6 month yellow lab

Question
our lab act's up when my husband and i are in the same room. he is constantly attention seeking. he will start barking,jumping up and biting. although the bites aren't extremely painfull they do have pain potential. what should we do? my husband grab's him by his collar and put's him in his crate. he get's yelled at. that doesn't work. we lie on the bed and hold him in a restraining hold until he calm's down.that works but doesn't get rid of the behaviour. i would never raise my hand to our pup. i would like to know if there is anything we can do to control this naughty behaviour before he turns into an adult dog with big issues(and teeth)
thank you for your time,
laurie

Answer
Hi Laurie,

Thank you for writing to me about your Labbie puppy. The nipping and biting that your puppy is engaging in is referred to as "mouthing.'

Almost all puppies mouth, its how they explore. Dog's mouths are like our hands.

Before puppy training, it is very natural for a dog to mouth people when they first come home to their new life away from their pack. In the pack, the puppies will mouth each other as well as the mom. When they get too harsh the other puppy will YELP to let them know it hurt. This is called learning bite inhibition and dogs that are taken away from their litters too early might not learn this as well. If your puppy was taken too early (before 6-7 weeks) then get your puppy with other puppies and that can help puppy training.

It is relatively easy to teach your puppy not to do this with proper puppy training. In fact, most puppies simply grow out of this behavior altogether. Remember, they are teething when they are young, so chewing feels good! Give lots of toys with different textures to help get their chewing needs appropriately with puppy training.

Never reinforce puppy mouthing

This puppy training technique means you must remove your attention every time this happens. Attention to a dog includes eye contact. With kids its best to tell them to cross their arms and stare at the ceiling. 30 seconds is about the time you should ignore your puppy. Don't push your puppy away as this can become a game quickly.

Try yelping like a puppy

Yelping in many puppy training cases will communicate exactly what you want - that it hurts when your puppy does that. That in combination with removing your attention will likely get rid of the mouthing problem. Of course some puppies will become excited by this yelp and bite harder - if that happens, don't use this puppy training method.

What if those don't work

Another puppy training technique is using a little lemon juice or bitter apple on your hands. When the puppy mouths you, they won't like the taste.

Teach him something else to do

Teach your dog to lick on the cue "no bite". Put a treat in your hand. When your puppy licks, give him the treat and say "no bite". He'll learn this puppy training lesson fast.

I have found that the yelping like a dog technique is very successful.

Best Regards,

Shelley Davis