Puppy Training Tips

I bet if you are reading this, you happen to have a new puppy with sharp little teeth who is fond of biting pretty much everything. That probably has included your family’s hands and feet,  and probably any loose shoes lying around, if not even the furniture.I have listed a few good ideas for helping you deal with your puppy’s biting and chewing stage.

• One of the first things to do is provide some chew toys to your puppy. Since your puppy is teething and definitely needs to bite something, these toys are great alternatives to your skin.  As you start playing with your puppy and he gets too rough, stop him by placing your hand over his mouth to hold it shut. As soon as he starts to bite you, stop him by holding his mouth shut with your hand. He may squirm around because he won’t like his mouth being held shut-so soothe him with a calm voice and hold him still with your other hand. Firmly tell him “no biting”- but without raising your voice. If he becomes nervous he’ll resist longer, so keep your voice calm but firm. The calmer he stays, the quicker he’ll become submissive. Once he has become submissive and stopped struggling, it is time to remove your hand from his mouth, and offer him his chew toy as a wonderful substitute to human flesh.  As soon as he takes the  chew toy in his mouth, give him lots of praise. Repeat this each time you play with the puppy and he will associate the positive reinforcement with chewing on the toy instead of you.It  probably will take some time to sink in, but meanwhile stay patient and don’t ever hit or yell at the puppy for play biting during the interim it takes to get your pup to stop biting. Hitting or scolding the pup is a negative reinforcement and will hurt your efforts to bond with the pup and slow down his ability to learn properly.For the best results, make sure the whole family knows to only use the positive reinforcement techniques. Try to make sure no one else who is around the puppy slows down the training by not following the positive training method.

• To stop a lot of unwanted biting and chewing buy your puppy, keep him in his crate when you can’t supervise him directly. If you let the puppy have a free run of the house,  he will very likely find something tasty to put in his mouth-your slippers, furniture-pretty much anything he finds. Make sure to put some chew toys inside his crate to serve his chewing enjoyment needs.

• Common sense alone tells you some easy ways to stop the pup from chewing easy to get at goodies. A simple example is to put all your shoes and slippers (historically favorite targets) into a closed room or closet.

• Borrow a trick form Mama dog to let the puppy know he is biting too hard. The way to do this is by yelping in a high pitched voice when he bites you. You might feel sort of silly, but this is one way Mama Dog  gets a puppy’s attention and stops the puppy from biting her.

• A more vigorous demonstration that you want him to stop biting is to hold his mouth shut with your hand and at the same time stare him in the eyes and give him a growl or snarl. Mama dogs will do this in order to get the message across very vividly to their puppies.

• You might not want to get fur in your mouth like a Mama dog does to make your point, but you can certainly grab the scruff of his neck with your hand until he is submissive again to let him know that you are the boss. Don’t stop the correction until he has really shown you he understands that you are the boss, by becoming  submissive.

• In order to discourage your puppy from biting, don’t play rough house games (such as tug of war and wrestling) with him. I, for one, was always guilty of playing rough with my young puppies, and I had the scarred and scabbed hands and forearms to show for it. Before I learned better, I used to enjoy the rough play as much as my puppies did, and didn’t know it  potentially could lead to  behavior problems with aggression.

I hope these tips are useful to get a grip on your puppy’s biting problem. Please click here to see more great dog training tips www.BehaveDoggy.com.

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