biting puppy - seeking advice

[bethwr]

We have a 14 week old female Brittany. She's a fabulous dog, eager to learn. We are crate training her, she is learning basic commands. Good natured, mostly sweet dog.

The problem is she bites our eight year old and nine year old every time they're around her. We've taught the kids to yelp, yell no and to tug on the back of her neck, but it persists. She chases the kids when they're simply getting up to go into a different room, she's ruined several pairs of pants from biting the kids legs. They really love her, but they're very frustrated, and are starting to fear her.

She used to attempt biting my husband and me, but she no longer does. I do not think she's trying to hurt the kids, but nonetheless, it has to stop.

Any advice? We'll give anything a shot.

[DudeRN]

I have a 15-month-old Brittany. when she was a pup, she was very mouthy and a persistent biter. We tried all the things you have tried, and finally, all that seemed to work is I would grasp her muzzle and put my face in hers and say "NO BITE!!" -- not screaming it, but saying it very sternly/firmly. After she learned that she could not bite my wife and I, the 'NO BITE!!" command worked by itself, without grasping the muzzle. Then our sons were able to use the command itself. She can still get mouthy when she is excited and playing with us, but the 'NO BITE" command reminds her to stop.

My younger son (11 years) also contributed to the process by spraying butter spray on his hands and letting her lick the back of his hands, while he says 'kisses - kisses". He tends to use the "kisses" command to re-direct her from biting to licking. But she really seems to have outgrown the biting as well.

good luck!

[oldbeek]

My britt was a single pup. No litter mates. She is also a bitter. At 13 months she is mostly broke. I have to keep her isolated from children that can not handle her. We also tried the yelp thing. At about 6 months I had to get physical. Hold her muzzle and say no. Pin her to the floor with thumb and finger around her neck and say no. She still likes to love with her mouth open. Good luck

[shags]

Have you ever watched a litter of puppies play and tumble around? Which ones yelp? It's not the pushy, bully-ish, more dominant pups - it's the ones that are more submissive. So by teaching your kids to yelp you have set them up to be the submissive ones while the dog gets to be the boss. Lots of fun for the dog, not so much for the children.

Time to turn the table.

You can have the dog on a six or eight foot lead while you are all together. Keep the end of the lead in your hand and have a kid get up and leave the area. When the dog goes after him/her, yank the dog back sharply enough to set her on her heels. Keep your mouth shut, and don't be kind. This should be a sharp correction. Reel the dog back in, and make her lie down.

You can have the kids carry a weapon - I gave my granddaughters a fly swatter. A rolled up newspaper or magazine or towel could work too. When the dog 'attacks', the kid whacks the dog a good one. You'll have to teach the kids to stay quiet, to stand up straight and tall and assume an air of authority so that their body language conveys to the dog that she's messing with smaller bosses now amd it won't be tolerated by them. A good whack means contact that will get the dog's attention to the new rule, not a series of little meaningless taps that the dog will think of as an invitation to play.

If the kids are physically strong and cooridinated enough, they can be taught to make corrections to the dog as an adult would do. That is, stop, grab the dog by the scruff and pin her down for a few seconds.

The kids should make corrections physically not verbally at this point because their voices tend to be high pitched when they're stressed and sound more yelpy than authoritative. Verbal corrections by you and your husband should be minimal, one firm (big difference between firm and loud) "no" or "stop" not a lot of blah blah blah that adds to the chaos and means nothing to the dog.

Don't play around with "kinder gentler" foo-foo methods. The dog needs to learn that dog teeth on people skin is *never* allowed. Pups usually outgrow this thing but if yours is of a bossy pushy nature she needs to be put in her place. It will help down the road in other training and situations.

Good luck to you, hopefully you'll solve this problem quickly and your puppy will become a great family member.

[MGIII]

Have you ever watched a litter of puppies play and tumble around? Which ones yelp? It's not the pushy, bully-ish, more dominant pups - it's the ones that are more submissive. So by teaching your kids to yelp you have set them up to be the submissive ones while the dog gets to be the boss. Lots of fun for the dog, not so much for the children.

Time to turn the table.

You can have the dog on a six or eight foot lead while you are all together. Keep the end of the lead in your hand and have a kid get up and leave the area. When the dog goes after him/her, yank the dog back sharply enough to set her on her heels. Keep your mouth shut, and don't be kind. This should be a sharp correction. Reel the dog back in, and make her lie down.

You can have the kids carry a weapon - I gave my granddaughters a fly swatter. A rolled up newspaper or magazine or towel could work too. When the dog 'attacks', the kid whacks the dog a good one. You'll have to teach the kids to stay quiet, to stand up straight and tall and assume an air of authority so that their body language conveys to the dog that she's messing with smaller bosses now amd it won't be tolerated by them. A good whack means contact that will get the dog's attention to the new rule, not a series of little meaningless taps that the dog will think of as an invitation to play.

If the kids are physically strong and cooridinated enough, they can be taught to make corrections to the dog as an adult would do. That is, stop, grab the dog by the scruff and pin her down for a few seconds.

The kids should make corrections physically not verbally at this point because their voices tend to be high pitched when they're stressed and sound more yelpy than authoritative. Verbal corrections by you and your husband should be minimal, one firm (big difference between firm and loud) "no" or "stop" not a lot of blah blah blah that adds to the chaos and means nothing to the dog.

Don't play around with "kinder gentler" foo-foo methods. The dog needs to learn that dog teeth on people skin is *never* allowed. Pups usually outgrow this thing but if yours is of a bossy pushy nature she needs to be put in her place. It will help down the road in other training and situations.

Good luck to you, hopefully you'll solve this problem quickly and your puppy will become a great family member.

+1. Well said.

[taxidermy]

A good Vet and a good Trainer have their place ;and this is one of them.
I've seen a good trainer fix problems that the masters have been living with for years,
before your kids start walking around with sticks and turn your dog head shy ,spend 50 on a good trainer.

[cbump]

Agree with not yelping. I watched my grown vizsla growl/bark LOUD one time when we first brought our lab pup home cuz she got too rough with the biting. So that's what we all did and it would immediately get her attention and make her stop.

Fortunately she was never a biter really anyway. Just played rough at first.

[deke]

Have you ever watched a litter of puppies play and tumble around? Which ones yelp? It's not the pushy, bully-ish, more dominant pups - it's the ones that are more submissive. So by teaching your kids to yelp you have set them up to be the submissive ones while the dog gets to be the boss. Lots of fun for the dog, not so much for the children.

Time to turn the table.

You can have the dog on a six or eight foot lead while you are all together. Keep the end of the lead in your hand and have a kid get up and leave the area. When the dog goes after him/her, yank the dog back sharply enough to set her on her heels. Keep your mouth shut, and don't be kind. This should be a sharp correction. Reel the dog back in, and make her lie down.

You can have the kids carry a weapon - I gave my granddaughters a fly swatter. A rolled up newspaper or magazine or towel could work too. When the dog 'attacks', the kid whacks the dog a good one. You'll have to teach the kids to stay quiet, to stand up straight and tall and assume an air of authority so that their body language conveys to the dog that she's messing with smaller bosses now amd it won't be tolerated by them. A good whack means contact that will get the dog's attention to the new rule, not a series of little meaningless taps that the dog will think of as an invitation to play.

If the kids are physically strong and cooridinated enough, they can be taught to make corrections to the dog as an adult would do. That is, stop, grab the dog by the scruff and pin her down for a few seconds.

The kids should make corrections physically not verbally at this point because their voices tend to be high pitched when they're stressed and sound more yelpy than authoritative. Verbal corrections by you and your husband should be minimal, one firm (big difference between firm and loud) "no" or "stop" not a lot of blah blah blah that adds to the chaos and means nothing to the dog.

Don't play around with "kinder gentler" foo-foo methods. The dog needs to learn that dog teeth on people skin is *never* allowed. Pups usually outgrow this thing but if yours is of a bossy pushy nature she needs to be put in her place. It will help down the road in other training and situations.



Good luck to you, hopefully you'll solve this problem quickly and your puppy will become a great family member.

+1 Pup should be so afraid to bite you that you could cover your finger in peanut butter and stick it in its mouth and it wont bite down.

[MonsterDad]

Video this behavior and post it.

If this dog is aggressively biting then you should give the dog back to the breeder.
It could be play biting and mouthing but you have described something different.

Well socialized puppies don't act this way.

[Windyhills]

IMO kids (and occasionally the SO) need as much if not more training than pups do sometimes! I wouldn't blame the pup if the kids are not handling their encounters well. It's up to you to decide if they can learn to do so and I'd probably still monitor most encounters for awhile. I also don't have much problem with saying ouch--but doing so is just the start of dealing with a pup. If a kid yells ouch and then runs away, gets nipped, yells ouch again and runs--that's not helping matters.

Some things that have helped me in similar situations:

- understand pups are going to want to bite and mouth something. Have something appropriate on hand for them to do so with, and be prepared to give them such things as needed.

- do not let any biting linger--for me once or twice is it and if they don't stop, I make sure they CAN'T BITE AGAIN. Some folks immediately crate them and say that works for them. I've had pups that would spend way too much time in the crate if that was always the solution so I teach everyone to just stop allowing the biting immediately and if pup is real persistent, then crate them for a bit.

- Running away isn't always a good solution if pup just follows nipping all the way. I like to pick them up and hold them in a manner where they can squirm all they want but can't turn to bite you. When they stop squirming trying to nip me, they get allowed down again. If they go to nip again up they go. If pup is real nippy after a bout of up and downs in the crate they go.

- Its never too early to start thinking of what the pup wants versus what you want. Teach the kids and wife (or husband) that too as needed. What you want is for the pup to stop biting, to turn it's attention to something appropriate to chew on if it really needs to instead, and perhaps most importantly--to get negative reinforcement of biting behavior. Pup wants to play and bite and interact with the family. Play and interaction can only be allowed if it diverts its biting to something appropriate and stops biting people.

- Some folks like to swat the pup. I generally avoid that although good timing with a purpose that doesn't hurt pup (startles them more than hurts them) can work. I don't like to do much of that as I don't want pup to start fearing my hand. I don't trust kids to do that well either. Having something to offer pup to chew on and stopping the biting right away works just as well most of the time and if not the crate is always handy.

[kninebirddog]

I cover this in an article i wrote PUPPY FOUNDATIONS click here
many pups will test their boundaries some once and others will test it every chance they get ...Mouthing is not acceptable with me at all and I will nip that in the bud right away depending on size and age depends on my actions but in any case it is a capitol offense as puppies do not grow out of behaviors they grow into them.

[gamekeeper]

Get goldfish