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articles re puppy mouthing and nipping
These articles recommended by a breeder I know are taken from www.wonderpuppy.net and www.doglogic.com ------------------------------------------------------------- If you watch a litter of puppies playing, you will notice that they spend much of their time biting and grabbing each other with their mouths. This is normal puppy behavior. When you take a puppy from the litter and into your home, the puppy will play bite and mouth you. This is normal behavior, but needs to be modified so you and the puppy will be happy. The first thing to teach your new puppy is that human flesh is much more sensitive than other puppies and that it really hurts us when they bite. This is called bite inhibition. A puppy has very sharp teeth and a weak jaw. This means that the puppy can cause you to be uncomfortable when mouthing or puppy biting you, but can not cause severe damage. An adult dog has duller teeth and a powerful jaw. This means that an adult dog can cause significant damage when biting. ANY DOG WILL BITE GIVEN THE RIGHT OR WRONG CIRCUMSTANCES ! If a small child falls on your adult dog and sticks a finger in the dog's eye, you should not be surprised if the dog bites. If you do a good job teaching your puppy bite inhibition, you should get a grab and release without damage. If you don't, you may get a hard bite with significant damage. It is simple to teach a puppy bite inhibition. Every time the puppy touches you with its teeth, say "OUCH!" in a harsh tone of voice. This will probably not stop the puppy from mouthing, but over time should result in softer and gentler puppy biting. The commands necessary to teach a puppy NOT to mouth, are easy and fun. Hold a small handful of the puppy's dry food, say "take it" in a sweet tone of voice, and give the puppy one piece of food. Then close the rest of the food in your hand and say "off" in that same sweet tone of voice. When the puppy has not touched your hand for 3 to 5 seconds, say "take it" and give the puppy one piece of food. We are teaching the puppy that "off" means not to touch. You should do this with the puppy before every meal for at least 5 minutes. After a couple of weeks of the above training, here is how you are going to handle puppy biting or mouthing: a. Unexpected mouthing (you don't know the puppy is going to mouth, until you feel the puppy's teeth): "OUCH!" b. Expected mouthing (you see the puppy getting ready to mouth you): You say "OFF" before the puppy can mouth you. c. The puppy is mouthing you because of a desire to play. You have to answer the question, "Do I have time to play with the puppy now ?" If you do, then do "sit", "down", "stand" or other positive 'lure and reward' training. If the answer is "No, I don't have time for the puppy, right now," then you need to do a time out (crate, or otherwise confine the puppy, so the puppy can't continue to mouth you and get in trouble. I believe you will find the above much more humane than yelling at the puppy all of the time. The above training methods have been modified from information that I learned from Dr. Ian Dunbar in his puppy training seminars and from his excellent video 'Sirius Puppy Training' which is available by calling 510-658-8588. Joel Walton, BSc -------------------------------------------------------------- How to Teach a Puppy Not To Bite How to train your puppy not to bite - - - Fully one-third of all dogs do not even make it through the first year with their original owner. Irritating puppy behaviors often become intolerable habits when an owner does not address the behaviors early on. Mouthing is a completely normal canine activity that often will not go away with age and can become harder and more painful to correct as adult teeth emerge. All puppies bite, mouth, and challenge each other and their humans, but some much more than others. It is up to the owner to define the boundaries of acceptable behavior to the pup as soon as possible. Often the behavior will not "wear off" and if one doesn't do something about it before the adult teeth come in, the dogs may be 'relinquished' to another 'party'- which means they will probably die. The rule: No teeth can touch the skin or clothing of a human. Train an incompatible behavior: When the pup licks, give it a name like "kisses" and encourage it with high-pitched praise. When the pup uses its teeth on you, make a loud abrupt and startling sound which is a mammalian 'interrupt'. He will likely be so surprised that he will stop mouthing, momentarily at least. At the instant he is not mouthing (ie. as soon as he stops), praise him as you do for licks. Timing is everything. You want to extinguish the mouthing and replace it with licking. Your reactions a Licking or 'not biting' --- lots of gooey praise. Any teeth --- large startling sound right in his face. At six weeks of age, the puppy should learn this lesson in only a few days if all individuals who interact with him practice it consistently. Justification: The reason for replacing the mouthing with something else (i.e. licking) is because one cannotsimply suppress such strong innate behavior as mouthing. The mouthing may occur repetitively unless you 'train' an incompatible behavior. For example, you cannot lick and bite simultaneously without biting your tongue. Sometimes force methods such as squeezing muzzles, ect. backfire in that they suppress behavior for awhile but then it comes back full force at unexpected moments. You should use an interrupt action to stop the immediate behavior followed by a reward for the cessation of the biting. Train the humans: Bite-inhibition is much harder to achieve if even one person allows the puppy to bite, so restrict access to those people who can implement the training method correctly. Children, nine-years-old or younger, are probably not capable of performing this procedure effectively and consistently, so caretakers should keep the younger kids and canines separated until the canine has been bite-inhibition trained by adults. When the behavior of others weaken your own efforts, the dog can become confused. Inconsistency can build frustration and avoidance behavior in canines which can lead to aggression. Recruit puppy playmates: It can also help if the pup has littermates or littermate substitutes to help him practice bite-inhibition as other pups are the best teachers of all. They will squeak and refuse to play if a pup's bite is too hard. However, do not expect all adult dogs to correct this behavior since many will allow a much harder bite before correcting the puppy, if they correct at all. Find a kindergarten puppy class. It is worth traveling for a good one. A good class would include off-leash puppy socialization in an enclosed area. The easiest way of all if it works: With some dogs, simply ignoring the undesired behavior and giving NO feedback, either positive or negative, will eventually cause the canine to drop that behavior from their repertoire.This process is known as extinction. This approach may take a long time and it may be difficult for some people to ignore puppy mouthing for the duration. |
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