Behavior: Biting and mouthing

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Important: If your adult dog has bitten out of fear or aggression, enlist the help of a trained professional as soon as possible.

Discover a dusty teddy bear in the bottom of your closet, and the last thing you'd do is put it in your mouth. Puppies, on the other hand, explore their world largely by putting whatever they can in their mouths--and that includes human toes, fingers, and hands.

The good news is that as dogs get older and teething tapers off, usually mouthing and biting do too. Still, it's important to discourage these early behaviors as much as possible. Though it's mostly painless--even cute--when a 12-week-old nips at your fingers, 50 pounds later it's not very cute and it's definitely not painless.

Causes

How to treat the problem

• Let out a high-pitched yelp or squeal, which should startle your pup and cause her to let go. With her teeth now off your skin, praise her for good behavior.
• Fight the urge to pull your hand back. Instead, let it go limp; quickly jerking away may be misinterpreted as playing and could inadvertently encourage her to continue the behavior.
• Signal that mouthiness is unacceptable by turning away from her or even going into another room for about 30 seconds. What your pup wants is interaction with you, and she'll quickly learn to avoid doing anything that interrupts your games.
• Redirect her. Instead of your fingers, provide an appropriate toy for her to chew on.
• Find another outlet. Play fetch, take a walk, or practice training exercises instead of playing games that tempt her to mouth or bite.
• Socialize her with other puppies and arrange playdates with well-behaved adult dogs--they're more effective than humans at demonstrating good canine manners.