Thread: Mouthing & Building Drive

with every pupie that i have had i feel that you need to have a rank structure if you dont want him to bite you just simply grab him by the scraf of the neck and shake a bit and say no.

after all its mother would do same she would grab his neck.

We have found that the pups just shake it of and go about their palying without the unwanted behaviour.

Adam

With the youngens biting human flesh i give a command ahh!If that doesn't sink in then a good grabbing of the scruff does and they do shake it off as already said here.For the more stubborn babies i can only suggest persistance and consistency in your method.You can redirect the bite with a tug or towel or whatever you are using however it is a good time to also say "I am alpha and no bite satisfaction is happening right now"Figure of speech of course i don't expect you to go out and say that to Montu.

You are leader, you say when enough is enough and i do not think that will crush your boys spirit.Puppies need leaders.

Whatever a puppy is purchased for good ground rules and routine is key.

Yeah, Montu is a tough one as he was stung by a bee in his mouth and I didn't realise and gave him a bite on a tug and it appears that it hurt him a great deal so I was being very careful not to put him off biting any further. He still won't latch onto tugs if all 4 of his feet are off the ground (he used to) but he will with 2 feet off which is a huge improvement.

I've started grabbing his scruff and telling him off for it though, it's tough when you're new to it all and you don't want to punish too harshly and cause damage but you need to punish enough for it to be effective. He's coming onto 10 months soon so he is starting to mature so I feel he can handle the corrections.

He does put my hand in his mouth but I'm correcting that as well now. I don't want his mouth going over my body at all. Ever. He's slowly learning but in the next few weeks I'm going to start working on his obedience so that should help things out.

(Quick post, probably forgot something but will add it tomorrow).

I've been watching our pups constantly since birth. When the teeth started coming through & they lined up at the milk bar, mum would get her mouth over their head & exert a little pressure if they were nibbling her too hard. They soon realised it was important to be nice if they wanted a feed.
Now they are coming up to 6 weeks old & the teeth are razor sharp, so just a small nip can get my blood flowing. At this stage in their development I've always put my hand over a pup's head & with my fingers open the pup's jaws. At the same time, giving a specific command. It doesn't take the pup long to get the message. At this stage I also introduce them to whole carrots. The carrots are very cold or frozen in the fridge. It eases the pain for them when teething. Our adults get whole carrots just about every day, which they devour with relish. Good for their coats too.

Bernie was a serious nibbler. We used distraction initially, then changed to shaking him by scruff of neck and that worked fine. He'd bounce back, and inhibit his biting for a few minutes. Trick was to stop play on this good note, as wait too long, and he'd resume biting me. grrrr