Hello,

We have got a ten week old chocolate brown labrador puppy, we have had him for three weeks now. He seems happy, confident and relazed. He nips and bites us, which although painful, we seem to be training him to do less often - by yelps, saying 'gentle' or by leaving him or taking him outside, but what I'm really struggling with is when he repeatedly jumps up at me and bites me. This happens when I spend time playing with him with his toys. After about ten minutes he is no longer interested in them, totally over excited and starts jumping up at me and nipping me. If I turn around and put my back to him he nips my calves, which is really painful! I can't touch him to calm him down because he is jumping at me and his mouth is open. If I tell him to stop he goes madder, and starts making noises at me. It's putting me off playing with him because play time ends up with me upset and him being told off and alone, and I am worried when friends start to play with him as I'd be mortified if he hurt them. What should I do? Am I being a wimp? He definetly does it more to me than my boyfriend. My boyfriend works from home, I don't, but I feed him two of his three meals. Any advice?

The first answer is to not let him get as over-excited as this! Keep the games calmer, and stop playing when you can see he is starting to get worked up.
:)

Thank you for the advice, I do need it The thing is when we are playing he seems to be playing nice. He surprised us at quickly he has learnt to sit, to fetch his toys and to drop his toys on command - we didn't make a big deal out of teaching him either. So, it's hard to see that he's getting over excited because he is just fetching his toy that I'm throwing in the garden, perhaps 10/15mins play time is too long for him when he is running about fetching toys? What sort of calm games should we playing with a ten week old pup?

Our choc lab puppy did the same thing. If you do a search on this board for "mouthing" you will find lots of information. The best advice I can offer is to be consistent in telling him "NO BITE" and putting him down or ignoring him for a few minutes. It will probably be frustrating, and seem like it's not working, but it is. Ours did not stop doing this until he was around 6 months old, and when they lose their milk teeth, things usually tend to get better. But you must be consistent so that the pup learns this isn't acceptable.

Also, I would advise NOT playing tug of war ever with him. With our pup, it only got him overexcited and just taught him that pulling on things with his teeth was all right.

6 months!!!

All this advice is really good, thank you, we really welcome the help.

And, I've just shown my partner these mails and he says that when he comes down to see him during the day he plays tug of war games with him! I suppose this could be making things worse and he may be expecting me to play more excitable, aggresive games with him too. We'll definetely try to be more consistent but I'm still concerned that when he is jumping up at me and biting my legs it hard to make him calm down or stop... I can't get away from him to ignore him as he has got me completely trapped - I'm too afarid to move because when he bites me I get nasty bruises! I've ended up having to call my partner to help out and this must be sending out all the wrong messages.

If you're concerned about jumping, keep a leash on him when he's indoors. It looks kind of silly, but when he jumps, you grab the leash to keep him from reaching you. If he jumps at you, try putting him in a sit position and then praising him with words or a treat. Labs are food bags, so they respond very well to food reinforcement.

Again, I would advise that no one plays tug of war with him. Even if your puppy doesn't mouth your boyfriend as much you (I was in the exact same situation), you don't want him to think that pulling on things with his teeth is ever all right.

I know that six months probably seems unbearably long, but things did get better over time. Although it seemed like he just stopped doing it one day, it was because we were consistent with saying "NO BITE" very firmly (don't scream or yell it, just say it very seriously), and try to ignore him when he's doing it. If he stops doing it for a few seconds, praise him like crazy. Also, try teaching him to give "kisses" instead. When he licks you instead of biting, praise him again.

I think the key to solving the play biting problem is to choose ONE method and stick to it. If the pup is getting a mixture of responses to his mouthing, and one of them is something he actually finds rewarding, then he's going to keep repeating it just in case he gets the reaction he likes :(

When our Golden Retriever was that age, he would have moments when all he wanted to do was jump up and grab your sleeve, hand, jacket, trousers, etc. The way we stopped it was to really make him understand that you mean No when you say it. When he jumps up, grab hold of either side of his neck, just below his ears. The skin is loose there, so you won't hurt him. In a fairly loud, low, growly voice say 'NO'. Have your face fairly close to his. Then ignore him for a minute or two. It workled very quickly for us.

HTH,

Sarah

I'd strongly advise getting along with your pup to a puppy socilaisation class that will help you deal with the problems of owning a puppy - a good one will help you not only with play biting, but also basic obedience training which should be starting in these early days..

I had exactly the same problem with my pup jumping and biting although she did it as soon as I stopped playing and sat down. It always seemed to me that the advice to deal with this situation was contradictory - for jumping you should ignore, for biting you should yelp, hold pup down etc. Anyway none of it worked as ignoring made her bite harder while shouting sent her into a frenzy and I couldn't get hold of her as she was jumping about so much... I found shutting her in the kitchen as soon as she started barking at me (she'd bark first, then jump, then bite) for periods of 20/30 minutes worked amazingly well and in a very short period of time. I did it every time she started, as soon as she started and she really did seem to get the message very fast. She still does it sometimes (she's nearly 5 months now), and I still shut her away, but these days I can sit down and read the paper in peace which is a major improvement!

I have a 4month old chocolate lab and after trying a few things the one that seems to work best is to put him in his bed for 5 mins (he has a seperate part of the kitchen where he cant get out). I did try just walking away from him but he thought that was great and as soon as my back was turned he would go and chew furniture/cat etc :D

I also tried a small water pistol as was recommended but this just wound him up so much I could barely pick him up to put him in his bed!
Ignoring the pup will help and it will get better. As I say mine is 4months and hes finally starting to listen to me.

One other thing I tried was when he wouldnt stop barking I had a tin full of stones and I would drop it suddenly. When he stopped barking/jumping up etc to see what the noise was I would give him a treat (I walk around with treats in my pockets all the time now!)

Thank you so much there's so much good advice. We're going to try to reward his good behaviour with treats, (I am also going to start carrying them around!) encourage 'kisses', and when he does have a mad jumping fit, I'll act brave, say - not yell like I normally do - 'no' in a serious voice and then attempt to walk away and ignore him for a period of time. Here's hoping it all works! The other thing is he's getting his second injection tomorrow, so we'll ask the vet about puppy socialisation classes, I really like the sound of them.

And, so good to know that there should be a light at the end of the tunnel - you're all givng me hope!

Good luck, and just remember that your puppy is still young. There will be lots of times when you don't think that what you're doing is working, but as long as you're consistent -- he will eventually get the picture! Don't give up! Most labs love training when there's food involve, but keep the sessions short at first -- 10 or so minutes, and always end on a good note. Try to find something that he loves and is good at. They love having a purpose. Of course, yours is still very young, so don't get discouraged. Remember that most labs aren't fully mature until they're 3 years old, but this doesn't mean that things won't get better bit by bit as he gets older.

Good luck!

Brings back memories. We have a chocolate lab and she didn't stop the painful mouthing for a long time, she is now 16 months old and is still really headstrong but the mouthing has finally stopped, although I will say when she gets excited she will put her mouth over our hands but very gently and she also smiles at us. When she was a younger pup anything we said to her when she was play biting seemed to encourage her even more to do it???? In the end we used to put her in the kitchen and ignore her as she began to associate biting us with getting even more attention from us and when we yelped like a paly mate or said NO firmly she seemed to get more excited and mouthed us even more. I remember the state of my arms (not a pretty site). At one stage we were quite worried that she wasn't going to grow out of it because everybody else said their pup had grown out of it at such and such an age and she shouldnt still be doing it but each dog is individual like us and Gemma is certainly individual. I think because she was so headstrong she maybe thought she was top dog for a while and she liked to see how far she could push us.

Good luck, I know what you are going through but persevere because if Gemma can grow out of it yours will, I know its tough when you are trying to bond with your pup and all they seem to want to do is reward you with painful nips but at the end of the day you have got to establish the pecking order and make sure your dog knows exactly where it stands, Gemma thought she was top dog for quite a while and pushed us to the limits but now she is the most loving lab you could meet - although she does still have her moments, and she maybe always will, when she keeps us on our toes and we have to remind her who is boss :)

Lesley

Well put.