Discouragement From Chewing On People.

[Zaindria]

Recently I got a chocolate labrador as a birthday present. Her name's Dizzy. She was 6 weeks old when she became part of my family, and i've had very few problems with her. She's friendly, sociable, house training is going well.

It's the chewing i'm worried about.

She has the little sharp puppy teeth, like little needles. And people seem to be her favorite chew toy. I go to pet her, and she thinks it's playtime. And starts trying to bite and chew on my hand or arm. She will also randomly come up and try to chew on my feet, or on my pant hems. And it really hurts, she's drawn blood more than once. I know she's treating me like another puppy, and doesn't realise I lack the thick skin.

I've tried a lot of things, like gently taking her muzzle and directing her away from me, and giving her a toy to chew instead, then praising her when she keeps her attention on the toy. But she usually turns her attention and goes back to chewing on me within a minute or so.

I've tried saying no firmly when she bites, then re-offering my hand and telling her to 'be nice', then praising her if she licks instead of biting, or lets me pet her. It works about 10% of the time.

What worries me is she did it to my eight year old neice, who's a lot smaller and easier to grab, Dizzy latched onto her upper arm and started pulling like she was a tug toy, and it left some bad welts. Dizzy was reprimanded, not severely as severe punishment I know is just going to make a puppy frightened. I told her no, sharply, made her let go, then took her away from my neice.

But she's getting bigger by the day.. almost 10 weeks old now and over doubled in size, am I doing anything wrong? Is it too early for her to comprehend she shouldn't be chewing on people? Or do I need to use another method?

Advice is much appreciated, thanks in advance!

[J...]

Hi Zaindria! What a cute puppy

I had the same problem with my pup - I got her at 7.5 weeks off a lovely family with youngish children who'd roughed her and thought the biting and growling stuff was "cute". She had to learn from day dot that it wasn't acceptable.

I got her out of it by pats and playtime rewards for good behaviour, and a warning "no teeth" in a low voice if she used her teeth at all. That was the only warning she got - if she persisted with using her teeth then play time was over and she got ignored completely for a short period of time. No exceptions - I had to be completely consistant 110% of the time.

I also taught her to sit for everything from day 2 - she had to sit for a feed, sit for a pat etc so when she got a bit out of control I could use the sit as a distraction -give her something else to think about for ohhh 2 seconds but it seemed to work ok as part of the toolkit for good behaviour.... So when it comes to giving your pup a pat, she has to sit and stay sitting to receive one - if she gets up - pats stop until she puts her butt on the floor again! Check out the "Nothing in life is free" info which was really helpful to me.... http://k9deb.com/nilif.htm

As children were part of Darcy's problem, I actually stopped her having any "play time" with children - they could pat her but it stopped there, and only if she was sitting nicely at the time. If your neice was playing with the puppy then maybe its a good idea to only let her play under strict supervision as kids don't learn to be consistant with dogs until they're a lot older. We have enough trouble with it as adults I reckon If the pup gets overexcited then maybe "sin-binning" or a short time-out will give her time to settle down might be an idea?

I hope some of that is helpful.... I found it worked well on my pup (who's now 6 months old)! Good luck with Dizzy!

[Zaindria]

Hi Zaindria! What a cute puppy

Hi, and thank you!

I had the same problem with my pup - I got her at 7.5 weeks off a lovely family with youngish children who'd roughed her and thought the biting and growling stuff was "cute". She had to learn from day dot that it wasn't acceptable.

I got her out of it by pats and playtime rewards for good behaviour, and a warning "no teeth" in a low voice if she used her teeth at all. That was the only warning she got - if she persisted with using her teeth then play time was over and she got ignored completely for a short period of time. No exceptions - I had to be completely consistant 110% of the time.

Thank you for sharing your experience, i'll just have to keep being persistant. =]

I also taught her to sit for everything from day 2 - she had to sit for a feed, sit for a pat etc so when she got a bit out of control I could use the sit as a distraction -give her something else to think about for ohhh 2 seconds but it seemed to work ok as part of the toolkit for good behaviour.... So when it comes to giving your pup a pat, she has to sit and stay sitting to receive one - if she gets up - pats stop until she puts her butt on the floor again! Check out the "Nothing in life is free" info which was really helpful to me.... http://k9deb.com/nilif.htm

As children were part of Darcy's problem, I actually stopped her having any "play time" with children - they could pat her but it stopped there, and only if she was sitting nicely at the time. If your neice was playing with the puppy then maybe its a good idea to only let her play under strict supervision as kids don't learn to be consistant with dogs until they're a lot older. We have enough trouble with it as adults I reckon If the pup gets overexcited then maybe "sin-binning" or a short time-out will give her time to settle down might be an idea?

I hope some of that is helpful.... I found it worked well on my pup (who's now 6 months old)! Good luck with Dizzy!

What a great link, that's very useful information! I've had many dogs as pets, but this is my first time ever raising one from puppyhood, so i'm just a little bit nervous, worried about doing something wrong. I don't want her to inadvertently hurt anybody as I get a lot of visits from younger family members. I've been making sure any interaction with Dizzy is supervised but..things can happen in a split second. As well as being consistant with Dizzy, I guess i'll have to make sure my family understands too.

Would obedience school be a good thing? I don't know if it should be mandatory for all, or just for dogs with behavior problems.

Edited June 12, 2006 by Zaindria

[J...]

Hi Zaindria! No problems at all

I was the same - grown up with dogs my whole life but Darcy's my first pup thats been mine to train and look after!

I would recommend obedience training I took Darcy to puppy preschool at 12 weeks and we went through that, then puppy class and now class 2 obedience. Still not a "high" level but the comments I get on the street and even at obedience school about how well behaved she is tells me its well and truly paying off! I've learnt a hell of a lot from it - I don't agree with all the instructors there but I avoid those whose training methods I disagree with when I can and Darcy gets so excited when I let her in the car for Sunday Doggie School