How to Stop Your Puppy From Biting

It might sound a little obvious but the bundle of fluff you just brought home doesn’t have any other way of exploring their new surroundings. Babies go through a phase of putting everything in their mouth and eating it only they grow out of it when they learn what tastes bad and how to investigate things with their hands alone. Your puppy will continue to explore with their mouth for the rest of their life so it’s no surprise that you will likely end up in their mouth at some point.  

When your puppy comes home, still wobbly on their paws and trying to make sense of their surroundings, they’ll often start to play when they feel comfortable. Before now, play has meant wrestling with their siblings and nipping and biting at them. Litters of puppies can often be found tugging on each other’s tails and ears until someone cries and mum has to step in. When your puppy first starts to feel playful, it’s then you usually find your finger in their mouth and it’s almost always met with a chorus of cooing over how cute it is. This is the moment they learn that it’s rewarding to bite you because it gets a fun reaction. 

Feeling like your puppy seems to be learning all the wrong things is not uncommon for puppy parents. Our canine companions are smart, even when they’re young and will quickly pick things up that work in their interest. It’s normal for puppies to want to put things in their mouth, especially if they’re going through their teething period.  

Teething doesn’t just make puppies want to chew on things but it can also impact their mood. If you have a tetchy puppy who is sensitive because they’re in pain, you’re more likely to see mouthing behaviour. Humans are similar, if we have a sore in our mouth we’re likely to probe at it with our tongue instead of leaving it alone as that pressure causes relief. Sometimes puppies are just trying to relieve an ache when they turn to biting and mouthing.  

Almost all dogs learn to play bite early on with their siblings so the important thing to remember is that you’re not alone. How difficult that behaviour is can vary between individuals. In 2020, a study on pandemic puppies revealed that 84% of owners had control issues with their puppies. Being able to control your puppy’s behaviour isn’t about being the boss or asserting dominance but it’s about working together to communicate effectively and help teach them how to behave to develop into exemplary canine citizens!

While puppies may exhibit reduced biting as they mature, the behaviour can persist if not addressed effectively. If they discover that a particular behaviour is fun or it pays off in a way, they will continue doing it. Biting is often an effective way of getting your attention so your puppy will continue to do it until they learn that they shouldn’t. 

Puppies will stop biting when you offer them the guidance to look for alternative behaviours. You need to teach your new addition that biting isn’t rewarding and doesn’t get them the attention or the game of wrestling they’re hoping for. If your canine companion stops biting you at any point and turns to your furniture instead, using chewing solutions can nip the behaviour in the bud before it becomes a habit. Chewing deterrents like Johnson's Anti-Chew Spray can be sprayed onto any surface to prevent chewing. It’s a sharp, acidic tasting spray that will make your puppy steer clear of your skirting boards or chair legs when they get a taste of it.  

Biting often escalates when puppies become overly excited or stimulated. Techniques such as gentle interaction and soothing strokes can help lower their energy levels and deter biting. By lowering their excitement, they’re less likely to need to bite to deal with their arousal levels. A highly aroused puppy just means that they are overstimulated.  

It’s just like when children play and can get carried away into becoming physical or when they’re overtired from a lack of naps and are more likely to forget their manners. A puppy can just get carried away from time to time, even when they’ve been doing well with not mouthing. Sometimes they need a nap and a calm period to bring them back down from their high arousal levels. You can even use calming toys like the Rosewood Aromadog Calm Laying Down Dog Toy to settle them down for a nap when they need one.  

This might sound a little oversimplified but the best way to curbing puppy biting is to avoid encouraging it in the first place. Biting isn’t the only time we might accidentally teach puppies to do the wrong behaviour. Consider when you first clip a lead on your puppy, you’re likely to follow them around and let them lead the way. As their confidence grows they quickly learn that wherever they want to go they just have to pull you along which is exactly how puppies learn that pulling on the lead is a technique that works for them.  

If biting never works to gain them a reaction or any extra attention then it will never become a problem behaviour they resort to. What we see as a problem behaviour, your puppy just sees as something that works. If they learn that you make a funny sound and give them attention when they bite you, this is just a method that works very well for them to get your attention.  

Most puppies will bite sometimes but knowing how to manage it when it happens will help them learn not to faster. With the right tools and methods, you can quickly teach them that the behaviour isn’t what gets them your attention or any of the good things that come with it. 

When training your puppy, it’s important to remember that the desire to perform a behaviour may not go away. They will still want to chew on things, play rough and bite but you can teach them to use something other than your hands. Your puppy should always have lots of fun toys at their disposal that they can choose to play with. Try to incorporate different play styles into your choice of toys and include some to chase, some to chew, some with a squeak, and lots of different varieties that might appeal to your pooch. If you’re having a play session and they want to use their mouth, you can offer them a toy to practice the behaviour on. Chewing, biting and mouthing are all perfectly natural behaviours that dogs will want to do but the trick is to give them outlets for these behaviours that don’t involve puppy bites to your skin.  

Teaching your puppy how to play with toys is a vital part of developing their manners as they grow up. It’s a key factor in puppy socialisation and helps them to develop bite inhibition. Bite inhibition is just teaching your puppy that a soft mouth is what you want when they take things off you or interact with you. Teaching your puppy to fetch, drop and leave it will all help in communicating what kind of play style you want from them. Instead of trying to force toys from them which will no doubt turn into a fun game of tug, you can deescalate play by getting them to drop the toy with a cue. This kind of training reinforces boundaries.  

Teaching your puppy that when they behave inappropriately they lose access to all of their friends is a quick way to get them to associate a behaviour with the consequence. There is no need for any aversive methods as a lack of attention is often aversive enough to reduce the behaviour. Any time your puppy catches your skin while playing, you should get up and leave the room and go and do something else.  

They will very quickly learn that the direct consequence of mouthing is that attention is removed. For this to work, anyone else in the room will also need to leave so your cheeky pup can’t just move on to their next victim to mouth! Leaving the game is as clear communication as you can get that they don’t get to play with you if they use their teeth.  

Every puppy is different and to stop puppy biting people might use a range of different methods but some can cause an increase in the behaviour rather than reducing it. It’s normal when training your puppy that a behaviour may get a little worse before it gets better as they work through their frustration but some methods can be rewarding in their own right. 

Trainers like Karen Pryor who are world leaders in positive clicker based training suggest yelping when your puppy bites you. In many cases, this works great to stop the behaviour in its tracks and give you a few seconds to redirect them onto something else. The problem arises when some puppies start to see this as a game in itself. Sometimes, all attention is good attention and making you yelp might be great fun so your puppy will learn to nip at you when they want a reaction from you. Yelping can work in some cases but disengaging and walking away is often a more effective method.  

Using punishing items like spraying your pup with water or tapping their nose when they bite can be detrimental to your relationship with them as well as not doing the job you want it to do. A tap on the nose is rarely a deterrent enough to stop biting and being sprayed with a water bottle often just becomes a game. If you have a nervous pup who is just finding their confidence, aversive methods like these can ruin any progress they make. A time out can sometimes be a good idea however it only works if you don’t have to wrestle with your puppy.  

You should never use their crate or any safe space they sleep in as a punishment unless you want to risk ruining the positive association with it. Furthermore, if you want to put your puppy in the kitchen for a time out, the game of chase you have with them beforehand will only excite them more. A short time out is only effective when you take yourself away and allow them to calm down.

There is no set age where a puppy will magically learn to stop biting. Instead, they need consistent guidance and training to help them get it right. Mistakes will always happen and even the best trained pet can get carried away from time to time but working on manners in general will help to cement everything they learn. Teaching a puppy to walk nicely on a lead or to stop jumping up when they greet people means they understand the concept of training. The more you teach your new addition, the more they will be able to work with you through any issues so what are you waiting for? The day you bring your little bundle of fluff home is the same day their training begins!