Puppy Biting - More Than Bad Manners
by Ian Dunbar PhD, MSVC
Puppies bite and thank goodness they do! Puppy biting is essential for your puppy to develop a soft mouth. Puppy biting seldom causes appreciable harm, but many bites are painful and elicit reaction. The pup learns, its jaws can hurt and therefore, begins to inhibit the force of its biting before it acquires the formidable teeth and strong jaws of an adolescent.
Completely curtailing puppy biting may offer immediate relief, but the puppy will not have sufficient opportunity to learn that its jaws may inflict pain. Consequently, if ever provoked as an adult, the resultant bite is likely to be a hard one, Certainly puppy biting must be controlled but only in a progressive and systematic manner, whereby the pup is first taught to inhibit the force of its bites, before puppy biting is forbidden altogether. Once the puppy develops a soft mouth, there is plenty of time to inhibit the frequency of its now gentler mouthing.
It is not necessary to hurt, frighten, or punish the pup to teach it biting hurts. A simple "Ouch!" is sufficient. If your pup acknowledges the 'ouch' and desists, praise and resume playing, but in a calmer fashion. If your pup ignores the 'ouch', emphasize "OUCH!!" and leave the room. Your puppy has lost its playmate. Return after one or two minutes time-out and make up by having your puppy come, sit and calm down before resuming play.
Once your pup's biting no longer hurts, still pretend it does. Greet harder nips with a yelp of pseudo-pain. Your puppy will soon to get the idea, "Whooahh! These humans are super-sensitive. I'll have to be much more gentle." The pressure of your puppy's bites will progressively decrease until biting becomes mouthing, or slobbering.
NEVER allow your puppy to mouth human hair or clothing. Hair and clothing can feel neither pressure nor pain. Consequently, allowing a pup to mouth hair, scarves, shoe laces, or gloved hands etc., inadvertently trains the pup to bite harder, extremely dose to human flesh!
Once your pup exerts no pressure whatsoever when mouthing, then and only then, teach the pup to reduce the frequency of mouthing. Teach the meaning of "Off" by hand feeding kibble (see the SIRIUS Puppy Training video), so your pup may learn gentle mouthing is OK, but it must stop the instant you say "Off" At this stage, your puppy should never be allowed to initiate mouthing (unless requested to do so). Please refer to our Preventing Aggression booklet for a detailed description of the essential rules for bite inhibition exercises such as play-fighting and tug o'war.
By way of encouragement though, mouthing-maniac puppies generally develop exceedingly gentle jaws as adults, since their many painful bites have elicited ample appropriate feedback. On the other hand, puppies which seldom play and roughhouse with other dogs, puppies which seldom bite their owners (e.g., shy, or fearful pups), and/or breeds which have been bred to have soft mouths, may not receive sufficient feedback concerning the power of their jaws. This is the major reason puppy class instructors go to great lengths to encourage shy and standoffish dogs to play in class. Should a dog ever bite as an adult, both the prognosis for rehabilitation and the fate of the dog are almost always decided by the severity of the injury, which is predetermined by the level of bite inhibition the dog learned during puppy hood. The most important survival lesson for a puppy to learn is: Bites cause pain ! And of course, the pup can only learn this lesson, if it bites, and if the bitee gives appropriate feedback.
