PuppyLog

Puppies nip. They pretty much all do to one extent or another. ACD pups bite. It's not agression. It's part of their herding technique. It was quite frustrating when she didn’t seem to respond to all the usual techniques to curtail it.

Should you try to stop the biting completely? Probably not. It’s a big part of how dogs interact with the world. They pick up things, they express themselves, they find out how things taste and feel, defend themselves, show affection, communicate, and myriad other things, much the way we use our hands.

In addition, biting softly is a learned behaviour. If you stop a puppy from biting altogether, there is a good chance that the pup will never learn to control a bite. It can become all or nothing. Puppies jaws are not that strong, though their teeth are quite sharp. You may get a scrape or small puncture from a pup that does not know how to control its bite. From a full-grown dog you can be seriously injured or maimed. It is incredibly important that your dog learn to control the force of its bite as a pup. Going straight to never allowing a bit at can be dangerous.

Dogs use their mouths like we do our hands and taking that tool away from them will cause frustration. At some point the dog may have such a need to use its mouth on another living thing (to get your attention, to warn another dog to leave it alone, to protect you, the possibilities are endless) that it will bite. If it hasn't learned to inhibit the amout of force it uses the results can be disaterous both for the one bitten and for the dog who could end up being put down. If you haven't seen it already, take a look at this page:
http://www.shirleychong.com/keepers/archives/bite.txt

Lila bites more than any other puppy I've ever delt with. At almost five months Lila is teething and that makes matters much worse. She is getting comparatively gentile with her teeth but when new ones are coming in she gets frantic. We give her some frozen objects like ice cubes, frozen wet rags and frozen carrots. Once all the adult tooth comes in it is easier for her to control herself again.

She is also getting older and developing more awareness of others. Anthropomorphizing not withstanding, with age and the right experience dogs can develop something akin to compassion.

The first couple of weeks we were only trying extinction. That means simply ignoring the unwanted behavior. The trick is to make sure she knows she is being ignored and that it happens immediately and suddenly when she bites. It is best to leave her alone abruptly and totally for at least 30 seconds. Now she is at a point that we can often just take our hands away briefly, then go back to handling her.

At first we had to do that with every bite but we soon noticed that she was experimeting. She began trying bites at various levels of force. This was actually quite cute when it didn't hurt too much. She'd bite softly and get harder and harder, looking up at us out of the corner of her to see the reaction. We were not as methodical as we could have been but the idea is to extinguish the current hardest biting and gradually move her down a scale of force, getting softer and softer. This way she can learn full control of her entire range of force.  

The other thing that we added to extinction was the yelp. That is, when she bites, you let out a yelp like a puppy in pain, and immediately withdraw from her. For the first month, this seemed to do no good. The yelp seemed to only encourage her to bite more. I do think however that she was in fact learning. It just took a while for the results to show.

We continue with those methods, but the things that have made the most difference have been:

1. General calming influences such as
• a long walk a la Cesar Milan, that is to say she walk with us and pays close attention to us the entire time. (NOTE: That is NOT to say use a chocke collar! See the page on "heeling") This is the second interaction she gets with us each day - the first being a short walk to pee - and happens right after I've had my morning tea, but before breakfast.
• obedience training before or during each meal
• a lot of attention when she is resting, not a lot when she is hyped up.
• All of the above is following Cesar Milan; she gets exercise, discipline, affection in that order. I don’t agree with everything he says but he seems to be spot on with this basic premise, at least as long as there is a specific problem to be addressed.
2.  Biting her with my lips tucked over my teeth. I know it sounds weird but it worked wonders. I started doing this when she was sleepy so she would not get all riled up. She got a great quizzical look on her face while she thought about it. You could almost see her little brain saying "Oh ...so we play with really, really soft bites....” The change in her biting was immediate, though not immediately consistent. I now can let her bite my face and ears without worrying about being hurt or cut. I still don't try this when she is at her most riled up though.

She mostly gets riled up fairly late at night or when she is hungry. The best solutions to not getting bitten at these times are to put her to bed or to feed her. Yes I know that should be obvious. That putting her to bed works is actually somewhat surprising. She seems so wide awake and active that you would think it would take her a while to settle down in her crate. In fact though, she settles down very quickly and, if we leave her to it, goes right to sleep. Feeding her when she is hungry has the double benefit of calming her down and providing a training opportunity. She really pays attention to commands when she is hungry even though she seems out of control if she is not given anything specific to do.

Biting Eachother

Oct 17, 2007
I have added another technique to the above. I’m not sure if this would have been possible earlier though it is not really very different from what we were doing before. It seems to be helping a good deal not only with biting but also with general good behavior. Here it is in all its simplicity.

When Lila is calm or sleepy she bites softly and responds well to just a couple of seconds of taking my hands away. When I go back to petting her she will usually start to lick me. When she is licking my hand (or arm, face, etc) contentedly I say “lick” with every lick. I do this in a calm, quiet voice and continue petting her. After a few days of this, she is just starting to associate the word “lick” no only with licking, but with the entire calm, comfortable and contented mood. Within limits, the word itself is starting to quiet her down.

We tried rewarding this behavior with a click and treat but that did not seem to work well. She became interested in Doing Something to get the click which really changed her mood quite a bit. Since that was not what we are after in this exercise I went back to just the simple word association.

Oct 19, 2007
Everything we have done so far  has really paid off. Lila still has most of her puppy teeth but all the incisors have come in and we have had a ffew days of respite from any new adult teeth. She is now ablee to nibble on our ears and fingers without hurting us. There is no pain and it is clear to everyone that this is a show of affection. I am expecting a good deal of backsliding as more adult teeth start to break through the gums.

Associating the word "lick" with calm licking seems to be working as well. This morning when she was excitedly trying to bit Ipo S_ told her "Lick, Lick" and she did! Ipo was still having noe of it though. She will have to stop trying to bite him for more than just a day or two before he is going to trust her not to latch onto his lip. 

Oddly enough, Lila does not try to bite other dogs much. Of course she does it in the midst of play, and does it in an acceptable way. But she is so desirous of connecting with Ipo, she gets so excited to be with him, that she just doesn't seem to be able to help herself. It is getting better the more we let them play together outside. She will follow him around, sniff everything he sniffs and go wherever he goes. Once she has had a chance to run off a little of her energy Ipo will even invite her to play. 

January 2008,
Lila has learned to approach Ipo more gently. We have been preventing her from biting him by removing her mouth from him whenever she starts to bite. She also gets the occasional reprimand from us when she does manage to clamp down on him. In addition, we pet Ipo calmly and let her approach him, petting them both when she does. She catches on to the calmness and will lick him on the ears, face and neck. When she starts to get excited and bite a bit the command, "Lick, lick" generally works. Ipo has also learned tto accept this overture and she has gotten the message that she can be with him if she doesn't bite. Ipo now invites her to play when he is in the mood.