Learn to pet and touch thoughtfully and carefully: So much about puppy biting can be summed up in that one sentence. Learn to pet and touch thoughtfully and carefully. But because most of us are used to living and working with adult dogs, who’s nervous systems are fully mature and developed, being mindful about petting and touch is not something we have needed to practice. With adult dogs, we just pet and touch them when we want. Then we bring home our little fluff ball, and they are so cute and cuddly, and we want to just pet and hug them.

Because of how immature the puppy brain is, and how cute and toy like they are, it’s almost impossible to avoid over stimulating our puppy without being thoughtful about how much rest and touch they are getting. During the puppy phases there are some things we want to try to avoid, and then the important work, the things we need to do instead. Do This, Not That: Almost all the techniques to help you get through puppyhood with your sanity, skin, and belongings intact will involve nothing more difficult thats switching out one thing for another.

Examples:

Instead of sitting with your puppy on your lap, try sitting a few inches away. Putting puppy in a pen or crate for a nap? Set up your work station close by, have a child read puppy a book to help puppy fall asleep, There are so many ways to give puppies a little space while still enjoying their company. Puppy not tired? Instead of simply reacting to the puppy biting you, try to think of what the puppy can do instead that meets the same core need (reflexive, defensive, offensive). Putting a chew in the puppy’s mouth is one common solution, but it MUST be something the puppy wants to chew and it should meet the core need of the root of the mouthing/biting behavior. Other good options include walking with the puppy, even standing often helps, training, or cooperative play, there are so many options. Keep in mind that as your puppy ages and becomes a juvenile that their needs will change, reflexive biting will decrease over time, defensive biting will reduce too, especially if we teach our puppies cooperative care, and that ankle biting will also eventually just go away.

Occasionally you may find that in the absence of learning Mouth Manners, your juvenile will develop new and annoying mouth habits that need addressed, and we will touch on those in the next section.

Do this instead of that (but still expect some puppy biting).