I make lots of time to play with my 11 week old pup but more often than not he will quickly lose interest in the toy and start biting my clothes, feet etc, (it hurts!!). I will tell him firmly " NO" and try and distract him with a different toy but he takes no notice. I'm an avid reader of Gwen Bailey's, Perfect Puppy and in it she says in these instances the pup should have time out in his crate but isn't this a punishment? As it also states crates should not be used for punishment. Any advice or experience of this would be welcome.

Do a search here on the the CD site for PUPPY MOUTHING ..and another one with BITING ..there have been lots of threads on the subject that will help :)

You don't say what toys you playing with, have you got one of the ragger (knotted rope toys) Most puppies love those as they are soft in their mouth, like your clothes. Just sit cross legged on the floor and play gentle tugs and chasing it around the floor. It is a good chance to teach the 'leave' command too. Just be careful not to tug too hard because of the baby teeth.

Hope this helps
Sandra

do have a look on other threads, i know i asked for anf got a lot of v good advice about this problem a few weeks ago - i have a 13 week cavalier who was v bitey.

you have to find what works most ot put your pup in its place, without meaning to be mean but he/she has to know that biting you & your clothes is not acceptable and brings unwanted occurences rather than the reward of having a darn good chew/another game.

some people find that distracting the pup's easy enough; other's found that making a low growly sound warned them off; another tactic is to squeak/yelp like you're hurt and turn away (as pup's littermates would have dine when biting hurt them) - personally i found that with my pup (or maybe it was the way my family did them ;)! ) any additional noises just made the game even more exciting! what really got the message through to our ruby was to ignore her & stop the games when she was bitey - 'bitey pups have no friends' became our motto! so if she bit/mouthed/chewed we'd either stand up & ignore her (taking away our hands/top - whatever she was biting at in the process & withdrawing attention) for say 30 secs. if it was bottom of trousers or shoe laces we'd either get on a chair & sit with legs up (taking desired item away) and ignore her for a bit or - and this was particularly useful for us with furniture, but might also be useful if you have a bigger more powerful dog - would literally put her away from 'the pack' for a v short period. [If i was home alone with her, it was easiest for me to go out shutting door behind me - if all family were home, then i would v calmly & without speaking to or looking at her put her out the room & shut the door. 15 secs worked for ruby. WIth me going out of room, i made sure that i looked well put out in my body language so she knew it was different to when i just go out and leave her somewhere.

this broke her chewing unbelievably quickly, we found - she was a changed little beastie in 3 days. Oh - and ruby wasn't v interested in toys at first. well the more she's learnt not to chew us, the more she's got interested in her proper toys. have you taught your pup to retrieve yet? if you do it for food treats, and like gwen b/perfect puppy tells you, pup seems to pick it up pretty quickly and i find this a really useful controlled game as they NEED you to play it with them and so you only play when they're being good. the more we've done this, the more controlled she's become at playing other games too.

anyway - do have a look at the old threads, i got SO much good advice from this board, the above only summarises it & what worked for me and everyone's pup is different and responds differently. Have fun :)!