[Episode 16]

Puppy Biting – The Three Most Common Mistakes 

 

A few months ago, I had a client that was wearing a thick jacket and jeans to survive her puppy’s biting episode. She told me that she had to be ready to protect herself when her puppy came at her. She said she had to fight him off (yikes!).

 

Now, if that sounds like you, you’re going to learn some valuable information, and even if your puppy isn’t that bad, this episode is going to help you with any puppy biting. You don’t have to fight off your puppy and you don’t have to put on protective clothing or protective shoes.

 

Now, if you’ve watched the Free Dog Training Masterclass, you’ve heard about a family that actually had to surrender their puppy to rescue because of puppy biting. I’m talking about puppy number one and the free dog training masterclass. The family in that story was, most likely, doing one or all of these three common mistakes. 

 

Are you making any of these mistakes with your puppy? 

 

Mistake #1 –  Stop reinforcing the biting. 

 

Most struggling dog owners make the mistake of using their hands as toys. What happens is that you bring your puppy home and this happens a little bit more with men than with women, but you start to bat at the puppy, right? You push his face away, you push his body away, you tease him with your hands in an effort to play with him. The problem is that your hand then becomes a toy even when you’re not playing. 

 

If you’re reinforcing that puppy, biting, no amount of training is going to change that problem. Stop using your hands as a toy to play with your puppy. Instead, use your hands for long slow pets. Use a long plush toy to play with your dog instead. 

 

If you’ve listened to the Free Masterclass, you learned that if you’re unknowingly reinforcing the behavior, training isn’t going to work. It’s like eating a protein bar full of sugar when you’re trying to lose weight. You see this in the Free Dog Training Masterclass with Winnie the Whippets and the barking example. You learn how Winnie’s mom was reinforcing her barking. That can happen with any behavior and it almost always happens with puppy biting. 

 

You must stop reinforcing the biting first. 

 

Mistake #2 – Disciplining your puppy by poking his gums into his sharp teeth 

 

I saw a celebrity dog trainer, trying to teach pet parents what to do when their puppy bites. He grabbed the puppy’s lip and he pushed it into the puppy’s sharp teeth until he yelped. Then he said that you need to say “NO!” as you do that. Ugh, this is horrible advice from an uneducated trainer. 

 

Disciplining your puppy or poking his lip into his sharp teeth is a mistake. 

 

Your puppy doesn’t know that his biting is causing you pain. That’s how he plays with other puppies so how would he know NOT to play with his best human friend that way? He won’t know. When you push your puppy’s lip into his sharp teeth, he learns that you cause pain, specifically when you stick your hands in his mouth.

 

Remember puppies learned by association, you learned about that in a previous podcast episode. Your dog learns that you cause pain. Your puppy will learn to run away from you when you approach or try to grab him. And in an effort to avoid the pain that happens when you stick your hand in his mouth, he’ll also learn to bite you! And that is exactly what you don’t want, right? 

 

Also, it’s not fair to punish your puppy if you’ve encouraged him to bite by using your hands, or your body, as a toy (mistake #1)

 

 

Mistake #3 – Your puppy is cranky because he isn’t getting enough sleep. 

 

Most new puppy owners make the mistake of giving their puppy free roam of the house. They might block off some of the bedrooms or the halls, but then they give him free roam of the house. As a result, your puppy isn’t getting enough sleep. If you’re working from home and your puppy wakes up every time you get up, then he’s not getting good quality sleep. 

 

Puppies need 16 hours of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep a day. 

 

When your puppy isn’t getting enough sleep, he is going to be cranky. When he is cranky and grouchy, he’s going to turn into a biting monster. It’s not enough for him to sleep 30 minutes here or an hour there.

 

Your puppy needs his own space when you’re working from home and when you can’t supervise him. That space can be a gated kitchen or an Xpen. There’s a great lesson in The Dog Academy called Independence Training or Home Alone Training. This teaches your dog to be comfortable and calm in his space in your home or if he’s home alone. This will also help him get good quality sleep during the day while you’re working. 

 

If you want more solutions to puppy biting, then check out The Dog Academy for help. The lessons in that program will teach you how to get a well-behaved dog that listens. And there’s a lesson just for Puppy Play Biting that outlines the 5 steps you need to stop the biting. 

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