How to Stop Puppy Biting

Puppies younger than six months old come armed with energy and needle sharp teeth they often tend to launch into your tender, human flesh. When you're a little older, on blood thinnners, the result can be a map of lacerations that looks like you fell into a blackberry patch, fought the bushes, and lost.

Once of the most common questions I get is how to stop puppy biting, an almost universal problem.

Over the years, I have developed a protocol and sits in the sweet spot of efficacy for most breeds - being fond of Australian Cattle Dogs, puppies of this variety are quite fond of using their mouths.

Most of the time, in an overabundance of kindness people do not address puppy biting effectively and some of the advice (such as to trade the puppy for a toy) can even exacerbate the issue. Remember, dogs only do what works, so to trade the playful, predation inclined puppy your flesh for a toy is technically a reward - they begin engaging you with their mouth, you then respond by playing with them, and voila, they got exactly what they wanted.

Going back to first principles, we see that the situation is such that the puppy begins biting and most people respond with agitation and increased movement. This of course directly increases the puppy's predatory response that started the whole situation to begin with. If prey thrashes, that makes the predator double down on their biting and wrestling, again rewarding the behavior with more excitement and conflict. The vast majority of people aren't going to escalate their efforts towards a physical confrontation that will actually be aversive enough to stop the puppy's attempts to bite.

An ineffective, weak correction is a hundred times worse than no correction at all, and particularly with mouth inclined dogs like terriers, malinois, and cattle dogs, will only intensify the issue.

Instead, I advocate for ending the game through attrition. Become still - one, this is the "danger signal" from adult dogs that says to the puppy "I am going to BITE YOU if you don't stop." Two, this ends the feedback loop of predatory behavior since you aren't struggling like a terrified rabbit anymore.

I will slowly and smoothly remove the puppy's jaws by prying off their mouth from the top jaw, pinching inward over the bridge of the nose with forefinger and thumb right behind the canine teeth. Is this uncomfortable for the puppy? Maybe - but some determined attackers won't disengage without a bit of discomfort, and none of us get out of life without some of that. Discomfort describes the boundaries for dangers in this reality, after all.

After that, I will socially reject the puppy, holding them in such a manner that they can't bite and tethering them to a backtie for the "Place" exercise or sending them to their crate. The loss of privilege and access to you and the unexciting conclusion signals that their attempt to engage you has failed. Once the puppy has calmed themselves after being socially rejected, THEN I will grab a toy and play with them - using the commands OUT (and prying the toy from their jaws with the same motion I used on my skin if they don't let go), GET IT (to indicate they should hit the toy), and BRING IT (for fetch). I will use a yard long string tied to the toy so they can't run off and turn the game into "chase me". Teaching the puppy this structured play forces them to think through the excitement.

If the puppy tries to bite again, during this playtime, they get the exact same response.

After enough iterations of playtime ONLY happening through structured cooperation, the biting will subside, because the only time they get to have predation fun with you is when they limit their attempts to an appropriate context.