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Hi there.
I got a westie puppy male about 10 days ago.
The first 2 or 3 days he was doing just fine.
After that he started biting, especially when playing.
We are trying everything for stop this behaviour, but it looks like harder than we tought.
We try to concentrate his attention on a chew toy, ignore if he bites, give him a tap on his chin (like shown on this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKhrQVuC ... re=related ), give him treats when he's good (really few times)...
We don't see any signal of improvement.
Any suggestions?
I think the method shown on the video is pretty unpleasant and unlikely to work long term. I'm sure you'll get some good advice on here.
Puppies normally go through a 'vampire' stage, where they mouth and those evil needle teeth do really hurt, its natural and normal and will get better.
What I have done when ours started was to make a fist, that way they can't really get hold of your hands and also they are biting a hard surface. I learnt to do the same with baby ferrets and it worked then. I don't say anything just ignore them completely and keep them away from my nose, that hurts.
It wasn't a great problem with ours because they learnt no to bite from the other dogs.
He's being a normal puppy. This is a very painful stage and you are right to want to end it before he's a westie grown up and still mouthing. Mouthing's not funny or cute when it's a grown dog doing it.
There are several things you can do to make the mouthing game not as much fun--and none of them should involve popping the puppy on the chin. Give him plenty of chewie toys to play with. If he mouths you you can put something in his mouth that you are okay with him biting on, make a shrill "OUCH!" sound and walk away from him (biting too hard makes my play friend go away)--this method was MORE fun for my beagle, so I couldn't use it, but it has worked well with others. When you're playing with puppy and he hurts simply get up calmly and walk away. No bad puppies or oh you little devils, just get up and walk away. Go back a few seconds later. He does it again, you repeat. He'll eventually realize that biting too hard will make you go away and the game will stop.
If you got popped on the chin, you'd most likely hit the person back. So why shouldn't a puppy bite back (only means of defense) when it gets popped? Unfortunately I was unable to think that way when we first got Cadence. We too tried the "pop" on the nose/chin method and obviously saw NO improvements. Only until I started coming on here did I find the best solution. Very quickly Cadence realized that her teeth on our skin = us getting up and leaving. She caught on and now has very good bite inhibition. She still likes to put her mouth over our arms or hands but puts no pressure on our skin whatsoever. We have no problem with this since this is how dogs explore and like to play.
Like Leigha said, the "OUCH!" yelping method just got Cadence more excited and wanted to bite us more Especially since we got her at a very early age and she didn't learn from her litter mates that "yelp = stop you hurt me".
Thx to everyone.
I will push more with 'the leaving' tip.
He uses to just follows us tho, often trying to bite our slippers, etc... and when you tell him 'NO' and sometimes move him away, he tries to bite again (in a playing mode tho).
So, when you leave, and he follows you, what am I supposed to do ?
Close yourself in a bathroom or closet for a few seconds.
It sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it works. My boy was a vicious little son of a gun and he got a great kick out of making me squeal when he got his fangs into me. He loved to get between my legs and bite at my pant legs when I walked or attack my shoes.
I would walk away from him and close myself in the downstairs bathroom and count to 10. Then go out and try again. You could also try to pick him up and put him in time out (you put him in the bathroom and count to 10), this works too (basically it's the same principle) but you might get bit. Bruiser wasn't a fan of getting picked up and would have psychotic episodes trying to get at my hands and I now have many scars on my hands from him. It's safer for you to put yourself in time-out rather than him. But they both do basically the same thing. They take his person away from him and the game stops. Eventually he learns that by doing this it makes you go away.
Either way you choose to do the time-out method they need to be short, 10 seconds or so.
The more consistent you can be, the quicker it will work. So make sure you and no one else either, is allowing him to bite at you sometimes and not others. It must be EVERY time he bites hard... out you go.
Also, the more stuff you can give him that IS good to bite/chew on and so the more time he can spend biting/chewing/ragging on stuff appropriately (within the 'rules' if its a raggy toy game iwth you), the less time he will spend doing it inappropriately.
yeah he has chew toys, but sometimes he just ignores them, even tho there is treat inside (ex: kong)
maybe he's just crazy ahah (kidding)
ok I will try this tho and see how it'll go
Hi,
Finally probably we found out what kind of problems he's having.
It is absolutely NOT a normal behaviour, the trainer finally saw him yesterday and she confirmed this.
It is not teething biting, but probably dominance.
She said it is a problem we have to work on seriously, otherwise the puppy can end up being an aggressive dog.
Also with the food aggression problem is getting worse and worse.
Oh nooooooooooo run from this trainer. Your dog is a puppy, it is NOT dominance, and biting during play is absolutely normal and it's up to the humans to teach the dog bite inhibition. Find yourself a positive trainer. Please, I made this mistake on my 8-month-old rescue and did some damage to our relationship because I kept going to training classes with someone who believed in the dominance theories. Have a read at some of our threads on dominance and stick with this board.
no no, this biting is not from playing, but mostly when petting him. the gaming one looks like is almost disappeared.
next week a different trainer (like u said, positive one, not dominance) will come over for 1 hour.
How do you mean, can you describe the biting when petting him and how it differs from his play biting as a game?
My youngest likes to nibble you when you are grooming or petting him sometimes, its actually mutual grooming or hes 'helping' me by telling me that is a really itchy spot i have found. At first when he was little and had sharp teeth and not much self control his nibbles were quite hard and ouchy, now with his blunt adult teeth and self control they are really soft and gentle.
Whatever it is - I can assure you it is NOT dominance. It may be he doesnt like being touched, or maybe he is grooming you back, but it isnt dominance at all. No way, no how.
example: yesterday at the puppy training school a little boy tried to pet him and before even he could touch the puppy, the dog bited him hard his hand.
then everyone (including the trainer) tried to touch him and see his reaction, and he was just out of control and tried to bite everyone getting close to him.
clear?
Especially since we got her at a very early age and she didn't learn from her litter mates that "yelp = stop you hurt me".
