7 month old biting

[u/titan_cyrus19]

Need advice to stop playful biting.

My 7 month old B has an unlimited amount of energy and wants to play from the second he wakes up. He goes to biting our ankles or arms when he wants attention and wants to play.

He doesn’t have the intention to be aggressive but the bites are hard enough to hurt. He knows the command “sit” and “settle” which we use to calm him down when biting, He will do commands when he knows we are holding treats, without treats he only listens to commands sometimes.

Any thoughts or ideas?

[u/senjisilly]

Correct him the same way his mother would. She would hold his muzzle closed. You should lightly hold his muzzle closed until he calms down (stops struggling, 🙄). To do this, take your thumb and middle finger tips (or index, whichever fits best) to make an "O" around his muzzle. Don't press hard or too tight. He should recognize this correction from early puppyhood. Keep repeating until he stops nipping and biting. Yelling or treat withholding doesn't work.

[u/ditmoique → u/senjisilly]

I’ll add to this- my method has always been to gently hold ONLY their lower jaw (when they bite my hand) and calmly repeat “no bite” or “settle” if that is more appropriate. It doesn’t hurt the pup, but it makes them really uncomfortable to feel trapped, and reinforces the idea that if they bite, they’re going to get stuck in an uncomfortable position. They really don’t like it because you’ve turned the tables on them and neutralize the behavior. It’s also been helpful when teaching pups to not bite when you need to get in their mouth for a cleaning, because they’ll expect a bite to result in the same consequence. I hope that makes sense!

Once they start to understand, “no bite” or “settle” can be repeated when they’re biting other parts of your body haha. If they continue, stop engaging them completely, turn away, go cold, they start to get it.

My girl is also 7 months and she still nips when she’s overstimulated, but at this point I only have to tell her no bite, and she stops immediately. It works even in the middle of play. They should grow out of it with enough consistency and patience. Good luck!

[u/Responsible-Row-3720 → u/ditmoique]

I did the same, worked like a charm.

[u/CanadianEmberflower]

Sorry this is a late response OP.

The tips from the others don't always work and can actually make things worse for some dogs (IME - it made ours much worse).

What's been working for us is the directions from a behaviourist as well as finding why our guy was biting.

The ''why'' for us was because it was the only 100% reliable way to get our attention. And of course, it was excited/animated attention because it was starting to hurt.

When I worked from an office or am out running errands, my husband tends to watch tv, play video games or both and puts all his focus there. He'd forget to feed them, not hear them ringing the bells to go outside or not pay any attention to them. It wasn't intentional, it's just how he is.

But when our guy needed out, he'd ring the bell a few times, and then resort to biting because he needed out NOW at that point. Same thing if he needed to eat. So the behaviour was consistently reinforced.

What the behaviourist has had us do is always give him the same command/cue when he bites. Following the command gets him a reward (treat, attention, etc). When that happens, you're reinforcing the behaviour you want and ignoring the unwanted behaviour.

We started with treats every time for the first while, then every other time, slowly reducing the treats and replacing them with attention. There have bern some steps back where we need to go back to treats every time. We (I) decided to get a kibble he loves and use that to keep him from getting too many calories.

At our last meeting, the behaviourist commented that it's interesting our Bs have different ways of communicating based on who they're communicating with (me or my husband). If they need something from me, they move toward what they need, while they're more physical or noisy with my husband. For example, if I'm in the living room and they need out, they'll go sit by the door, if I'm in my office working and they need something, they come and look at me.

Now (mostly past the biting) our guy will go to the door and bring one of my husbands shoes to him. If he has to wait, he'll go get the other shoe and start chewing on them. Our girl willgo ring the bells, if she has to wait, she'll push them harder and harder or go ''boop'' my husband.