Biting Puppy!

My pup is about 4.5 months old now and he is still biting. Do you have any advice? I'm glad I am able to use the site again, I didn't know what happened. Thanks

 

Your pup is still teething. I would be sure he has plenty of the right things to chew on while supervised. In case he were to choke on something.

If he is biting you, I press my thumb into the top of his mouth. You can fold the top lips in so that if he deceides to bear down, he will bite himself first. Then press into the top of his mouth. A mother dog would bite him back if he were biting her. Seems to me they understand in terms of pain sort of. I know this probably doesn't sound right. I don't beat my dogs or advise you to do so in any way. But if he is applying pain to your hand, applying a little back usually gets the message accross.

Now when he stops biting, reward him. Always reward for good behavior. He probably just wants attention too and that is the best way he can get it from you. I advised a friend who has a 9 mo. airdale to do this method. He said he only had to do it about 5 or 6 times and she has stopped mouthing. He now gives her treats when she acts like she is supposed to.

My treat for mine is a good rubbing. I tell him to sit and behave and I will pet him but not until he acts like a gentleman. Hope that helps.

 

Okay, thanks for your help

 

I say "ow!" in a high-pitched voice and fishhook the pup. Basically, I grab the jaw, lip, whatever and hold on until the pup is trying to get away. They tend to learn quickly that biting people is no fun because their mouth gets "stuck." And then "ow" becomes like a signal that they've gone too far. If I say "ow" to my dogs, they cower because they know someone's in trouble.

 

D do you live in Dayton?

 

No, Columbus

 

that sounds good, I forgot about the high pitch Ow"!. Thanks for the info.

 

Dogs are a pack mentality animal. They live and play together. Bouncing, jumping and biting. It's part of having animal fun. There is no great pain because they have these fur coats that absorb the nips.

Humans, on the other hand, do not have this covering and the playful, friendly nips of an ecstatic, joyful puppy could prove to be gashes or punctures.

My dog understands one word very well. It is NO!

When he was playful and making me one of the participants in the puppy games he would nip. I would immediately say NO TEETH. Followed by NO TEETH Ouch... No teeth.

The first time or two he didn't know what I was saying but by the third time he'd heard these expressions in a stream he began to feel bad about his behaviour and would turn to licking me.

That got a "Good Boy. No Teeth. What a nice lick. Gimme another lick... .

In his exuberance he would play the puppy games but his nipping soon became replaced by good ole face lickings (to a degree of time that I could stand it). Every once in a while he woold lapse back into his 'you're one of the fellows (pack mate) so It's okay to bite you' but it was always met with a loud "NO TEETH".

It was nice seeing him adjust his behaviour to licking or nuzzling. After a while my NOes became less frequent and our play more often without being interrupted by OUCH.

Took a while but it worked. But he is a dog and when the excitement gets too great you catch him as he is about to nip and remind him to LICK, KISS. A lot of times you don't have to use the T-word. They've got it figured out.

This was my experience.

As for stuff to chew? I gave him his own old shoes and sneakers that he could do with as he pleased. Touching anything else was a loud NO! He caught on and played with his toys till they were no longer and he didn't have the yen for chewing stuff.

The funniest part was when he got to the point of getting to the rubber soles of the shoes. He would chew, break it up then find a small piece, look at me, smile and look like a kid with a piece of chewing gum in his face. Chomp, chomp, chomp,chomp, chomp.

Disappointment came when it was no longer chewable but he would then find another piece and enjoy dreaming the chewing gum dreams?

 

I'd try a sharp NO! with a redirect to an appropriate chew toy. Make sure the pup has plenty of good chew toys.

 

Great replies.Yea I make sure he has plenty of toys. I don't mean to chage the subject but I have one more similar problem. he has a rubber bone toy where you can put a treat in each end and they work for it, I went to pick it up from him, he growled at me. I have tested him a few times before on that, since I have kids I want to be sure. Once again he is about4.5 mth now. What would you do about that? Thanks for the help. Jeff

 

I got mine to stop biting by taking my hands and shutting his mouth while saying "No bite!" You don't have to use a lot of force, but just be able to close their mouth. Eventually you can just say "No Bite" and not need to use your hands.

 

I remember my dog as being affable and a toy sharing kind of dog. You could walk up to him while he was chewing a toy and playfully get it from him.

One day, while visiting Kensington Market, he scored one of his first bones. It was a section of pork ribs. He took it and went down the stairs with it.

A moment later a friend decided that she was going to go home. We said goodbye and she left. Thirty seconds later she was back upstaitrs saying that I should help her to leave because she was unsure of walking past the dog.

I thought it was foolish but went with her to help her leave anyways.

Arriving in the narrow hall downstairs the dog was busy chewing his bone. As I approached I was startled to see and hear him growl at me as he maintained possession of his bone. Any movement towards him elicited a growl and defensive grabbing of the bone in his teeth. It is a scary sight and filled with sounds that I had never heard before. He had a bone and it was his.

I decided that talking and complaining about his behaviour to him wasn't going to work so I asked the woman to wait to leave until Zeus had finished his treat. When he was finished he became that same smiling, loving puppy that you could pat and scratch.

It was the same everytime that he got a bone.

Conclusion: If it is a bone and he is eating it then you are another beast that may try and steal his bone. After all you do take his toys. Put food in their mouths that they like then they are not going to share until they have had their fill.

Answer: Let them have their food. It'll soon be gone and the puppy will return(looking for another bone). If he gets one then expect the same behaviour. If he doesn't then expect him to be the puppy you love to be near and approach at will, however, throw the bone(treat) into the mix and you had best step back until he has had his fill.

 

That is ridiculous Kensloft. YOU are the owner of your dog, he shouldnt be the owner of you. If you are giving him bones knowing how he is, and then make people wait until he's done to leave of course he's going to have dominance issues. You are telling the dog he is higher on the rank than others. You need to be in control of your dog before you become another headline.

 

That is probably the worst and most dangerous advice I had ever seen on this board. As 14rock said, you should really take control of your dog before it becomes another headline.

If your dog shows any kind of threat behavior towards you or anyone else, it needs to be stopped immediately. By letting it slide, you are letting the dog become the alpha and letting it think that showing aggression towards humans gets him what he wants. This show of aggression will get out of hand. Right now it is food, but chances are, it will start moving onto other things. Before long, that dog will be completely running the house and showing aggression towards other people to scare them into doing what he wants. If it isn't hesitating to growl at you, how far would it go with strangers?
If you are too scared to put an end to this behavior or can't put an end to it, you need to put the dog down before it ends up hurting someone.

 

Hummm. Since I'm new to the board I sort of hesitate to answer this because different people have different opinions about how serious this sort of thing is. My take, food aggression is a big no-no and I won't tolerate it. I think others with this breed would be well advised to do likewise. I would put your puppy on NILF: Nothing in life is free. See, you as a human control every aspect of your dogs existance. I would make it a point to go through doors first, make the dog do a sit-stay before being fed or getting a treat or getting a toy. In other words I'd make him jump through hoops so to speak for any of the "good" things in life from a dogs point of view. And the next time he growls have a old milk carton filled up halfway with gravel and when he growls yell NO!!! at the top of your lungs and shake the milk carton at him. It should scare the heck out of him. You could also try putting your hand in the bowl and play with his food as he eats it to get the point across that it is YOUR food and you just let him use it.

Now, none of this involves being mean or cruel to a pup, be nice but firm and have your interactions with your dog happen on YOUR terms.
IMO, food aggression has a lot to do with temperment and I don't like a real reactive, dominate Pitbull. I like the "softer" type. But you can work with several different type of temperments. Good luck with your guy.

 

When I first read your reply I felt like my 10 year old dog, who has never bitten anyone over a bone, should be euthenized.

But then I tried to figure out what the fixation is with dominating every action of the animal and what that is all about? There are those old saws about giving a dog a bone and keeping your distance from a dog that is gnawing on a bone. Perhaps they should have been killed for the effrontery of growling over guarding their food? Then we wouldn't have these old wives tales about animal behaviour.

First off... I was at someone else's house and I am not about to start yelling and screaming at the dog ad infinitum over a bone. The little that I did was enough to tell me that this could evolve into us getting hurt. Had he set the bone down in the middle of the room and started growling I would have blown it but he didn't! He went to the furthest part of the house, away from everyone to enjoy his feast. That someone showed up wasn't in the cards or his rationale. They were there for only one reason, as far as he was concerned, and that was to, possibly, take his morsel from him. Even I was suspect.

Everytime that Zeus was given a bone he would move away from the maddening crowd to enjoy HIS treat. He would take the bone to where he felt secure, which was away from the prying eyes of other, two-legged carnivores, and indulge himself. Before he would get into the joys of chewing his bone he would come from wherever it was that he was set up and would thank whoever treated him to the bone! Then he would be gone until he devoured his dog food.

It did not take him long to figure out that people were not going to remove his bone because he saw that there were no persons, that he knew, who would sit around gnawing on bones.

The Police put out a song about how 'every move you make I'll be watching you'. I was going out with a nurse and she told me that she'd just heard this wonderful song which she played for me. It was nice but if I were the one being under this microscope then I'd have... . It took a couple more days and then she told me that she hated the song because she realized that being under that kind of microscope was hell on earth.

Finally I remembered when Zeus was front and center on television. He was not just a headline he was the headliner. He was the opening of a new television station that had just opened up in Toronto.

There we were walking through Kensington Market heading home. Zeus was in a big rush to get there because in his mouth was one of his prized bones that had been presented to him by a local butcher, whom over the years had come to love and respect Zeus, as opposed to being terrified of the pit bull. The universe was unfolding as it should. Around him was a swirling mass humanity going to and fro about their business of getting their provisions and clothing. Zeus was oblivious to them(as per usual) because he was heading home to where he could enjoy his present.

A few hundred feet away from where he had been presented with his morsel we were stopped in our progress by a television crew that saw this dog with a bone three times the size of his mouth heading in one direction... home. Our path was blocked by the crew as they oo-ed and ahh-ed at this spectacle. We stopped(had to stop)and the camera was on him while the woman told the cameraperson that this was Kensington and you could always find a shot of something here for the station.

Zeus, liking humans and being impeded, stopped and dropped his bone. He was relatively sure that they weren't there to purloin his prize so he sat with his bone in front of him allowing us to be photographed. No movement towards removing the bone meant that he would just sit there as his walker(me) talked to the television people. The camera went from the bone following the heavy chain to me where I shrugged my shoulders and said, as to why he had this bone in his mouth, that he knew every butcher in the neighbourhood and this is par for the way things are. We parted after a few more pictures and Zeus came home to finish his treat.

When the station finally opened we were the first pictures to be broadcast on the statiion. If you were expecting us to be there pummelling and chewing these interlopers apart then you had better check your fixation about what dogs do or don't do.

I was asked about what I did about growling puppy dogs and I, truthfully, gave my answer.

Your interpretation of what would or would not happen is your interpretation. There is a large gap between interpretation and experience. Get it together and stop putting your interpretations as being the be all and end all of the experiences that lead to the development of trusted canine friends.

 

Kensloft,

I have to ask....are you a writer?

 

My advice is go and watch the Dog Whisperer that show is great and shows alot of dog psychology training techniques that actually work.

 

I am a writer, artist, musician and ordinary person. Everyone is an artist, writer, musician or whatever. It is whether or not you apply yourself to do it.

Words are a slippery slope and if there aren't enough of them then you get people filling in their details between the lines.

I have spent the past ten years with my pal, Zeus, and have devoted a great deal of this time to loving and observing him, his actions and the circumstances surrounding his actions.

This breed is apart from other breeds because they are truly intelligent, loving and caring for those whom they love. This is not to say that other breeds are inferior. It is to say that they are different. They(staffs and progeny) are strong, tough and have a sense of what is right or wrong. Unfortunately, there are those that will abuse this part of the animal's behaviour by preying on their loyalty to the owner and getting them to do their bidding(read drug pusher with dog).

Any person that wants to hurt this breed will first have to go through me to get to Zeus. I look at people and remind them that they should not be worried about the dog but they should be worried about me and what I would be doing in the case of violence. My dog is not my protecter but my friend. I can take care of myself.

I fled Ontario because I realized that had I stayed Zeus would have been neutered and muzzled up until the law was repealed. He would never have been able to be who he is otherwise. If you think leaving everything behind is easy to do then guess again. It ain't easy but when I look at him resting or at play it is worth every pain that I am put through. To live for the truth and to live the truth are, by far, the only way to go when dealing with the terrorists that stalk this beautiful, loving, trusting breed.

 

Thanks for the advice. I have been working with him alot. I think he is improving. Thanks again.