All young puppies bite and their sharp needle like teeth can be quite painful but this is absolutely normal - it doesn't mean that your puppy is aggressive; it is a part of his social devel¬opment. When puppies interact with each other, they repeatedly bite, nip, mouth and tug each other. They look for the same kind of contact from you until they learn differently. Your puppy will quickly grow out of this stage if you handle it correctly.
Puppy play serves a serious purpose; it teaches the lessons your puppy needs to learn to be able to survive in canine society. Dogs communicate physically, through body language and contact.
Puppies also bite because they are teething, because they are bored and because biting earns attention. Biting for a reaction usually happens after the puppy moves to his ‘forever home’ when he does not have his littermates to play with,
Nipping and chewing are symptoms of a developmental stage that may last until your puppy is 6 to 9 months old. It is not an issue that will be fixed in a single training session. Your puppy must learn to control his bite strength. Consistency is required throughout this puppy period, and regular attention to your dog’s bite strength is a good idea even well into adulthood. Don’t despair; biting too hard can be resolved quite quickly, the on going training merely serves as reminders.
Basic rules of how to interact with a young puppy:
o Don't wave your hands around the pup's face or grab at him. Use your hands for soft, gentle petting
o Don't play ‘chase’ games where you and the puppy chase and grab at each other
o Do play with lots of toys, play tug-of-war, fetch, and chasing toys games with your puppy.
o Do make sure that you have plenty of chew toys on hand, rawhide sticks and Kongs as well as chase toys like balls or rope throws
o Do hand-feed your puppy. Hand-feeding is a good way to establish a bond with your puppy and it offers lots of opportunities to practice rewarding him for using his mouth correctly
o Do make sure your puppy is receiving adequate physical and mental stimulation. If biting makes people scream, run and pay him attention he will repeat his behaviour. Physical exercise and mental stimulation alone will not eliminate the nipping (maturity and training will), but both can reduce the frequency and intensity of mouthing behaviour
o Do give your puppy feedback on bite strength:
o Acceptable use of teeth is rewarded with treats, attention or affection
o Unacceptable use of teeth results in redirection or removal of opportunity to bite (puppy being popped into another room with a chew for a while) or negative punishment/removal of opportunity (biting makes people walk away from you). It is essential that the removal of opportunity is unemotional and that it happens instantly and consistently as a response to your puppy using unacceptable bite force.
o Do learn to ‘Be a Tree’ or ‘Freeze.’ You rarely see dogs chasing, nipping, or biting at trees, they don’t move, squeal, run away, scream, give eye contact, or push the puppy away. Trees are just there. ‘Freeze’ is a technique that all family members should learn, but especially small children.
o Do make sure your puppy is getting enough playtime. At least 40 minutes to an hour of playing a day, broken down into short sessions. This is beside ‘quiet attention time’
o Do make sure your puppy is getting enough rest too. Sometimes puppies end up over-stimulated
o Don’t over stimulate your puppy. Over-stimulating touching and handling can also teach your puppy to bite.
Puppies LOVE to play! The worst thing that could happen to your puppy is play ending. Pups bite because it is fun, it's their way of playing, and it gains them attention. So, when he bites too hard, all you have to do is make the play end. If you have young children, please explain this to them.
Do NOT pull away from your puppy, or hold hands or toys up a height where he can see them, this will only encourage him to jump and grab for them. Your puppy does not understand yet that he is doing anything wrong; do not be tempted to chastise him! Gently guide him towards ‘good’ behaviour, reassuring him with lots of praise when he responds in the way you want.
If you're playing with your pup and his teeth touch you too hard, yelp loudly and shrilly like a hurt puppy. (If this makes him MORE excited, or if you're a male who really can’t do this, BELLOW like he's really hurt you). Immediately disengage yourself from him, and as calmly as you can, leave the pup behind (in a safe place). You only need to leave him for a short while, less than 5 minutes,
Meanwhile, make sure that your pup is given lots of praise and attention when he is playing well and gently. Make sure that he is rewarded with attention when he is being good, not when he is misbehaving. At the same, you can start teaching your pup to sit and lie down on command. As your pup gets good at responding to these cues, you can use them to calm him down when he starts using his mouth too hard.
Grabbing clothes is a very fun tug-o-war game that pays off in a big way. First, your puppy gets to play with your clothes, and second, he gets you involved as you strug¬gle to get him to let go. It is important to try to prevent clothes biting in the first place. That means having chew toys, such rawhide sticks, stuffed Kongs, or old socks that are tied into knots. The secret to success for these distractions to work is to give your puppy these items before he begins biting or tugging on clothes. If your puppy keeps receiving them after he has started biting, he may learn that biting at you or your clothes will result in a treat.
It is very important that puppies also learn that they can control the strength of their jaws and the way that they use them. You really do not want your pup to never bite you because then he will never learn how to bite softly. This is called "bite inhibition".
Young children and young puppies must always be supervised when they are together. The fast, unpredictable movements of children often excite puppies. When puppies accidentally hurt the children (and they almost always will, eventually), children tend to scream in a way that excites puppies further, and often run away or wave their arms - causing the pup to want to bite them again. Teach young children to move slowly around dogs so that they don't over-stimulate them, and teach them to ‘freeze’ when the pup starts to get too excited - before the pup starts to bite.
When children and your puppy are playing together, set up a situation where it will be easy to separate them quickly - maybe a door the child can slip through, or a baby gate you can pop the puppy over when he gets too excited. This instantly diffuses the situation.
Below is a 5 category puppy bite level chart, with 1 being the least amount of pressure exerted, 5 the maximum pressure.
1. The puppy sniffs or licks the hand
2. The puppy gently mouths the skin. You can feel teeth without pressure
3. Moderate mouthing. Slight pressure is applied to skin, but not enough to cause any puncture or tear
4. The puppy bites hard enough to cause pain, but does not break the skin
5. The puppy bites hard enough to break the skin
To start training, place a treat in your hand and present it to your puppy. Any reaction at level 3 or lower earns the opening of the hand. Remember to feed your puppy from a flat palm. A level 4 reaction results in a 5 second removal of the hand (place it behind your back and ignore the puppy). Level 5 reactions result in a temporarily lonely puppy - walk away from your puppy for 7 to 10 seconds before going back to the training. As the puppy develops better control over his mouth, increase criteria so that only a level 2 or level 1 response earns a reward.
Once your puppy consistently scores a 1 or 2, the next step is to introduce movement. It is one thing for a puppy to ignore a stationary hand, but it is much harder to avoid chasing and biting moving objects. Introduce movement of hands and other body parts slowly while practicing these exercises. If at any point your dog becomes overly excited by the current level of motion (a six-inch wave of the hand in either direction, for example), reduce the level of movement (a wiggle of the fingers or a three-inch wave of the hand, perhaps). Reduce movement until your dog is more settled and composed, and then raise your criteria slightly again.
Some dogs are more inclined to bite ankles than hands. If this is true for your puppy, teach your dog to play with a tug at your side. Redirecting the dog’s natural tendency to chase and bite at things keeps your legs safe and encourages your puppy to enjoy toys, an excellent detraction.
While training your puppy not to nip or bite may sound like a lot of work (and to be fair, puppy-raising is definitely a lot of work), it is one of the most important things you can teach your dog. Bite-inhibition training saves lives; it helps dogs and people stay safe together and enjoy each other more.