Biting all the time

[Beckis]

My Moja is biting all the time. When shes happy, angry, playing…
She´s now 6 month old.
I know that they can do so, but for how long?
She´s not agressive, it´s only a behavore we don´t like so much.

[Vanessa]

Our Chance is a year now and we experiended the same thing as you. What we did everytime he bit, we would say ouch and pull away. He soon understood that if he bit while playing, we wouldn't play anymore.
He still does it when he gets too excited and I will stop whatever I am doing and walk away. He understands real fast.

[JazzysMom]

When our pups bit, we'd say "ouch,no!", but we'd also then immediately give them a toy – substitute the toy for the arm.

Keoki -- 11 mos -- occasionally will get excited and snap in play but he seems to know that's a no-no and will catch himself.

Jazz is funny; she'll only play wrestle with me and she will use teeth but ever so gently.

[renaultf1]

@Vanessa626:

Our Chance is a year now and we experiended the same thing as you. What we did everytime he bit, we would say ouch and pull away. He soon understood that if he bit while playing, we wouldn't play anymore.
He still does it when he gets too excited and I will stop whatever I am doing and walk away. He understands real fast.

Ruby just turned 3 and if she gets super excited, she'll occasionally play bite (happens very rarely now). I do exactly the same thing Vanessa does, I stop play…she catches on real quick. In fact, when I originally got her 6 months ago, she would do it sometimes when I invited her up on the bed. When she did that, she was immediately taken off the bed. She's stopped playbiting on the bed within a week or two. Smart dogs...they get it :D.

[torchsong]

She-Ra will play bite, and never really gets ahold of you or anything. We've had occasions where she's bitten and we've done the "OW!" thing, but we immediately follow it up by holding our hand down to her and say "Kisses", getting her to lick the hand she was biting. She's figured out Kisses are good, biting isn't.

[Puji]

Charlie is also 6 months old. He had been play biting/nipping a lot when he was around 4-5 months old, but then pretty much stopped, except when he was really excited and playful. We did the same as what has already been suggested - saying 'eh' or 'no' for the nipping, and stopping the fun and games for a bit. We also sprayed him with a water bottle when he was really persistently hopping up and nipping at us. Occasionally, I'd have to put my hand over his muzzle and tell him 'no biting' and then 'good boy' for calming down. He got to the point where he would stop jumping/nipping when we told him to sit.

BUT… he just had his neutering 5 days ago, and since then he has been really nippy!!! I think it might be because his walks are so much shorter now (doctor's orders), and he has all this excess energy. We're doing everything we used to do, but it's not working! The only thing that works now is the water bottle (sometimes) and just walking away slowly and calmly after saying 'no'. Ahh :rolleyes: ... I'm also wondering if this is another stage of puppy development - testing boundaries again?

[tanza]

Why are his walks shorter? Neutering should not make a difference in walks on lead???

[Beckis]

I tried everything you wrote. Say no, stop playing, go away, give her a bone, …. Nothing works. I hope it growes away. I love her anyway!

[felakuti]

Our vet had Fela on shorter walks after he was neutered also. Something about possibly opening the wound. Also no jumping up, like on the sofa or bed, something like that. btw Merry Baroooooooochristmas.

[wizard]

After I first brought EL D home (he was already an adult) he would bite when excited too. I would yell ouch not just say it and he got the idea real fast. After a couple times of that he's never bitten again (except by accident).

[tanza]

@Beckis:

I tried everything you wrote. Say no, stop playing, go away, give her a bone, …. Nothing works. I hope it growes away. I love her anyway!

It is not going to happen overnight… this is a longer term conditioning.. and if you don't follow through, then it will not stop....

[Puji]

@tanza:

Why are his walks shorter? Neutering should not make a difference in walks on lead???

The vet instructed us to keep his walks down to 5 or 10 minutes at most - at least until 10 days post surgery (which will be Dec 24). This is to help his wound heal.

This does lead me to the question, though, of how much a pup should be walked. I was reading about this a while ago, and Turid Rugaas (author of Calming Signals) writes on her website that puppies less than 4 months should be walked only 10-15 min per day; 4-5 months, 20 min per day; 6-8 months, 30 min per day; and 9-10 months, 40-45 min per day. My vet said to walk the dog as much as he will tolerate.

Before his surgery, Charlie was walking about 20 min in the morning, 30-45 min around lunch, and about 30 min after dinner. Didn't seem to bother him at all - if anything kept him calmer (less nippy) at home than he is now. Although, his behaviour on the leash is better with these shorter walks. Any thoughts

[Gooby]

An old school technique my grenpeppy taught me way back when is to wait for your dog to mouth your hand and then grab his lower jaw. If you use your thumb to apply a light pressure on his tounge he soon learns that biting people's hand is a very unpleasant thing. to speed it up try putting bitter apple spray on your hands

[tanza]

@Gooby:

An old school technique my grenpeppy taught me way back when is to wait for your dog to mouth your hand and then grab his lower jaw. If you use your thumb to apply a light pressure on his tounge he soon learns that biting people's hand is a very unpleasant thing. to speed it up try putting bitter apple spray on your hands

That is an old school technique, and I never found it to work much.. and you have to be really quick to catch them each and every time…