Puppies are little balls of fur who spend most of their time playing, investigating, and chewing things.
They bite quite a lot. It’s their way of satisfying their curiosity. But these puppies will eventually grow up, and now their playful bites will hurt.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), more than 4.5 million people get bitten by dogs every year. A staggering number yes, but as a responsible pet parent you can prevent your dog from contributing to these numbers.
What Will I Learn?
Bite Inhibition: Teaching Your Puppy to Be Gentle
The term bite inhibition refers to a dog’s ability to control the force of its biting. When a dog doesn’t learn bite inhibition, it doesn’t recognize the sensitivity of the human skin. This can cause problems when a dog bites too hard while playing.
So how do we train bite inhibition? Here are 8 solutions.
8 Solutions to Train Bite Inhibition and Stop Your Puppy From Biting
1. Socialize Your Dog
Many trainers and behaviorists believe that dogs who learn bite inhibition when socializing with people are less likely to bite hard or injure the human skin.
In nature, puppies learn bite inhibition when playing with other puppies. If you observe a group of puppies closely, you will notice them chasing, biting, and pouncing.
Occasionally, one puppy will bite another puppy too hard. The victim will give out a yelp and stop playing with the pup who bit it. After a few moments, you’ll see them playing again. Puppies learn bite inhibition through these interactions.
When a puppy learns to be gentle with other puppies, they are also gentle with you.
That’s why when you have adopted or bought a new pup, the best thing you can do is introduce it to as many places, people, and situations as possible. Provide your puppy with plenty of opportunities to play with other puppies and friendly vaccinated dogs.
(Here’s a puppy socialization guide)
A properly socialized puppy is less likely to be fearful of a new situation or environment, and this lack of fear lowers the risk of aggressive behavior.
You can also consider enrolling in a puppy class, where your puppy is supervised properly. (If your dog is no longer a puppy, you can still work on its socialization by exposing it to other dogs and people in a controlled environment).
2. Yelping
You can copy the behavior of puppies that yelp from being bitten too hard, and your behavior will get a similar response.
You can make a high-pitched “Ow!” when your dog or pup bites you too hard. If your dog licks the area or stops after the yelp, praise it. Then resume playing with it.
If it bites again, yelp again. Repeat no more than three times in 15 minutes.
Note: make sure to keep your pup’s behavior in mind when using this method, as the high-pitched yelp can make it want to bite you even more.
3. Time-Outs
Time-outs are a great way to teach your dog bite inhibition. As I covered above, puppies who get bitten not only yelp, but also stop playing with the aggressor for a moment.
Since puppies want to play, not wanting to play with them removes the “reward” of play… and hence it learns that the path to reward = not biting you so hard.
So when your puppy bites you a little too hard, yelp loudly. Then, when it looks startled and turns to look at you, remove your hand and ignore it for 10 to 30 seconds.
Then, resume what you were doing before. If he starts biting again, get up and move away for 10-30 seconds. After the time-out has passed, encourage your pup to play with you again.
Play with your puppy until it bites again, then repeat the procedure. When your pup is gentle again, you can make the procedure stricter and make it bite even gentler.
It is critical to teach it to play gently, as you mold the path to reward using positive reinforcement.
4. Use Positive Reinforcement
Positive reinforcement training is a method that involves rewarding your dog’s good behavior instead of punishing the bad behaviors with pain or negative conditioning. Positive reinforcement can be treats, petting, verbal encouragement, non-verbal actions, or anything your dog loves to do.
When you reward your dog for gentle playing, a reward can be praise, petting, or play time.
Punishment, on the other hand, can be unpleasant to your dog. Everyone hates to get punished. Avoid punishments such as hitting, leash corrections, alpha rolling, or physically rolling over the dog.
A study by Dr. Ana Catarina de Castro from the University of Porto, Portugal showed that when punishment is used to teach a dog something, the dog can become pessimistic and stressed.
It was also observed in a 2009 study that dogs trained using punishment methods tend to be more aggressive than other dogs. Positive reinforcement decreases the likelihood of your dog biting.
Note: Here we’re talking about negative reinforcement punishments that involve pain and fear. A much better “punishment” is to remove the reward.
5. Redirect the Behavior
When your puppy bites too hard, give it something else to chew.
It’s good to keep a chew toy on you so that when you anticipate biting behavior, you can redirect the behavior to the chew toy instead of your leg or hand.
When your puppy starts nibbling on your fingers or toes while playing, offer them the toy. If they still nibble on your toes or fingers, stop playing immediately.
If you have been training your pup, make it sit or lay down and then reward it with the chew toy.
6. Learn to Read Your Dog’s Body Language
Dogs use body language to communicate. Please pay close attention to your dog’s body language and what it is telling you.
A dog who is unhappy or afraid about having its personal space or territory invaded has the potential to bite.
Non-verbal behaviors such as raised hackles, bared teeth, or ears lying flat against the head show that the dog is uncomfortable and may bite.
If you notice the aforementioned non-verbal signals, give the dog some space and time, and advise others to do the same. If you’re in public, remove the dog from the public area as soon as you feel safe doing this.
7. It’s All About Energy, Man
Sometimes your dog just needs to burn off extra energy.
Happy and healthy dogs tend to have lots of suppressed energy that generally comes out in the form of “zoomies.”
Zoomies, or Frenetic Random Activity Periods (FRAPs), refer to unmistakable explosions of energy that dogs can have on occasion.
Because of this pent up energy, your pup might keep on playfully biting you even after provided with a chew toy.
That’s when the solution is to take your pup outside to play or let them run around aimlessly trying to burn off that pent-up energy.
8. Neuter or Spay Your Dog
While spaying or neutering your dog doesn’t guarantee that it will never bite, there is some evidence that suggests that neutered dogs tend to be less aggressive than their counterparts.
There are a number of good reasons to have your dog spayed or neutered; lessening the probability of their aggressive behavior is one of them.