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Biting and jumping up may seem cute and out rightly adorable when your puppy is young, but as it grows, the biting and the jumping can be painful and appear somehow rude, the question on the minds of most puppy keepers is , “ How do l stop my puppy from jumping up and biting?” It is important to understand that, biting and jumping up are natural behaviors exhibited by puppies at a tender age.
Biting in puppies, just like how human babies chew on stuff, is experienced at the pooches teething stage to help them reduce the discomfort. Additionally, most puppies will not use their claws to manipulate objects but rather their teeth. Remember a puppy’s teeth can give you painful bites since they are very sharp and yes, the bites will eventually become more painful as your puppy grows.
Jumping up in puppies occurs more often because they have not yet learned how to control their joy especially when they are playful. This can cause scratches to the owner, bruises and knockdowns. In most cases, the puppy exhibits jumping up at adolescence stage and combines this with hand grabbing with their mouth and other mouthing behaviors.
Needless to say, most puppies do not mean to be violent but rather accidentally do this while playing. To help you out, let’s take a look at the steps to take to inhibit jumping up and biting.
Steps to Take to Prevent Biting
The best way to stop a growing habit is to prevent the behavior. This is the number one step to consider if you want to stop your puppy’s biting. It is considerably normal for puppies to mouth on each other, however, the mouthing can cause serious bites. The good thing is that, if a pooch nips another pup, the pooch will eventually release since the bitten pup will whimper from the pain caused.
With that in mind, it is imperative to let your dog know how much mouthing is considered okay with you. When your puppy nips your hand too hard, make a yelping sound and let it understand that you are hurt. When it releases your hand, stop play for some few seconds then resume play after 20 seconds. Remember, this act should not be repeated severally since the pup may take it as a game.
Pulling away from the bite is not advised since this may prompt your puppy’s playful instincts and worsen the situation. Remember, the most important thing is to train the puppy to be gentle while playing. After preventing the hard bites, scale down to the moderate bites. This will eventually teach your pup that mouthing with biting is bad.
Redirect
The next step to take is the redirection method that focuses on teaching your puppy that mouthing on the human skin is not allowed. The method involves pulling your hand away any time the pup attempts to bite you. Substitute this with a treat or a chewy toy for your pooch to mouth on instead.
Alternatively, engaging your puppy in noncontact games such as tag-of-war can easily aid in satisfying their urge for mouthing things. The tugging should be moderate to avoid triggering the puppy’s aggressive biting. Teach your pup commands like “release” or “let go.”
Disruption
Puppies are very curious animals and will always want to chew things in their surrounding out of inquisitiveness. Here are ways help you prevent your pup from chewing things in your house:
• Puppy-proofing – Providing your puppy with chew toys that are safe to play with. The said toys should consider the puppy’s chewing capability.
• Arrange a playtime – Since puppies are playful, it is imperative to plan a playtime for your puppy with other dogs. This will not help your dog socialize and play with other pups, but also help your puppy know when a bite is painful and too hard.
• Use treat toys – The toys are a good distraction for the puppies from nipping things in your house. It helps create a need to earn stimulation as he/she tries to earn the reward.
Restriction
This method involves the use of products such as Bitter Cherry that help prevent your puppy from chewing things in the house. The products are designed to produce an unpleasant taste whenever your puppy chews things in the house. However, this is not just a simple step, it entails that you do the following:
Teach your dog that smell and taste are bad in that the smell alone will keep it away from unwanted things. This can be achieved by, putting a little of this products on a piece of tissue and put it in his mouth. The pup will spit it out immediately. Let him smell it so that it may create the relationship.
Secondly, ensure that the dog does not get access to water for at least an hour. This will help the dog create a bad association with the deterrent. Use the product on objects that you do not want your puppy to bite or lick.
Ankle Biters
Biting does not happen during play only, at times, puppies nip on people’s feet or ankles. To train your puppy not to bite your ankle, wave a chewing toy around until the pup clasps it. Also, you can stop movements when the pup bites, only move when he/she lets go. Reward the pup for this gesture. This will teach your dog that there will always be a reward anytime they do well.
Steps to Take to Prevent Jumping
Most puppies find it difficult to control their impulses when they get to their adolescence age. It is also at this age that they test their limits with jumping being a common practice. It is natural for pups to experience this, however, proper training on how to control this behavior needs to be done. Kindly note that proper consideration needs to be taken on pus that are a bit delinquent.
Let’s have a look at some of the things you need to do to calm your puppy’s jets;
Dance Your Puppy
This exercise should be done anytime your dog jumps up. Grab the puppy’s paws and dance with her/him around while looking at it. This trick works either way, some dogs will hate this and stop jumping while others may enjoy the dance. Take note of this to ensure that the pup does not interpret this as a way of rewarding the behavior.
Schedule a Game
Puppies learn really fast. Play a game like “fetch” with your pup while teaching conflicting behaviors such as “fetch your doll.” The pup cannot do the opposite, say jump, if its focus is on fetching. With enough behavioral conflicts, the pup will associate your presence with playing games that do not involve jumping up on you.
Keep It Low
Puppies consider departures and arrivals are the perfect time for jumping up since they want to either greet you or stop you from exiting. Most dogs hate it when you turn your back on them and this triggers more jumping. To help you take care of this, standstill, do not make eye contact. Ignoring and not reacting to the puppy will stop it from jumping up.
Practice Commands
As earlier discussed, conflicting behavior helps divert the puppy’s attention from the normal behavior to new commands. Commands like “sit down” can be practiced to help calm your dog when you arrive home or before you leave. When your puppy is well trained, it will observe all the commands attentively without fail.
Hide a Toy
Hiding a toy from your puppy helps in mental stimulation. Puppies need to run around outside to burn out their energy. You can hide your puppy’s favorite toy inside an old box and tie it to make it unravel. The challenge itself helps relieve boredom while stimulating your puppy’s mental being.
Employ a Tie-Down
This step involves tethering your puppy’s dragline to a fence or any stationary object like a stair rail. The step employs the “wait” technique that lets the pup know that it is confined by a leash. With the leash on the puppy, you are safe from grabbing and jumping up. Stay out of reach while practicing the dogs sits and ups. When the puppy has all four paws on the floor, reward him/her.
Yelp
Playful as they are, puppies consider shoves and push offs as some sort of game. Clearly most puppies do not understand the strength that they bear. Teach your puppy that it hurts anytime they jump on you or grab you with a sharp yelp. The puppy will understand better if you fake a limb and overact.
For puppies that are the ambush type, a scream, laying down still and playing dead for at least 10 seconds will send a message that such activities hurt you. In the long run, the puppy will stop this behavior since most playing pups are not harmful and will not want to see you hurt.
What do you think?