The Missing Piece In Your Puppy Biting Training

puppy nipping is a thing and it is not fun it's frustrating it hurts when they have these razor sharp teeth um but what people don't realize is that a lot of the time when people are rough housing with their puppies it can cause puppies to be um a little bit more nippy and bitey and it can be a little bit confusing when people are rough housing with their pups and causing the dogs to to rehearse this Behavior but also people don't realize that you actually can use play maybe not rough housing play but actual PL to teach your puppy how to be a little bit more respectful with um with your [Music] hands so this is a typical young golden retriever puppy who as you can see has no qualms about biting my jacket biting my hands and he's not a bad puppy he's just a puppy that's young and doesn't really understand about bite inhibition at this point and he thinks playing should include using his teeth on my skin or on my clothing so I want to show you a little play exercise that we can do with our puppies to teach them that you actually can play we can have fun together but there are a few rules involved now before I get right to the play part I actually need to teach the control part first because I need Stephen to understand Steph's like the perfect name to get you in trouble with um Stephen I need to teach him how to be calm I need to have him understand what the expectation is and I'm actually going to teach him a command called settle and the cue that I'm going to get that I'm going to use to get him to settle is by taking a hold of his collar and when I take a hold of his collar I want him to understand that he needs to immediately be calm now we're going to have to start right with in beginning here because we do not have a calm puppy at this point so I'm going to take a little bit of food out and I'm just going to put it right on Steven's nose there we go you can see his behavior changeed and I'm going to take a hold of his collar with my free hand here you can see my hands right in there yes good boy and I'm going to reward him a few times for sitting and being calm while my hand is in his collar and I am not being um discreet about this my hands right in there good boy that's excellent now I'm going to stop the treats and I'm going to let go and I'm going to try this a few times I'm going to reach in take a hold of his collar yes and then reward so the hand goes in the collar First Once I have a good hold I'm going to yes and reward all I'm doing with this puppy right now is conditioning when I he feels me take his collar I want him to be calm and just be still and await the rewards now eventually once we do this enough time I won't need to use the food but this is very first time working with me and doing this exercise so I need to make it well worth his while now you'll notice I'm not giving him any treats during this exercise when I'm not holding him I want him to think yes that this is the absolute best part taking the collar is a good thing it is crucial that you do this step before you do the next part that I'm talking about if your puppy does not understand that when you take their collar they need to be calm and settled and relaxed this game is not going to work I need yes I need a position where he says I know my job here I need to sit and be calm um in fact I shouldn't say sit if he just stands and be is calm that's okay too now you might not see here CU he's facing me but his eyes are a little softer he's opening his mouth he's in a totally different mindset than he was just a moment ago all right now when I use play to teach my puppy about not nipping and biting I need to make sure that I have a few things ready ahead of time so there's a couple things that I've done here number one his called is well fit on his neck it's just snug enough that I can fit two fingers in there it's not so loose that he could spin around and and have a little Heyday if I was holding on to it so the collar needs to be uh secure the other thing is I need to have a leash on my puppy because what I don't want him to do is jump in try try to you know bite me in my clothing and then take off and be able to successfully run away so while I might not use the leash a whole lot it is going to be here as a bit of a backup I'm in a controlled environment I've actually rolled my sleeves up a little bit to make them a little bit less appealing and um you could do this with a toy but I actually want to just go right for the Gusto and teach him about how to play with me just with my bare hands um and not use the toy that that's a great thing to do but it's almost like a separate exercise so I have treats ready and waiting in my pocket here ready to go and I'm going to see if I can initiate some play part of the control aspect of this is that I start the game and I stop the game so if he comes up and he just starts initiating play right away I would respond to that by taking his collar and tell him settle no no I need to start it that's what allows me to to establish a bit of leadership Play Time play time good boy now if I feel any teeth on my skin or on my jacket I am going to take his collar and then uh tell him to settle he's being pretty good right now we're playing the floppy dog routine good boy oops okay he's jumping up and nipping so I'm going to take his collar Settle yeah yes good boy notice that I waited a moment before I said yes and gave him a treat because when I first grabbed his collar um he actually still had his mouth on my skin he wasn't biting down and you know hurting me per se but he still had his teeth on my skin once I continue to hold I saw the little wheels turn yes good boy Stephen and I saw him go wait a second she took my collar and I was Calm before so I waited for him to assume that position and then I yes and rewarded from there so let's go ahead and try that again good boy I'm going to start the game ready Play Time Play Time play time good boy play time now I'm going to stop before he bites me settle oops okay so see how it's hard for me to grab his his collar right now he's going to bite this is where I can use the leash to slide down and take his collar settle yes brilliant boy so again I take a hold of the collar and then I'm going to reward once he's calm beautiful bub good boy now if your puppy is really uh small or slippery or has a lot of fur it's hard to get a hold of that collar you can take a hold of the leash and just zipline your hand all the way down to the collar from there when you play this exercise you do not have to only stop once your puppy's nipped and and and bit at your arms you can stop really at any time because it's up to you to start and stop but I want him to learn that if his yeah actually he just did a good thing there he went to bite hand and instead he went to go to the leash which I'm absolutely okay with but I want him to understand that play can continue as long as you're not biting me okay should we do it one more time ready Play Time play time Play Time play time woohoo play time oh careful careful careful settle yes that was your best one good boy wow so um Steven's laying down this time rather than sitting and I'm okay with that because what I'm looking for is what's happening up here I'm seeing a calm puppy he's giving me really good eye contact wow that's amazing good boy what a lot of people don't realize when it comes to stopping our puppies from nipping and biting is that actually correcting nipping and biting isn't the sole way that you're going to fix your problem in fact you can prevent a lot of the nipping and biting issues from happening in the first first place simply by training your puppy this is one of the things that we really focus on in our puppy Essentials program we want to teach you about the type of puppy that you have not the breed but the temperament and the mindset so that you can give them and deliver the information that's um that's important and that you're not just doing the cookie cutter thing you know there's times where you're going to set out and work on one thing and then we might need to shift things slightly so that you and your puppy can find success and uh myself and my team of instructors are really good at being able to read those situ ations so that we can tweak things so that they work perfectly for you and for your puppy now you want to keep these little sessions go boy you want to keep these sessions really short and sweet don't keep going until your puppy gets a little bit exhausted do a couple little reps here and there and then you can stop from there now the last thing I'm going to show you is just what we call a passive restraint so the other thing I want Stephen to be able to be comfortable with is simply being held and being calm so you can see for a couple seconds he's fine there and then he says I don't want to be here and this is typically where a puppy goes to nip and bite now I have a nice calm puppy yes good boy so I can say yes set him down I could reward if you had a family member with you ideally it would be great is while you were holding the puppy if they were nice and calm you could have a family member give your puppy a few yes and then treats now something that I'm doing here is I have my hand just in his collar in between him and me so that I can stop him from turning to nip at me and I just want him to be like a dangly puppy and actually we call this the noodle test so you can see if I hold hold him he's just like all noodly and relaxed and and uh comfortable hi lover Good Boy Yes again I don't want to do it for too long because I want him to be successful now this one exercise is not going to solve all of your nipping and biting problems there is a whole whack load of things that you need to know about in order to get the full picture but this is something that you can do that can allow you to have some fun with your puppy play and engage with them but them understand you're being so good now them understand that they can play and have fun but they can do it without using their teeth on your skin and on your clothing and that's really our number one rule if you find that you do this with your puppy and it doesn't go quite as smoothly I want you to take more time working on the very first part of this exercise and that is teaching them to take the allowing you to take their collar and reward them if your puppy is not a master at that going into the playing part where you're actually provoking play with the puppy is only going to end with your puppy nipping and biting and you not being able to get controll you'll notice that when I took his collar it immediately calmed him down so if you take the collar you're not immediately getting that that means you need to go back and work a little bit more on having the puppy understand the expectation that when we hold the puppy's collar they need to be calm and settled something that's important to note about this game is that it is not designed for all ages of dogs this little play and settle exercise is something that I would only do with a puppy that was very young let's say under 13 14 weeks old um and with certain sizes of and weights of dogs as well as your puppy gets a little bit older and they have a little bit more weight and a little bit more life behind them it will become more challenging to get them to settle but just by taking their collar you know he is a very 10- we old golden retriever puppy who's a little bit more softer minded to begin with if you're at the point in the journey with your puppy where your puppy's a little older a little bigger um there's other tactics that we would use uh to work through our nipping and biting problems but I wanted to make sure it was understood that this particular game is best suited for the smaller younger breeds of dogs and the idea is to start this before we have a lot of nipping and and and biting problems Stephen is a young golden retriever puppy that's very soft and a little bit more mild um but remember if you have a puppy that maybe is a bit more boisterous and could use slightly different tactics in order to conquer nipping and biting you're going to want to check out that video right here on that note I'm kale happy training

Channel: McCann Dog Training

Views: 90,963

Keywords: aggressive puppy biting, how to stop your puppy from biting, how to train a puppy, how to train puppy not to bite, how to train puppy to not bite, how to train puppy to stop biting, puppy biting hands, puppy biting problem, puppy biting tips for new puppy owners, puppy training, stop puppy biting, train puppy to stop biting

Id: G4IG5kEHb8g

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 08 2024