[LibbieLu08]

So my brother has a little puppy. As soon as she gets on my laps she starts biting my clothes, my fingers and my toes. I want to be paper for when my baby comes 'just in case she does the same thing' and I came across this online.....

STOP YOUR PUPPY FROM BITING YOU

I've had success in stopping puppies from biting with the following method.

I believe that if you communicate with your dog or puppy as another dog does, you will achieve much greater success in a shorter period of time than with any other method.

Part of normal puppy behavior is rough and tumble play involving mouthing and biting its littermates as well as its parents. When you bring a puppy home he will play with you the same way. Since your skin is much more delicate than that of a dog, this will hurt. This is especially true since a puppy's teeth are like little needles. They cause pain because they are so sharp and can, on occasion, puncture the skin.

In my experience, yelling in pain may stop the dog, but rarely works more than a few times. The puppy is startled by the sharp loud noise and inhibited for a moment. But after a few times of this occurring, the puppy learns that nothing bad or uncomfortable happens and he learns to ignore it. However some, very soft dogs may respond to this and if they do, you're done.

Some advocate leaving the puppy alone and stop giving him attention for a short period after this occurs. This may work for some puppies but some will just find something else to do.

Feeding a piece of food, is excellent for starting the "off," "no bite," or "leave it" command but that method will sometimes take a couple of weeks of training before you can expect the puppy not to bite. I don't have a couple of weeks to train a puppy and they can cause a lot of pain and do a lot of damage in that time.


THE METHOD

I believe that the best way to stop a puppy from biting too hard is the way his mother does. When a puppy is nursing and bites down too hard, she will take his whole head in her mouth and bite down, slowly increasing the pressure until the puppy goes limp, exhibiting submission. She will hold that pressure for a moment and then release it. After a few repetitions of this, the puppy becomes conditioned to the amount of pressure that is appropriate when using his teeth. He learns that a little pressure is OK but that a harder bite brings an unpleasant situation.

No, I don't want you to take your puppy's head in your mouth. The puppy's head is probably be too large for that, and besides, there’s all that puppy hair on your tongue!

I advocate that when you are playing with your puppy and he bites too hard, you should immediately engulf his head with your hand, come in from the top of his head, not from the nose. Slowly increase the pressure of your hand, squeezing HIS lips into HIS teeth until he stops moving and becomes passive. Hold that level of pressure for just a few seconds and then release the puppy.

Don't yell, unless it's involuntarily, as a result of the pain from the puppy's bite. Don't scold, don't shake the puppy. His mother does not do any of these things and she manages to get him to stop biting too hard in short order.

Sometimes this needs to be done with each family member so that the puppy learns not to bite every one of them. If this involves small children who don't understand how this is done, an adult can supply the lip pinch when the puppy bites the child too hard. Sometimes this needs to be done with a visitor to the home as well. The owner should do this, rather than relying on a novice visitor to get it right.

I have never had to do this more than three or four times before the puppy learns what is and what is not, an appropriate level of force when playing. It is usually done in one afternoon with a reminder or two the following day.

Some of the readers of this may say that it is cruel or may cause the puppy to bite even harder or that it will cause hard feelings between the puppy and the owner. I will counter that it doesn't do any of those things when the puppy's mother does it and it won't with you either.



What do you guys think? Does it work or is it too harsh? I'm so unsure of what to do in this situation so if anybody has any ideas or suggestions I would love to hear it!