I hope someone can give us some advice. We have a 12 week old Choc Lab Puppy and he will not stop biting us. When you go to stroke him he bites when you walk past he bites. I'm sure he thinks he's playing but ity really hurts and yestarday he bit our sons face. Please please help, we love him to bits..

Hi there ..try not to worry too much..most pups seem to go through this ....have a look here :

[link http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/board/topic_show.pl?tid=6570&hilite=Puppy%20Biting#32823]Biting Thread[/link]

HTH

Melody :)

Hi, the best advice I can give is one of distraction and time out. Biting is negative turn into something positive such as throwing a toy to retrieve and bring back to you. If he becomes too excitable then give him time out away from ther children. Are you sure that the children are not over active with him, a puppy needs time out peace and quite as well as positive learning and play. What training are you giving him? By now he should know the basic commands of sit, down at least. Are you giving him enough of the right type of play by teaching him good manners. Have you taught the children to respect the puppy? You must find an equal balance, the puppy is learning and is relying upon you to teach him how to behave but in a soft, positive but firm voice, particulary the 'No', when play biting. That is the only way if you want to have a well balanced and well behaved dog.
Go to the library and borrow The Perfect Puppy by Gwen Bailey it is invaluable for new puppy owners and it works!!
These are my tips from Guide dog puppy walking.
Pat

Hi my choc lab puppy is now 14 weeks and she did exactly the same.
If you search the site you'll see posts from me with exactly the same problem.
WE put into practise what everyone said and she is getting better by the day.
Now we only have nips if she gets very excited so I would avoid letting the children wind her up too much.

Also dont let the children get down on the floor with her especially when shes excited.
We found that was just asking for trouble.

We found it really helpful to say NO and then put her into another room for a few minutes.

You have to be careful though cos its not reallly fair to tell her off if she was wound up.
We've found the kids to almost always be at fault when they're moaning about being bitten

Hi
It suprises me that so many people seem completly unaware that most puppies go through this bitting stage we make sure all our puppy owners are aware of all this type of developmental stage and hope that if they have a problem they would contact us.
I don`t think you have anything to worry about it is perfectly normal puppy behaviour ,but you must not allow it to go on un- checked ,the best course of action is to give a sharp NO when he does it and then do some thing to distract him working on basic training such as sit ,stay can be invaluable at this stage labradors love to please and they love attention so work on building a good relationship with him and setting some ground rules but remember unkindness never pays dogs can be ruined at that age!!
good luck and enjoy your puppy

I knew about and expected Darcy to bite but what I did not expect was her to bite so hard that it would draw blood.

A lot of people had told me to pretend to cry out in pain to stop her. I certainly didnt have to pretend.

Oh dear sounds like youve had it tough I would of thought crying out in pain might make the dog worse! did you try it if so what was the result
has your bitting problem resolved now?

no everyone said we should cry out cos thats what the other puppries in the litter would of done so they learn not to play too rough.
It has started working with her now she's a bit older but for the first month or so she completely ignored it.
Now she stops whatever shes doing and looks at you with a very puzzled expression. (she seems to think we're insane)
then we just say a sharp NO.
The word No was something else that took a while for her to learn.
Now like I said she's much better and only bites if she's grabbing for a toy and does it by accident when shes excited