Puppy Biting

Puppy Biting

First, you must remember that play biting, mouthing, and chewing are normal and natural puppy behaviours. We have our hands to investigate the world with – puppies use their teeth to explore and play.

Puppies are teething up until the age of 6 months, but mouthing and play biting behaviours are often at their worst between weeks 12–16, when teething peaks. This period coincides with a time in a puppy’s life when they are becoming more confident, and sometimes mouthing behaviours can be mistaken for dominance or aggression, when overstimulation or lack of sleep is normally the cause.

What not to do!

There is a lot of information on the internet about how to handle puppy biting, and a lot of these methods can make the problem worse, so let’s start with what not to do:

• Do not tell your puppy off! They are teething and, as far as they are concerned, they are doing what puppies do. If you have a more nervous puppy, this can create a fearful association with being around you; in more confident puppies, this can increase excitement and make the problem worse. Remember that negative attention, e.g., ‘ah ah’ or ‘no’ or pushing them away, is still seen as attention – therefore, they are likely to continue.
• Squeaking or squealing to mimic how another puppy might behave when bitten is ineffective – puppies recognise their own kind, and this can again increase excitement and turn you into a human squeaky toy!
• We do not recommend any aversive ways of dealing with this behaviour, such as tapping them on the nose. This can create a fear of hands coming towards them, risk them biting back harder, or again, increase excitement in overconfident puppies.

Managing Biting and Chewing

It’s important to understand that chewing is a self-rewarding behaviour, so the more the puppy practices and enjoys chewing on the wrong things, the more they will continue to do this. Here’s how to manage your puppy to prevent mouthing or chewing on ‘illegal’ items:

• Manage their environment to prevent chewing on furniture by using a crate or puppy pen when you can’t keep a close eye on them.
• Use a lightweight house line so that you can prevent them from going to chew on furniture or mouthing on the clothes of passing family members.
• Note down times of day when mouthing occurs, so that you can pre-empt these times in future and provide them with something appropriate to chew on in advance.
• If there are times of day when mouthing is particularly bad, consider whether your puppy has had enough sleep (remember they need 18–20 hours up until 6 months) – behaviour quickly becomes over the top in overtired puppies.
• If mouthing occurs after play sessions, consider whether play has gone on too long and they have become very wound up. Decrease the length of play next time and, once finished, immediately engage them in a calming activity such as sniffing for treats in the garden.
• Try to keep your puppy as calm as possible at what could become very exciting times, e.g., greetings.