Biting is very normal pet behavior and puppies always try to explore their world with their mouth and chewing. There are so many reasons of dog chewing and sometimes it has to do with socialization and sometimes it is essential for their teething. In that case, it is not better decision to punish them as a solution to how to stop puppy biting.
In fact, I would like to mention that puppy biting is a part of puppies and dogs playing with each other. In the same way, they also bite the human limbs, objects, and clothing playfully. Biting is a regular behavior for dogs especially in the first 12 weeks of their lives. So, as a dog lover, you shouldn’t misguide from their such behavior. Here we have added some simple ways so that you can get help to stop or control their biting attitude.
Simple Ways to Stop Puppy Biting
Always remember, your objective should not only correct your dog’s wrong behavior but also guide the puppy in the lines of alternative behavior. It would not permanently restrict the puppy to a position where it would be impossible for him to bite successfully. Here is highlighted some ways to stop puppy biting.
Encourage to Lick Your Hand
The first thing to do when your puppy is really disposed to biting is to encourage it to lick your hand and not to bite you. And when it follows, encourage by loving words and patting. Feed the hand to your puppy to teach how to get used to your hands without biting.
Practice Leash Training
Practicing leash training to your young puppy goes hand in hand with training not to bite. If you keep your dog on the leash, it would be easier for you to guide it when tries to bite. Also, you have to be very consistent with obedience training. Try to stick to the same set of sounds and instructions when you are training the puppy not to bite.
Stop Playing with Your Puppy
Another easy way to stop puppy biting is to get up and stop playing completely when it has just started to bite you. Take away your hand out of its mouth so that the puppy understands that this behavior is not appreciated. Though it would be quite annoying for the puppy to be interrupted in its play, but with time it would learn to stop biting you.
Use Chewable Toy
You can simply use a hollow chewable toy with a hard rubbery outside and stuff it with food. This will not only form as an interesting chew also works to protect its growing teeth. Moreover, this will keep them from getting infections from biting up things at random. If you come back home and find your puppy is biting something that you don’t want, simply replace a better alternative.
Use Verbal Signals
If you want to reprimand your dog for biting you, bring your voice down as deeply as possible and apply moderate commands like ‘NO’ to stop in a throaty voice and take away the thing or the body part it was biting. Such a deep-bass voice signifies that you are in charge and are upset with its behavior. When your puppy follows your command, you can bring your voice back to its normal pitch.
Make Sharp Sound
When accidentally your puppy put your hand in his mouth and starts giving bites, I would suggest making a sharp sound that is more or less similar to a puppy bite. Generally, high-pitched sounds like a sharp ‘OWWW’ mimics the puppy have and seem like the sound of another puppy being hurt. This is because when two puppies play together and one bites the other too hard, he gives a yelp and moves away.
You can experiment with some other warnings and can observe your pet’s naturally pulling back. These effective techniques applied to the puppy in its early years which can help a great deal towards shaping the behavior of the dog as it grows older.
Some demerits of biting puppies
Well, naturally as you can understand, the razor-sharp teeth of the young puppy coming in contact with your skin, is rather a painful experience. Apart from them, it is estimated that in the USA, almost 800,000 people require hospitalization due to dog bites every year.
If you have young children at home, it would be utterly irresponsible to leave them together with an untrained dog. Some of the serious bites come from dogs that have not been given proper training about hierarchy and obedience within a household.
Some Special Tips
If any of these measures suggested above are not working for some reason, you could use some of the following tips:
- Get the puppy immediately out of the room. It would understand that game is over and would fear the hard consequences.
- Another thing you could do, especially if you have small children is spraying a little ‘chewing deters’ in their hands, a stuff that does not taste good.
- Try to calm down your dog by spraying or neutering him, since calm dogs have a lesser inclination to bite.
However, a long-term remedy could be admitting your puppy to a dog obedience school. This is a good investment towards repairing biting behavior and the benefits of the training your dog receives in such centers can last him a lifetime.
