Mom thinks my tail looks particularly long and dangerous today!
Emrys (E-litter Gavin x Bailey) has been an awesome addition to our family! I told Tony I’d love to have another shepherd!!! This coming from a women who swore off puppies 15 years ago!
We are having one issue. She still loves to chew, on everyBODY! When we are out and about or playing outdoors she is wonderful! But at home in her area (the kitchen) if we go in for a pet or a lick or if we walk by with an appealing outfit, we get that mouth full of teeth! What are we doing wrong? I correct with “no, stop” and sometimes she goes into a sit and I can redirect. Sometimes she thinks its a game and gets more playful?!?!
Any advice?
Aahhh the age of the sharlet!!! Always have something on hand to stick in her mouth other than you she can bite-keep fuzzies in you pocket, on the counter etc. so they are always available. Puppies need to bite, just be ready for the teeth, this will pass, and then you will be able to cuddle whe she is older-sometimes you can sneak a cuddle in when they are tired 🙂
We’ve had good results with removing ourselves from Ember’s presence when she bites. We have a walk-in pantry that we would go in and shut the door when she would start biting. We would say “no bite” and get up and walk in the pantry. This way, we are taking all attention away from her and letting her know that what she is doing makes us go away and stop playing. Our trainer calls it “shunning” them, which is similar to what littermates do if they get too rough. We tried using a toy and shoving it in her mouth, but she would continue to bite us and not the toy. We also did this when she bit our pant legs and clothing. We saw results within a few days. She still has her moments, but saying “no bite” will stop her. My only problem now is keeping her from play biting children because they are not as consistent with walking away from her.
Jennifer,
What if you put little Ember into the pantry? Plus, I can’t beleive the little darling would do anything bad. 😉
Terri
I had this issue with Kairo when he was younger, and we just had to endure a couple of rough months. During that time, I would do both of the suggestions above, but I wouldn’t say I was very successful. Kairo would not want to bite the toy, and he would usually just wait me out when I tried to leave the room.
I gave him lots of ice during that time, and he stopped biting when he was about 9-10 months old. Now that he has favorite games, it is easy to distract him and get him to play with a tug or a flirt pole to get him to stop biting. He still sometimes tries to nip my nieces/nephews when they come over, but I’m hoping he’ll grow out of that too at some point.
The first few months we had Fenris were some of the hardest for us because of his mouthy-ness and biting. Julie, Carole, and a few others got emails about the moments I couldn’t handle it anymore and just put him in a crate and polished off a bottle of wine to attempt to regain my sanity.
We tried toy substitution and it worked some of the time, but he much preferred fingers and toes.
It took us a long time to realize that the biting was a mixture of puppy playfulness and teething. The solution was to enforce a “no bite” command. We would tell him off and as soon as his teeth unlatched from us, we shoved a *frozen* toy in his mouth. That helped immensely. Everything from bully sticks, marrow bones, his favorite (unstuffed) plush toys, and Kongs all went in the freezer from then on and we rotated them out. Bully sticks were especially helpful. We ordered a large bag of odor-free ones online and threw the entire package into the freezer. As it turned out, they were really good when his baby teeth actually started falling out.
It seems like he was in the biting stage for a long time, but the frozen toys really made it easy. He much preferred biting something that made his mouth and teeth feel better than the squishy humans that just got loud and unhappy. Fenris had his moments every once in awhile where he’d bite down hard but, he would quickly lick us in apology and look for whatever frozen toy he could earn from us.
Trying that along with a combination of the above suggestions should give you some results.
Good luck and hang in there! Remember, if you get too frustrated with Emry, it’s perfectly okay to just put her up for a bit while you find some sanity. (In my case, it came in the form of a Riesling) 😉