Puppies bite-and thank goodness they do. Puppy biting is a normal, natural, and necessary puppy behavior. Puppy play-biting is the means by which dogs develop bite inhibition and a soft mouth. The more your puppy bites and receives appropriate feedback, the safer his jaws will be in adulthood. It is the puppy that does not mouth and bite as a youngster whose adult bites are more likely to cause serious damage.
The puppy’s penchant for biting results in numerous play-bites. Although his needle-sharp teeth make them painful, his weak jaws seldom cause serious harm. The developing puppy should learn that his bites can hurt long before he develops jaws strong enough to inflict injury. The greater the pup’s opportunity to play-bite with people, other dogs, and other animals, the better his bite inhibition will be as an adult. For puppies that do not grow up with the benefit of regular interaction with other dogs and other animals, the responsibility of teaching bite inhibition lies with the owner.
After diligently working on all the puppy socialization and handling exercises described in Chapter Four, your dog will be unlikely to want to bite because he likes people. However, should your dog snap or bite because he has been frightened or hurt, one hopes that he causes little if any damage because he developed good bite inhibition during puppyhood. While it is difficult to socialize a dog and prepare him for every potentially scary eventuality, it is easy to ensure that as a puppy he develops reliable bite inhibition.
Even when provoked to bite, a dog with well-established bite inhibition seldom breaks the skin. As long as a dog’s bite causes little or no damage, behavioral rehabilitation is comparatively easy. But when your dog inflicts deep puncture wounds as an adult, rehabilitation is much more complicated, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous.
Good bite inhibition is the most important quality of any companion dog. Moreover, a dog must develop bite inhibition during puppyhood, before he is four-and-a-half months old.
Bite inhibition: Case histories
No matter how well you try to socialize your dog and teach him to enjoy the company and actions of people, the unforeseen and unpredictable happens. Here are a just a few case histories:
- A friend of the owner unintentionally slammed a car door on a dog’s tail.
- A woman wearing high heels unintentionally stepped on her sleeping Rottweiler’s thigh.
- An owner grabbed his Jack Russell by the collar.
- A groomer was combing out a Wheaten’s matted coat.
- A veterinarian was fixing a Bernese Mountain Dog’s dislocated elbow.
- A visitor tripped and flew headlong to butt heads with an Airedale chewing his bone.
- A three-year-old child (who shall remain nameless) wearing a Superman cape jumped from a coffee table and landed on the ribcage of a sleeping Malamute.
The Rottweiler and Bernese both screamed. The Bernese lay perfectly still and did not attempt to bite. All the other dogs Grrrrwuffffed and quickly turned their muzzles towards the person. The Malamute got up and left the room. Both the Rottweiler and Jack Russell snapped and lunged, but neither made skin contact. The Wheaten took hold of the groomer’s arm and squeezed gently. The Airedale nicked the visitor’s cheek. All of these dogs were pretty friendly most of the time, but what is crucially important is that they had all developed stellar bite-inhibition in puppyhood. Despite extreme fright or pain, bite inhibition instantly clicked in (within 0.04 seconds) to check the bite. Consequently, none of these dogs caused any damage and all were successfully rehabilitated.
The dog with the trapped tail mutilated the person’s arm with multiple deep bites. This dog was a breed most people consider to be extremely friendly and had been taken on numerous visits to schools and hospitals. Indeed, the dog was extremely friendly, but she had no bite inhibition. During puppyhood, she did not play with other dogs much, and her puppy biting behavior was infrequent and gentle. Because the dog had never displayed any signs of unfriendliness as an adult, there was no warning that she might bite. And because she had never snapped or bitten before, there was no warning that her bite would be serious. For a dog that is likely to spend a lot of time around people, being well-socialized but having poor bite inhibition is a dangerous combination.
Some people might feel that a dog is justified to bite in self-defense. But that is not what really happened in any of the above instances. In each case, the dog may have felt he/she was under attack, but in reality the dog bit a person who had no intention of hurting him/her. Whether you agree with this or not, the fact remains that we humans have been socialized not to attack our hairdressers, dentists, doctors, friends, and acquaintances when they unintentionally hurt us. Likewise, it is extremely easy, and essential, to train our dogs not to attack groomers, veterinarians, family, friends, and visitors.
Bite inhibition with other dogs
Dogfights offer a wonderful illustration of the effectiveness of solid bite inhibition. When dogs fight, it usually sounds like they are tying to kill each other, and it appears they forcibly bite each other over and over. However, when the dust settles and the dogs are examined, 99 percent of the time there are no puncture wounds whatsoever. Even though the fight was a frenzied flurry of activity and both dogs were extremely worked up, no harm was done because both dogs had exquisitely fine-tuned bite inhibition, acquired during puppyhood. Puppies teach each other bite inhibition when play-fighting, their number one favorite activity.
Unless there are vaccinated adult dogs at home, your puppy must live within a temporary doggy social vacuum and dog-dog socialization must be postponed for a while. Until your puppy has acquired sufficient active immunity, it is too risky to allow him to socialize with dogs of dubious immunization history, or with dogs that have been in contact with the urine and feces of dogs potentially infected with parvovirus and other serious puppy diseases. However, as soon as your puppy has developed sufficient immunity to safely venture outdoors-at three months of age, at the earliest-catching up on dog-dog socialization is urgent. Enroll your puppy in puppy classes right away and take him for walks and to the local dog park several times a day. You will thank yourself for years to come. There is no greater enjoyment than watching your dog-friendly adult dog enjoy playing with other dogs.
Bite inhibition, however, cannot be put on hold. If there are no other dogs at home for your puppy to play with, you have to teach your puppy bite inhibition until he is old enough to go to puppy classes.
Bite inhibition with people
Even if your puppy has a couple of canine buddies at home, you will still need to teach your puppy to inhibit the force and frequency of his bites toward people. Additionally, you must teach your puppy how to react when frightened or hurt by people. He should by all means yelp, but he should not bite and he should never bear down.
Even if your dog is friendly and mouths gently, by five months of age at the very latest, he must be taught never to touch any person’s body or clothing with his jaws unless requested. Whereas mouthing is essential for puppies and acceptable from a young adolescent dog, it would be utterly inappropriate for an older adolescent or adult dog to mouth visitors and strangers. It would be absolutely unacceptable for a six-month-old dog to approach a child and take hold of her arm, no matter how gentle, friendly, and playful the dog’s intentions. It would frighten the living daylights out of the child, to say nothing of her parents.
Bite inhibition exercises
Please read this section extremely carefully. I shall repeat over and over: teaching bite inhibition is the most important part of your puppy’s entire education.
Certainly puppy biting behavior must eventually be eliminated. We cannot have an adult dog playfully mauling family, friends, and strangers in the manner of a young puppy. However, it is essential that this be done gradually and progressively via a systematic two-step process: first, to inhibit the force of puppy bites, and, second, to lessen the frequency of puppy bites.
Ideally, the two phases should be taught in sequence, but with more active puppy biters you may wish to work on both stages at the same time. In either case, you must teach your puppy to bite or mouth gently before puppy biting behavior is eliminated altogether.
Step 1: Inhibiting the force of puppy bites
The first step is to stop your puppy from hurting people: to teach him to inhibit the force of his play-bites. It is not necessary to reprimand the pup, and certainly physical punishments are not called for. But it is essential to let your puppy know that bites can hurt. A simple “Ouch!” is usually sufficient. When the puppy backs off, take a short time out to “lick your wounds,” instruct your pup to come, sit, and lie down to apologize and make up. Then resume playing. If your puppy does not respond to your yelp by easing up or backing off, an effective technique is to call the puppy a “Bully!” and then leave the room and shut the door. Allow the pup a minute or two time-out to reflect on the association between his painful bite and the immediate departure of his favorite human playmate. Then return to make up. It is important to show that you still love your puppy, only that his painful bites are objectionable. Have your pup come and sit and then resume playing once more.
It is much better for you to walk away from the pup than to physically restrain him or remove him to his confinement area at a time when he is biting too hard. So make a habit of playing with your puppy in his long-term confinement area. This technique is remarkably effective with lead-headed dogs, since it is precisely the way puppies learn to inhibit the force of their bites when playing with each other. If one puppy bites another too hard, the bitee yelps and playing is postponed while he licks his wounds. The biter soon learns that hard bites interrupt an otherwise enjoyable play session. He learns to bite more softly once play resumes.
The next step is to eliminate bite pressure entirely, even though the “bites” no longer hurt. While your puppy is chewing his human chewtoy, wait for a bite that is harder than the rest and respond as if it really hurt, even though it didn’t: “Ouch, you worm! Gennntly! That really hurt me, you bully!” Your puppy begins to think, “Good Heavens! These humans are soooooo sensitive. I’ll have to be really careful when mouthing their delicate skin.” And that’s precisely what you want your pup to think: that he needs to be extremely careful and gentle when playing with people.
Your pup should learn not to hurt people well before he is three months old. Ideally, by the time he is four-and-a-half months old-before he develops strong jaws and adult canine teeth-he should no longer be exerting any pressure when mouthing.
Step 2: Decreasing the frequency of puppy biting
Once your puppy has been taught to mouth gently, it is time to reduce the frequency of mouthing. Your pup must learn that mouthing is okay, but he must stop when requested. Why? Because it is inconvenient to drink a cup of tea or to answer the telephone with fifty pounds of wriggling pup dangling from your wrist. That’s why.
It is better to first teach “Off” using food as both a distraction and a reward. The deal is this: once I say “Off,” if you don’t touch the food treat in my hand for just one second, I’ll say, “Take it” and you can have it. Once your pup has mastered this simple task, up the ante to two or three seconds of non-contact, and then to five, eight, twelve, twenty, and so on. Count out the seconds and praise the dog with each second: “Good dog one, good dog two, good dog three,” and so forth. If the pup touches the treat before you are ready to give it, simply start the count from zero again. Your pup quickly learns that once you say “Off,” he can not have the treat until he has not touched it, for, say, eight seconds, so the quickest way to get the treat is not to touch it for the first eight seconds. In addition, regular hand-feeding during this exercise encourages your pup’s soft mouth.
Once your pup understands the “Off” request, use food as a lure and a reward to teach it to let go when mouthing. Say, “Off” and waggle some food as a lure to entice your pup to let go and sit. Then praise the pup and give the food as a reward when he does so.
The main point of this exercise is to practice stopping the pup from mouthing, and so each time your puppy obediently ceases and desists, resume playing once more. Stop and start the session many times over. Also, since the puppy wants to mouth, the best reward for stopping mouthing is to allow him to mouth again. When you decide to stop the mouthing session altogether, say, “Off” and then offer your puppy a Kong stuffed with kibble.
If ever your pup refuses to release your hand when requested, say, “Bully!” rapidly extricate your hand from his mouth, and storm out of the room mumbling, “Right. That’s done it! You’ve ruined it! Finished! Over! No more!” and shut the door in his face. Give the pup a couple of minutes on his own to reflect on his loss and then go back to call him to come and sit and make up before continuing the mouthing game.
By the time your pup is five months old, he must have a mouth as soft as a fourteen-year-old working Labrador Retriever: your puppy should never initiate mouthing unless requested; he should never exert any pressure when mouthing; and he should stop mouthing and calm down immediately upon request by any family member.
Whether or not you allow your adult dog to mouth on request is up to you. For most owners, I recommend that they teach their dog to discontinue mouthing people altogether by the time he is six to eight months old. However, it is essential to continue bite inhibition exercises. Otherwise, your dog’s bite will begin to drift and become harder as he grows older. It is important to regularly handfeed your dog and clean his teeth each day, since these exercises involve a human hand in his mouth.
For owners who have good control over their dog, there is no better way to maintain the dog’s soft mouth than by regular play-fighting. However, to prevent your puppy from getting out of control and to fully realize the many benefits of play-fighting, you must play by the rules and teach your dog to play by the rules. Play-fighting rules are described in detail in our Behavior Booklet, Preventing Aggression.
Play-fighting teaches your puppy to mouth only hands, which are extremely sensitive to pressure, but never clothing. Shoelaces, ties, trousers, and hair have no nerves and cannot feel. Therefore you cannot provide the necessary feedback when your pup begins to mouth too hard and too close to your skin. The play-fighting game also teaches your dog that he must adhere to rules regarding his jaws, regardless of how worked up he may be. Basically, play-fighting gives you the opportunity to practice controlling your puppy when he is excited. It is important to establish such control in a structured setting before real-life situations occur.
Out-of-control play sessions
Some owners, especially adult males, adolescent males, and boys, quickly let play-mouthing sessions get out of control. This is why many dog-training texts recommend not indulging in games such as play-fighting or tug-of-war. The whole point about playing these games is to improve your control. And if you play these games by the rules, you will soon have excellent control over your puppy’s mouthing behavior, vocal output, energy level, and activity. However, if you do not play by the rules, you will soon have an adult dog that is dangerously out-of-control.
I have a simple rule with my dogs: no one is allowed to interact or play with them unless they have demonstrated that they can get them to come, sit, lie down, speak, and shush. This rule applies to everyone, especially family, friends, and visitors, that is, the people most likely to ruin your dog’s behavior. For active games, such as tug-of-war, play-fighting, and a unique version of football, I have an additional rule: No one may play with the dogs unless at any time they can immediately get the dog to stop playing and sit or lie down.
Practice “Off,” “Sit,” and “Settle Down” many times during your puppy’s play sessions, and you will soon have an easily controllable adult dog, one that has learned to listen to you no matter how excited and worked up he may be. Do not play with your pup without frequent interruptions. Have short timeouts at least every fifteen seconds or so to check that you’re in control and can easily and quickly get the puppy to let go, calm down, and settle down. The more you practice, the more control you’ll have.
If your puppy has a soft mouth
Many gundog breeds, especially Spaniels (and especially the nice Spaniels), have extremely soft mouths as puppies and therefore receive limited feedback that their jaws can hurt. If a puppy does not frequently mouth, bite, and does not occasionally bite hard, this is serious. The puppy must learn his limits, and he can only learn his limits by exceeding them during development and receiving the appropriate feedback. Again, the solution lies with puppy classes and off-leash play sessions with other puppies.
If your puppy doesn’t bite
Shy dogs seldom socialize or play with other dogs or strangers. Hence they do not play-bite, nor do they learn to reduce the force of their bites. The classic case history describes a dog that didn’t mouth or bite much as a pup and never bit anyone as an adult-until an unfamiliar child tripped and fell on the dog while he was gnawing on a bone. Not only did the dog bite, but his first bite left deep puncture wounds because he had developed no bite inhibition. With shy puppies, socialization is of paramount importance and time is of the essence.
Similarly, some Asian breeds have an extremely high degree of fidelity toward their owners, and, consequently, tend to be fairly standoffish with other dogs or human strangers. Some restrict their mouthing and biting to members of the family, and some simply do not mouth at all. Hence, they never learn to inhibit the force of their jaws.
Non-biting puppies must be socialized immediately. They must commence play-fighting and play-biting well before they are four-and-a-half months old. Socialization and initiating play are best accomplished by promptly signing up for puppy classes.
Excerpted from After You Get Your Puppy, by Ian Dunbar.
Ian Dunbar is a veterinarian and animal behaviorist, founder of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, and the author and star of numerous books and videos on dog behavior and training. He lives in Berkeley, California with his wife, trainer Kelly Dunbar, and their three dogs. The Dunbars are contributing editors to DogTime.
