Puppy biting

GraceC92 · 09-04-2017 12:45pm #1

Hi guys,

I recently got a 10 week old retriever/collie cross from <snip> and he is brilliant! We've only had him since Thursday so I know that it is still extremely early days and he is only settling in but I was just wondering if anyone has any tips in relation to play biting? Initially he would only go for our hands but now he is biting at shoes and trouser bottoms. We do say "ouch" in a very high pitched voice but at times he is very determined and can't be distracted by another toy (which we have lots of). Like I said, I know that it is very early days and is normal behaviour for puppies but as it is my first puppy I don't want him getting into bad habits! Thanks in advance ðŸ˜Š

kylith · 09-04-2017 1:09pm

Yelp and remove. Don't even try to distract with another toy; get up and walk away. He'll learn that if he uses his mouth the game is over.

daheff · 28-10-2020 12:47pm

sorry for dragging up an old thread on this (Mods feel free to make this into a new one if you want)

we have a 9 week old Jack Russell (about 10 days now). While shes a nice sweet puppy some of the time, shes a biting maniac other times....which is starting to get us down.

We've tried yelping (makes her more crazed up), release & offering a toy she can chew, and now are trying to give her time outs. None are making any positive difference.

Has anybody got any tried and tested ways of making a dog stop this biting?

I know puppies need to learn bite inhibition, but if anything her bites are getting much worse -shes drawn blood a couple of times now over the past couple of days.

DBB · 28-10-2020 1:05pm

How are you invoking the time-outs? As in, when she bites, what do you do next?

daheff · 28-10-2020 1:25pm

DBB wrote: »

How are you invoking the time-outs? As in, when she bites, what do you do next?

When she is biting we say "Release" and put her in a play pen and leave the room for 30 odd seconds. The person getting bitten would stand still and another person do the taking her off.

We had tried to redirect onto a chew toy which worked...for all of 2 seconds and she would go back to biting.

I should also say that we've done some work trying to get her to release toys for a food snack instead.....and a bit of showing her a low value treat to leave it and then when she does to give her a higher value treat (or the treat she sees)

DBB · 28-10-2020 1:44pm

How do you put her in the pen? Do you lift her up, or what?
I'm asking, because time-outs need to be quite fine-tuned for pups that bite a lot. If she bites, and is then picked up to be put in her pen, the picking-up bit may be reinforcing the biting. It is attention and contact after all.
30 seconds is probably a little too long. I prefer maybe 10ish seconds as long as the pup isn't throwing a wobbly in the pen.
I also far prefer for the bitee to leave the room, rather than trying to manhandle a pup into a time-out zone.
But, if I have to move the puppy, then I think it's useful to have a short length of ribbon tied to the collar that she trails around, and use the ribbon as a lead to bring her to her time-out zone. Never leave the ribbon attached if you're not there to supervise her.
I will also say that 10 days is nothing:D Sorry, I know you don't want to hear that, but the process of reducing puppy biting takes longer than that... quite a few weeks and absolute consistency for really determined biters. It often feels like you're getting nowhere, but very often, you suddenly realise one day that things aren't as bad as they were a week ago. You are certainly on the right track, so try not to be disheartened

daheff · 28-10-2020 1:54pm

Yeah we are lifting her up to put her in the pen. The pen is closed, so a ribbon may not work as she would still need to be lifted at some point into it.

DBB · 28-10-2020 2:11pm

daheff wrote: »

Yeah we are lifting her up to put her in the pen. The pen is closed, so a ribbon may not work as she would still need to be lifted at some point into it.

You see, not only does lifting her potentially reinforce the biting, but really effective time-outs happen quickly and decisively, so that the pup is in little doubt that it's the biting that has resulted in measures being taken. But, if you have to pick her up, and even (but to a lesser extent) if you have to lead her to her pen, there's a good possibility that the message is getting lost, that there's too much going on between bite and time-out... does that make sense?
Which is one of the reasons I prefer, if possible, for the bitee to be the one who ups and leaves. I feel it's far more obvious to the pup then... cause and effect.
I do feel your pain, for what it's worth. My last pup, a GSD, was the mouthiest, bitiest puppy I have ever met. Ever. And I've worked with hundreds of pups! There were times I started to doubt whether I was getting through to her at all, and it took quite a few weeks. Couldn't ask for a sweeter dog now though! So, stick with it!

jrosen · 28-10-2020 2:14pm

We made a hand gesture to stop biting. Almost one you would use if you had to signal to someone to close their mouth, 4 fingers meeting the thumb if that makes sense. We did this with a stern no and whoever was being bitten would stand up and not interact.

tk123 · 28-10-2020 3:02pm

Timeout for us - no gestures, no cues, no yelping. This is what Bailey does to a pup - ie game over and ignore/move his face away... and he seems to know what he's doing lol

When I thought mine how to drop/give it was with toys too - not my body parts

And everyone who ever plays with your dog will say drop so I just use the cue drop.

daheff · 28-10-2020 6:12pm

DBB wrote: »

You see, not only does lifting her potentially reinforce the biting, but really effective time-outs happen quickly and decisively, so that the pup is in little doubt that it's the biting that has resulted in measures being taken. But, if you have to pick her up, and even (but to a lesser extent) if you have to lead her to her pen, there's a good possibility that the message is getting lost, that there's too much going on between bite and time-out... does that make sense?
Which is one of the reasons I prefer, if possible, for the bitee to be the one who ups and leaves. I feel it's far more obvious to the pup then... cause and effect.
I do feel your pain, for what it's worth. My last pup, a GSD, was the mouthiest, bitiest puppy I have ever met. Ever. And I've worked with hundreds of pups! There were times I started to doubt whether I was getting through to her at all, and it took quite a few weeks. Couldn't ask for a sweeter dog now though! So, stick with it!

I understand your point completely, but when she doesn't release we need to do something to get her to stop....which then needs a hand to do it. We generally all leave the room once she does the biting, not just the person bitten.

Thanks

daheff · 02-11-2020 9:28pm

Just to update on my situation.... we've enforced more structured sleep time with the puppy the last few days. It seems to have made a lot of difference to her behaviour. Still have the normal puppy biting, but the aggressive biting has now stopped.

Also working on 'release' which is helping when she does bite.

And most bites are less hard too

scilover · 03-11-2020 4:48am

When you play with your puppy, let him mouth on your hands. Continue play until he bites especially hard. When he does, immediately give a high-pitched yelp, as if you're hurt, and let your hand go limp. This should startle your puppy and cause him to stop mouthing you, at least momentarily.

deadlybuzzman · 03-11-2020 10:08am

scilover wrote: »

When you play with your puppy, let him mouth on your hands. Continue play until he bites especially hard. When he does, immediately give a high-pitched yelp, as if you're hurt, and let your hand go limp. This should startle your puppy and cause him to stop mouthing you, at least momentarily.

This is essentially what I did too. I knew my dog would have an exceptionally strong bite so I knew teaching bite inhibition and the difference between mouthing and a hard bite was vital to keep both me and my dog safe

tk123 · 03-11-2020 10:16am

Some puppies will take the yelp as reinforcement to continue though. Like I see this recommended all the time but it didn't work in my experience and I see a lot of posts eg on breed club pages with the same experience. From observing Bailey playing with Lucy or another puppy he'd always end the game first or blank them. He trained Lucy not to bite any of us and I hope he does the same in a few months lol

DBB · 03-11-2020 11:21am

The ouch or yelp will often work momentarily at first, but not for long. Pups soon learn to ignore it if there's no follow-through, which is why time-outs or brief break-outs from the game are effective... they provide follow-through, and you see dogs doing it within their own games all the time.
I'm also not the hugest fan of Dunbar's model of letting them bite, but only take action for the hard bites... this simply doesn't work when children are the targets, and in any case, a hard bite to me could be someone else's getting tickled! So, I have a zero tolerance approach... no teeth on skin without action being taken.

daheff · 15-11-2020 7:14pm

Well we've just had another bad biting incident. Wife was sitting on the floor playing with the puppy
Gave her a chew toy. Puppy refused it and just went straight for her wrist and bit down hard shook and wouldn't release.

Completely unprovoked and without any kind of forewarning.

DBB · 15-11-2020 8:51pm

Wellll... if the pup thought she was playing, then to pup, it was not unprovoked, as such. I always think "unprovoked" is a terribly loaded word when it comes to bites, because it's really very rare for a bite to be truly unprovoked. When you analyse each bite from the dog's perspective, you pretty much always find that there WAS a reason for it... just because we don't know what that reason was, doesn't mean it was unprovoked!
I think you need to get somebody who knows what they're looking at to help you daheff. You all need to understand where each other is coming from, as it does seem like something is getting lost in translation here.

daheff · 15-11-2020 9:57pm

DBB wrote: »

Wellll... if the pup thought she was playing, then to pup, it was not unprovoked, as such. I always think "unprovoked" is a terribly loaded word when it comes to bites, because it's really very rare for a bite to be truly unprovoked. When you analyse each bite from the dog's perspective, you pretty much always find that there WAS a reason for it... just because we don't know what that reason was, doesn't mean it was unprovoked!
I think you need to get somebody who knows what they're looking at to help you daheff. You all need to understand where each other is coming from, as it does seem like something is getting lost in translation here.

I might not have phrased that well. My wife had just sat down to play with her...bite was on wrist of other hand offering the toy.

We're trying to work with a positive dog trainer over zoom, but it's difficult to do. Something's are working well, but there does seem to be something that's snapping inside her head at times & things not working right.

Since I posted above I had her relaxing on my lap. No movement from either of us. Then she bit my thumb & started the side to side head shake terriers do to kill prey. Luckily I was quick enough to stop her before she did any damage.

DBB · 15-11-2020 10:21pm

Ah fair enough... zoom consults are a lot better than nothing, but they don't always get the full context across.
It is, as you say, a very terriery thing to do, the grab and shake.
Do you let her do plenty of this with toys on any given day? I just wonder is she getting to do enough of it to scratch this genetically programmed itch? Not on humans, but with toys.
You had said things had improved... when did the regression happen, or have you any thoughts about how regularly it occurs now compared to before?

daheff · 15-11-2020 11:00pm

We have loads of toys for her. We regularly switch them out so she doesn't get bored of them, but yet she doesn seem to want the chew toys so much. She likes a dog teddy (which she torments & mounts!)

There's also a spiky ball to chase for indoors.
I also give her rice chews, pizzle sticks,Kong's daily(not all the same day, but she gets at least one daily).

She originally (we thought) wasn't getting enough sleep (week 2). Week 3 was better as she had more sleep...even started settling herself during the day when tired.

Week 4 has seen her back to bad behaviour again. Seems to be from 1pm to 7pm that it mostly happens. (Usually she will sleep at least once, if not twice in this time period).

DBB · 15-11-2020 11:05pm

Do you encourage play with her with the toys by playing along with her and the toys though? Like encouraging her to grab and shake? Better with soft, floppy toys or rope toys

sdp · 16-11-2020 9:17am

After having Jack Russell/terriers most of my life, they are fab dogs, and like things fast. .
Its in them to hunt/kill and protect their home and people,and are very independent! but, by god a lot of work!, the amount of execise and training games was more then any of my other dogs needed.

lots of interactive play as they get bored very quickly,( I found they don't like playing by themselves so much,) Def include what I call rough play, (ie interactive tug games,) as DBB said, it's hard wired in them to shake to kill. and their minds are as sharp as a pencil. they need a fair bit of mental stimulation.

they need a firm gentle training, if you give them an inch they'll take a mile,:rolleyes: but once you gel with them, for me there's no better friend.

Ref the biting. I found the walk away/ignore the best bet, as soon as it happeneds, no words, no touching, get up quickly and walk, when very young I used a piece of chipboard to pull across door to stop pup from following, if you have nothing to block door, even if they followed just ignore, turn your back.

It's a wonderful learning curve, so glad to hear you have a trainer, whatever method you use, keep it constant.
Best of luck, hope things turn out well, and you all have many fun filled years with your pup.

zedhead · 16-11-2020 9:52am

We've found a couple of things work with our terrier mix we rescued a few months ago.

Soft toys/teddys are the best toy for him to play alone with and practice the shaking. He will go to town on a stuffed to on his own and really treat it like prey (though be prepared to clean stuffing up from the house and make sure to supervise to ensure he doesn't ingest the stuffing).

If playing tug or something with him and his teeth touch skin we see ahah and get up and walk away. Wait 2 minutes and then resume play. Most of the time those sort of bites seem accidental but we are trying to keep consistent with teeth on skin is bad.

He has been a big mouther when sitting and cuddling or even just trying to get attention. So I tried something that seems to be working but still not fool proof. He loves to lick our hands, so whenever he does this I have been saying the word gentle and giving lots of praise. if we are cuddling and he looks like he is going to mouth - before his teeth hit my hand I say gentle and he switches to licking about 80% of the time. If he mouths instead then I just get up and walk away for 1 minute before going back. Though this only works if you are ok with your dog licking you.

My partner is not quite as consistant as I am with it, he will allow a certain amount of mouthing/biting when they are playing which is not helpful but we are definitely seeing progress.

daheff · 16-11-2020 10:27pm

DBB wrote: »

Do you encourage play with her with the toys by playing along with her and the toys though? Like encouraging her to grab and shake? Better with soft, floppy toys or rope toys

Thanks for all the helpful responses. It's appreciated.

We do play with her with rope type toys, the plaited chew toys, balls...she even has a dog teddy (which she loves.)

The trainer has suggested giving the rope toys, riling her up and then trying to give a treat to release. This works when she's calm...but when she gets a bit wound up it doesn't really work. I've also tried quickly trying to swap toys to get her to release. Again this works until she gets wound up.

A good bit of the time she can quickly lose interest in or just not have any interest in toys.

She has a dog teddy (designed for heavy chewers) that she loves, and shakes the hell out of it!

All that said, we had a good day today. She played a bit with a couple of balls and only had a small chewy bitey moment (usual puppy stuff).

Also worked on our walking too.

Puppy biting

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