when my dog was a puppy, none of the methods people suggested worked, many things would make him more wound up.

One day when he was 5 months old he got over-corrected for it and never did it again.

Just shows that all puppies are different, there isn't neccessarily a one size fits all method for biting. Typically people start at the more positive gentler methods and then work their way up to more firmer methods if the previous don't work.

Edited July 7, 2008 by sas

[yeggy]

I did try yipping, it worked for a while, now she thinks it's a game. (sigh)

[GSDhandler]

I did try yipping, it worked for a while, now she thinks it's a game. (sigh)

kodas doing the same. so we are haivng to combine all the above advise.

i know inconsitency is bad for dogs but if i stay witht eh same method she seems to just... disregad everything so far.

[Nekhbet]

One day when he was 5 months old he got over-corrected for it and never did it again.

Then that was in fact what the dog required a correction is something that will stop the behaviour, anything else is just an interruptor - will snap the dog out of it this second but wont teach it a long term lesson.

All mine are bigguns' and my method was when the puppy bit me to simply grab it my the muzzle and give it a little squeeze until it submitted, or it it was biting my hand put my thumb on its tongue and give its lower jaw a little squeeze... trick is to make the correction calm and quiet, 'the hand of doG' as it were. So it simply becomes one of those things the dog DOESNT do with anyone, not just learning that when mum/dad grumbles we lay off.

call me barbaric but not one tried it again. And none of them hate me either the trick is to not make a huge fuss over it. Yelping can sometimes perk the prey drive in a dog so in working/hunting breeds I have found it to end up having the opposite effect. In any case, when the pup settles go back to interacting with it, have some food in your pocket or hand every time the pup plays nicely flick some food at it. This will let the pup know its on the right track, at the same time diverting the attention away from getting too razzed up. And being around you always means nice things!

[Flaves]

All mine are bigguns' and my method was when the puppy bit me to simply grab it my the muzzle and give it a little squeeze until it submitted, or it it was biting my hand put my thumb on its tongue and give its lower jaw a little squeeze... trick is to make the correction calm and quiet, 'the hand of doG' as it were. So it simply becomes one of those things the dog DOESNT do with anyone, not just learning that when mum/dad grumbles we lay off.

do the same

[yeggy]

All mine are bigguns' and my method was when the puppy bit me to simply grab it my the muzzle and give it a little squeeze until it submitted, or it it was biting my hand put my thumb on its tongue and give its lower jaw a little squeeze... trick is to make the correction calm and quiet, 'the hand of doG' as it were. So it simply becomes one of those things the dog DOESNT do with anyone, not just learning that when mum/dad grumbles we lay off.

do the same

I will try this. Pippa is like the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead.... When she is good she is very very good and when she is bad, she drives me nuts.

[Flaves]

All mine are bigguns' and my method was when the puppy bit me to simply grab it my the muzzle and give it a little squeeze until it submitted, or it it was biting my hand put my thumb on its tongue and give its lower jaw a little squeeze... trick is to make the correction calm and quiet, 'the hand of doG' as it were. So it simply becomes one of those things the dog DOESNT do with anyone, not just learning that when mum/dad grumbles we lay off.

do the same

I will try this. Pippa is like the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead.... When she is good she is very very good and when she is bad, she drives me nuts.

They are all like that.

But they do grow out of it.