# Play biting is getting out of hand..



## tortoise

When puppy teeth touch my hand, the toy goes away and the game ends.

You've trained your puppy that when he bites you, he gets to play. That's backwards!

Now be fair to your pup. Take a straight shaped tug, hold the ends and have your puppy bite between your hands. Make sure you are presenting a stationary, straight surface to bite on. This helps your puppy to target the bite, keeping your fingers safe.

If he bites on your hands outside of play, hold your hands still and do not react. Puppy will get bored quickly and turn attention to a toy. Then begin play again. Make sure you pause long enough for puppy to get BORED after biting on you. Otherwise you teach puppy that biting your hands makes you play.

If a puppy truly doesn't back off, you can grasp your puppy's lower jaw. Thumb inside the mouth, under the tongue, and fingers on the ouside under the jaw. Just hold still. Puppy will soon fuss or cry, let go. Go back to play. With this physical correction it needs to be drive-compulsion-drive. Drive-compulsion-drive has problems in a lot of situations, but this is one it is appropriate.

I do not tolerate face biting. There is no training discipline in which face bites are permitted. No matter how wide the cross training, a dog will never have inhibition problems. Face bites are not OK. Scruffing is usually excessive. I use... I don't know what to call it. It looks like a slap on the cheek except with no more force than a pat. Just enough to upset the pup's center of gravity. It must be used with a negative marker so the puppy 100% understands face biting is not acceptable, without causing stress. Is correction fun? No! But losing part of your face because you failed to train your puppy is not fun either!


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## fjm

You say that your other dogs have been large dogs - have you perhaps been slightly (or even very!) amused by the play-ferocity of your tiny puppy? I've seen many people who see their very small pups playing Lions-and-tigers-and BEARS! and cannot resist laughing! As you know, small dogs need just as much training and socialising as large ones, if not more. Laughter can be hugely reinforcing for dogs.

With mine, I started with yelping loudly for painful bites, combined with a brief pause in play. Then escalated to game over for any biting that I felt was not sufficiently controlled. The key thing here, as Tortoise says, is that any biting means the game stops, and humans become very, very boring (gasping in horror at such nasty behaviour and muttering about how you don't like horrible nippy puppies is an optional extra). Absolute cause and effect - you hurt me, I stop playing. Face biting - or even attempted face biting - would mean an immediate end to all play, a very upright, fierce looking human, and a pup in no doubt that he had crossed the boundary.

I suspect Tortoise's ultimate tap-on-the-face method is one that you need a fair amount of experience to use correctly and successfully - I would suggest you only try it as a very last resort. There was a time, when Poppy had invented a game of jump-up-and-bite-Mum's-bum which she thought hugely amusing and I didn't, and ignoring bad behaviour was not working (ever tried to ignore puppy teeth unexpectedly pinching your bottom?!). I turned round and ROARED! Poppy was a very soft, rather shy puppy, and I had been careful to avoid aversives. On this occasion, she absolutely understood - she sat, looked at me, wagged her tail, and was much more careful with her teeth thereafter.


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## vicky2200

Ignoring him doesn't work. Then he grabs my pant leg or goes and bites the other dogs. I don't treat him differently than I treated my larger dogs as puppies. Generally I am okay with hand biting because they all figured out quickly that when they bite hard I yelp. He doesn't care. So I figured I would just not let him bite my hands. I did roar louder at him earlier when he bit me. It worked the first three times (although I am a bit nervous that I will scare him too much) but now when I do that he stops and then pounces at me. I know I will figure him out eventually, and right now it isn't a huge issue, it is just going to take more time for me to figure out since I am used to training large dogs.


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## schnauzerpoodle

I don't tolerate teeth on human skin. Face, hands, ankle … I don't care. Just no teeth on human skin. As soon as his teeth touch my skin, I yelp sharp and loud and the play session stops right away. I turn around, cross my arms in front of me, toys put away … I have to make it clear that as soon as his teeth touch me, any kind of interactions and fun end right there. As soon as he sits down and stays calm, I turn around and play with him again. Teeth on skin? Play session ends right away. All my dogs learned pretty quickly.


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## fjm

Out of interest, what size litter was your puppy from? I wonder if pups from larger litters get more of the rough edges rubbed off interacting with their siblings - and small dogs tend to have small litters.


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## vicky2200

He was the 3rd born out of 3. He also has a bit of food aggression with the other dogs. He is thin so I am thinking he might have been pushed out of the way when the food was put down. I'm going to try to just ignore him but he usually tugs on my pants or gnaws on the other dogs if I do. They are good with him, but I still don't like him doing that.


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## Ladyscarletthawk

I use scruffing for high treasonous acts.. biting your face, not stopping when other methods dont work calls for it. My neighbor had a yorkie pup that would chase and bite her kids that would play in house or out. Well at wits end she asked me to help... I watched as the kids ran in the house, pup would chase, and dodged mom when she tried to stop her. So I asked the kids to do a trial run again.. as my chow did to an ankle biting toy poodle that ran circles around us.. I watched the pup like a hawk, and at the right moment I snatched her up by the scruff, growled a deep NO, and set her back down between my legs. She looked up at me wagged her tail and calmly watched as the children ran back and forth. Never had a problem with that again..
Doesnt work for every dog but worked on that yorkie and works on my poodles. Like I said high treasonous acts only..


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## tortoise

vicky2200 said:


> Ignoring him doesn't work. Then he grabs my pant leg or goes and bites the other dogs. I don't treat him differently than I treated my larger dogs as puppies. Generally I am okay with hand biting because they all figured out quickly that when they bite hard I yelp. He doesn't care. So I figured I would just not let him bite my hands. I did roar louder at him earlier when he bit me. It worked the first three times (although I am a bit nervous that I will scare him too much) but now when I do that he stops and then pounces at me. I know I will figure him out eventually, and right now it isn't a huge issue, it is just going to take more time for me to figure out since I am used to training large dogs.


There are some drivey puppies that don't stop with ignoring and verbal or posturing only work once or twice.

The purpose of correction is to not have to do it again. If you find the right thing for your puppy, you will probably only need to do it once, as other posters have written.

If it's not working, you're not doing it hard enough or long enough. It sounds like you have a "hard" puppy - one that is resilient to corrections. The sooner he learns you won't tolerate it, the better off for everyone.

If you can't be firm (and controlled), put puppy on a leash during play. When you stop the game to ignore him, step on the leash so he can't engage another dog or toy. If a puppy bites my pant legs, I lift my foot up and shake the puppy off.

When you use corrections (becuase it sounds like you wil have to), you must not act out of frustration or anger. You will cross the line. You want to use the "minimum effective dose" to communicate to your puppy that the behavior will not be tolerated. Set yourself up for success, get everything ready. put aways dogs, people and toys, get leash, treats, toy, hands, puppy, patience, backbone. EXPECT your puppy to bite. Your pup doesn't know it, but you are going to make your puppy fail (make your puppy bite you), so that you have a safe and controlled environment to work in. Plan ahead - you know your puppy - and choose what correction you will use. Walk through it in your head and be prepared. When your pup bites, correct in whichever way you choose. If your puppy stops the biting/going after other dogs, etc., then big praise, good puppy and play again. This time don't antagonzie to fail your dog. Play tug, 1 tug and puppy wins the toy. This is highly rewarding. If, at the first correction, puppy doesn't stop the behavior (and attitude) try doing the same correction more firmly. Maybe you will leash your puppy and ignore for longer time until it STOPS. Maybe you will try another correction that has been mentioned here. Just have a plan.


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## tortoise

fjm said:


> I suspect Tortoise's ultimate tap-on-the-face method is one that you need a fair amount of experience to use correctly and successfully - I would suggest you only try it as a very last resort. There was a time, when Poppy had invented a game of jump-up-and-bite-Mum's-bum which she thought hugely amusing and I didn't, and ignoring bad behaviour was not working (ever tried to ignore puppy teeth unexpectedly pinching your bottom?!). I turned round and ROARED! Poppy was a very soft, rather shy puppy, and I had been careful to avoid aversives. On this occasion, she absolutely understood - she sat, looked at me, wagged her tail, and was much more careful with her teeth thereafter.


Yes, it's a very small movement. I don't even move my wrist. Just my fingers. I've raised a lot, a lot of high drive bitey puppies. It is all a reflex now. It was hard to learn patience. I have alot of scars on the top of my fingers from sharp puppy teeth from ignoring mouthing, and getting hard bites during play.

Sue Ailsby (don't know if I'm spelling that right), google dog training levels. Has a section on her site about this. She has some troubleshooting for common problems like "my puppy doesn't stop biting". I don't remember what she recommended. She is a positive trainer so I'm sure even a novice trainer can't do damage with her advice.

I had to laugh at the image of "jump up an grab mom's bum". I haven't had that happen!


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## JE-UK

tortoise said:


> If it's not working, you're not doing it hard enough or long enough. It sounds like you have a "hard" puppy - one that is resilient to corrections. The sooner he learns you won't tolerate it, the better off for everyone.


I disagree. With a young puppy, starting a war of escalating aversives will only damage the budding relationship with the dog and teach him distrust.

Dogs do things that are rewarding. Full stop. 

The OP said ignoring the dog didn't work because he still bites at trouser legs. That tells me that the OP's presence is still rewarding, and the act of winding himself up by nipping is rewarding. 

The message needs to be "you bite, and the fun stops". For some dogs, turning away is enough. For others, you might need to remove yourself from the room behind a closed door for 30 seconds. Poodles are smart, they want the fun to continue, they just need to understand the terms.

That, plus providing lots of legal outlets for sinking those needle puppy teeth into, will teach him to control his teeth. Dogs can have INCREDIBLE control over their teeth, they just need to learn it. 

I still (my dog is 2.5) play lots of bitey games with my dog, because I want his bite control continuously reinforced. He knows the rules, but occasionally (VERY occasionally) gets wound up and his bite goes over the threshold I've set. All I need to do is a very gentle "ow!" and he INSTANTLY takes his mouth off me.


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