Hello,
I have 2 pups Mas/shep/lab 14 wks old, August bites a lot compared to her sister, Emma, and I have taken a lot of people's advices on this board about yelping ow... When I do that August scrounches down with her ears up and runs WILD around the house and continues to bite people and her sister. It seems like she thinks it's a game! How do you stop this?!
Thanks dog lovers!
Angel

When a puppy bites the mother will gently put her jaws over its mouth to stop it doing so.  Try (not too hard) putting your hand around her muzzle and telling her firmly 'NO!'.  This is also good when teaching dogs not to 'mouth' when they are playing with humans.  Good luck!

Make sure you're yelping loud enough. Otherwise it sounds like a game. Also because the puppies do recognise the sound means you're hurt they can try to instigate a game afterwards to try and appease you.

You have to be consistent, and you have to reward the puppy when it stops.

My in laws have recently taken on a dog just under a year old who has never been taught not to play bite. They've had him for a month now and will only try punishment as a training method, anything that doesn't involve saying 'no' they wont give the time of day. I spent half an hour with their dog last week, and currently I'm the only person the dog wont bite. It's the most effective method I know, and as soon as a few people do it it's quickly generalised to other people, because you're teaching the puppy that humans are weak and can't take biting.

If you change methods and start telling the puppy off, you could get a dog that doesn't play bite with some people but does with others, or that only does it for children because it knows it can get away with more from them.

Practise the yelping on your own, until it's very loud (it should startle the puppy but not scare it) and then try again.

Jo

Thanks for your replies, I am deaf myself, however I can make noiseswith my voice, maybe I sound funny to August? When she bites I say ow and yelp and she does look at me funny. The times she bites when Im laying down with her I give her my hand back and see if she bites, and if she doesn't (she would lick instead) I say good girl... but sometimes why would she take off like a wild dog when I yelp? Oh boy! It doesn't really help being deaf I dont think!

You can also say in a low growl deep voice NO BITE and stop play altogether. Mother dogs will growl, nip and not play with their pups, no fun when playing stops. Another one is to stand up with your arms crossed and ignore the pup then too. Bitter apple on the hands work well also.

Good luck :) If you do a search on here you will come up with alot of great idea's to stop this kind of behaviour. :)

You could always ask Hearing Dogs how they train their pups as they must have come across this situation before. I'm sure they'll be willing to help Hearing Dogs

Jesse

Hi Angel,

She takes off like a wild dog sometimes when you yelp because it excites her!  You are obviously being very effective in given a loud, somewhat startling yelp. (If my husband and I shout at each other, my dog gets vey excited and runs to grab her toys for a game!)

Every dog is different.  I know that yelping only works on my dog if we are making eye contact and she can see the stern look on my face.  Otherwise, it's just a momentary distraction which stops her for the moment, but which she does not take particularly seriously.

Some dogs will only respond with physical correction.   Next time, at the same time you yelp give her a sharp slap on the nose with your open hand.  Or, you can slap her and then say "no bite".   Obviously, you do not need to slap her very hard because the nose is sensitive.

The other technique is to grap her around the mouth with your hand, apply firm pressure, and then say "no bite".  However, that's harder to do quickly and I've only every used it when the dog continues to bite despite everything.  

Only start playing or paying attention to your dog again when she has settled and is not making any attempt to bite.

Biting takes a long while to extinguish completely, so be patient.

Stacey

Physical correction is NOT the way to train any dog.  If you understood how the dog thought, you would be more able to understand why it does things.  I would suggest you read 'THINK DOG' by John Fisher - you might learn something.

I agree, please do not slap your dog; if you are having trouble with play biting there is an excellent section on this in How to teach a new dog old tricks by Ian Dunbar or alternatively try the Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson; the latter is IMHO the BEST book EVER written on dog behaviour and is very down to earth, accessible and most of all full of good old fashioned common sense and moves away from the stone age theories about "dominance".

The dog should associate your hand and your presence with good things; slapping it can make it become hand shy.

ATB

Stacey, you seem to be missing the point of the yelp. The dog will stop momentarily, because it's bitten too hard and then resume playing. That's what puppies do when they're playing together. You have to use that time when the pup stops biting to reward it for stopping and provide an alternative thing for them to clamp down on, like a soft toy that you can play with together.

Running around the room getting toys is a way of trying to appease you, it's a sign that your dog is stressed and upset by the raised voices, it's not being 'excited' by anything. Playing silly games is a common way dogs relieve tension. Lindsay is better at explaining this than I am, so if you're reading this Lindsay please put it into english for me!

To the original poster, if you are finding the yelping hard, you could try the 'time out' play animatedly with your pup and the minute there is teeth touching skin stand up straight and ignore the dog completely. Once you've seen it stop and try and figure out what's going on, praise well and offer a toy to play with. Providing the puppy gets plenty of chances to play with toys, it will soon realise that playing with them is far more rewarding than biting skin which automatically ends the game. I'm sure seeing as you opted for the yelp method first you will be just as keen to find a kinder solution to playbiting that suits you, rather than by resorting to punishment.

Good luck!

Jo

Madmerle,

Your reply to the original poster was, "When a puppy bites the mother will gently put her jaws over its mouth to stop it doing so.  Try (not too hard) putting your hand around her muzzle and telling her firmly 'NO!'.  "   That is a physical correction, which you apparently do believe in giving to dogs, even though you later responded to me that "Physical correction is NOT the way to train any" dog.  "   Mother dogs also nip when a pup bites too hard, btw, they aren't particulary gentle but they are particulary effective.    

I wrote my response too quickly and should have taken the time to explain better because I did mean to imply that anyone she slap a dog, eg punish it or cause it pain, to stop it from biting.  A tap on the top of the nose or holding the muzzle briefly is very effective in helping a dog make the connection that the problem is it's mouth (eg biting).   

Thanks for the suggested reading.  I like Ian Dunbar's book, Dog Behavior, it's one of the simplest and most informative books on the subject for a basic understanding.

Stacey

Stacey

we had the same problem with our pup lab the yelp just made her think it was a game. So every time she bit we just put her into another room and shut the door and left her for a few minutes, then let her back in, to start with we were up and down like yoyos but it wasnt long before she cottoned onto what we meant.

Cooo - eeeee :D

My Terv girl, the original Mad Bitey Puppy, who reacted just as the original poster's dog does, would have gone wild if i had tried to slap her muzzle. A dog who is already excited, and who is also maybe not quite sure what is meant by the owner, is not necessarilly going to understand that a slap round the muzzle means stop biting. Indeed, a strong minded dog will probably decide "Cor, what a great game, let's play tough now mum" and more teeth will come into play.

A nervous dog who is just unsure will become handshy and may even start to snap :(

It took a while but i did take her out every time she nipped and also redirected her onto her toys. I only left her out for a couple of minutes andthen back in and basically,keep repeating :) It willtake some time, by 20 weeks or so it is usually much better.

Put your "patient" hat on and get a copy of "The Ultimate puppy" - also i am sure there is a small booklet by either dee woodcock or erica peachey in Pets at HOme about puppy biting.

Dont worry and don't lose confidence.....

Lindsay

Sorry folks, let me be clear about what I meant.

When all else fails.  You have tried yelping, ignoring and all the rest and it is clear the dog is not getting the message, or it gets the message but still finds biting worth doing, and is at the age where biting is becoming a "problem", then adding a physical correction does work.

By slap - I mean to tap or give the dog a quick "flick" on the top of its nose with an your open hand or tips of your fingers.  You should not be doing this to a level where it actually hurts the dog - it solely and only to get the dog's attention.   Slap was the wrong choice of word.  
Briefly holding the dogs muzzle also does the same thing, brings the dogs attention to you and also reinforces that it's the dog's mouth - eg biting - that it needs to learn to control.

Some dogs do need respond to yelping alone.  And some get too excited to understand that a yelp followed by isolation or ignoring them is connected to biting.   This does not make a dog hand shy because you are NOT hurting the dog in any way.   You are NOT whacking the dog, eg, punishing it or acting aggressively toward it.   You are only drawing it's attention to the source of the problem by adding touch and making it easier for the dog to understand.   And you only need to do this two or three times at the most - that's it.  Not that it eliminates biting - that goes away with time, patience and continued training ("NO BITE" or "YELP" and ignoring the dog until it settles). 

Stacey

We have an 8 month GSD and when she WAS biting i folded my arms an looked away from her i also told the children (3girls 10,8 and 4) to do this and it worked a treat she stopped biting at about 5 months. So we now do this for jumping, she gets very excited to see the kids in the morning so they now fold them arms she automaticlly sits and then the say hello to her calmly and wlk away to do what they have to do.

Cordelia