I want to introduce you to Watson.
He is a 10-week-old puppy and his mom has let us know that he is doing a lot
of nipping and biting at home. Now, right now, he looks absolutely adorable,
but those little puppy teeth are pretty sharp in there.
We post a lot of videos on this channel to help you to teach your dog to stop
nipping and biting.
But one of the biggest mistakes that we find people make is they focus on
stopping the dog from nipping and biting when they're actually nipping and
biting. But in this video,
I'm going to get you to think about puppy biting training,
completely differently.
I'm going to give you some strategies to deal with that nipping and biting them
actually has nothing to do with corrections. I'm Kayl McCann. This is Watson.
Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
First, we're going to talk a little bit about management. Now.
This is a tough one for people because when we have puppies,
they're little and cute. We just want to spend all this time with them.
And one of the common mistakes that people make is they give the puppies a
little bit, too much freedom.
Now you can see he's being a little bit wild and crazy right now,
and a couple of things that I'm doing to manage him.
So I can talk to you guys is I have the leash on and I have something to kind of
occupy him here. Now,
if he didn't have a leash on and I didn't have anything to kind of entertain
him,
he would probably be running around the studio or he would be jumping all over
me, but giving myself some tactics to use,
to control him are going to be really important.
So something that we really recommend is that you have a leash or some type of
house line on your puppy at all times. And I mean,
all times when your puppy is not in their crate,
we will talk about crates in a second.
When I have some type of leash or line on,
I can stop him from doing whatever he's doing without chasing him around the
house,
which makes me look a little bit more like a litter mate and him in charge
without me having to get angry and upset with him,
I can immobilize the situation and get him calm. Um,
without him self-reinforcing.
Now my goal when I'm puppy training is to put my puppy in situations where he
can make good choices.
So if I'm allowing him to just be loose without a leash on,
and he's constantly getting into things that means I'm constantly telling him
you're bad, you're wrong, you're bad, you're wrong.
And that's not really how I want to be delivering my information.
So you need to get yourself some type of leash or line that you can attach to
your puppy. Now, this is a better line, a better leash for training.
This is not what I would use in the house.
It's got a big handle that would get caught on things.
You could cut the loop of the handle off.
So it slips and slides through the house a little bit more.
You could get something a little bit smaller. Um,
so you'll have one leash for training and for walking your dog,
and then you'll have another one.
That's just going to get quite beaten up around the house. Now,
if you think about how many times you have to pick your puppy up in a day,
hook their leash on, put them in the crate, take them out of the crate,
take them outside.
There's so many times where we have to reach in and take a hold of our puppy.
Every time we do that,
we're opening up the possibility for our puppies to nip and bite at us.
So one of the things that we highly recommend that you do is condition your
puppy to accept you taking hold of their collar so that all of those times,
a days where you reach in take control,
your puppy has had really good experience and training with you taking control.
Now, a little Watson here is really excited about the food,
which is great because this is going to allow me to build a lot of value for me
taking hold of his collar.
So he's not done a whole lot of this before his mom's only had him for two
weeks. We've done a little bit, but not much. And so what I'm going to do, yes,
I'm actually going to reward him right now because he's sitting here like a
little angel and he was just being so wiggly a second ago. Good boy,
I'm going to start out by putting some food right on.
Watson's knows that I'm not going to let them eat it right away.
I'm going to let them sort of sniff and lick away with my free hand.
I'm going to reach cute underneath his chin.
And I'm going to put my hand inside his collar. And as soon as my hand is there,
I'm going to say yes, and I'm going to reward a couple of times. Yes.
That was a giant treat. Good boy. Yes.
And as he's eating my hands in the collar, once the treats done,
I'm going to let go.
And the reason why I'm letting go when the food is done is because I want him to
think that the most special part is when my hand's in the collar.
So when the hand goes in, the food's there,
when the hand leaves the food leaves.
So we are going to condition them to feel what the best part is. So again,
food on his nose, I'm going to reach in, take a hold of his collar. Yes.
And then feed. Yes. And then feed. And once he's done his treat,
I'm going to release once again. Now when I do this, I have the leash on.
So if he decides to, you know, be wild, all of a sudden I have some control,
but after you do this a few times,
the puppies will really start to anticipate what's happening.
And rather than biting at your hand or jumping up on you,
if they've gotten a lot of reinforcement for sitting,
or they could be standing even for this,
but being patient and calm while you're holding their collar,
that's going to make all of those experiences.
When you go to lift them up or hook their leash on a lot more pleasant for you.
And it's going to teach your puppy not to bite in that situation,
but instead sit and be an angel.
Another common mistake that a lot of puppy owners make is they allow themselves
to be in situations where it's really easy for the puppy. Significant bite them.
When we have, oh, excuse you, what do we have? Uh, a small puppy.
We often want to have the puppy up at our face.
And of course we do because they're adorable and we want to squish them and we
want to kiss them. And they're so adorable.
But often if I'm holding him up here and he's in his wild time,
it's very common that he might want to turn and nip and bite at my face.
And now basically I'm putting him in a scenario where he can make poor choices.
Now, the other thing he's doing right now is he doesn't want me to hold him.
And if I was to just go, okay, and just let him down and do his own thing,
he's just learned a really bad lesson. He's learning when I struggle.
And I kind of do what I want. You know,
my mom will just let me down and do whatever I want.
So I'm gonna actually pick them up again.
And if he starts to struggle in my hands, I'm just going to tell him settle.
And it might even brace him against me a little bit more until.
He relaxes, because I want to.
Find an opportunity to tell him that he's right. Oh, you're being a good boy.
Now, though. Good. So now I.
Might take a second to praise him while he's calm.
And then when he's in this state,
I might put him down all he's going to fuss again. So I'm just going to hold.
Them for a second settle. Good boy.
I hope I'm holding it pretty tight against me. Here we go. Good.
Now I can place him down. So again, that's the lesson.
If you want to do what you want fine, but you need to give me something first.
The other thing you want to be careful about with puppies is being careful about
not getting on the floor and you're going through your initial stages of having
them and rough housing with them. Again,
if in one situation you're saying don't nip and bite at me and jump up my face
and grabbed my clothes.
And another times you're wrestling with them on the floor while you're creating,
but a gray area there. How,
how does he supposed to know when it's okay to play and be rough with you and
when it's not okay,
especially if you have kids in the house or if your puppy is going to be around
kids, that's definitely not a gray area I would create for your pup.
And last, um, to do is, is with elevation.
I talked a little bit about getting down on the floor and holding your puppy up
near your face. But the same thing goes for, you know,
getting up on a couch or maybe up on the bed.
Sometimes when puppies are elevated like that,
they feel a little bit more comfortable to take advantage of the situation.
So if you have a puppy that's pushing buttons a little bit and maybe getting a
little nippy and bitey or not listening as well as they should.
Try to just make it a little bit easier for them to understand that you're in
charge by not allowing them on the couch or on the bed. Yet,
we often have a lot of puppy owners panic and say, oh my gosh, I, you know,
I wanted to snuggle with him on the couch when I watch TV. Oh, thank.
You. Easy, very nice cases. Um, and, and that's great.
We want you to do those things too.
And that's something that you'll do for years to come. But right now,
when you have a puppy,
that's learning the ropes still about what they're allowed and not allowed to
do.
It's important that we're being really clear and we're trying to avoid putting
them in a situation where I might have to correct him for biting.
I don't really want to have to do that. So if I can manage him better and,
and sort of think about my situation,
I'm going to avoid having those tough conversations because he doesn't get an
opportunity to try it in the first place. Good pup. That's better.
One thing that Watson's mom, uh,
mentioned to us when she dropped him off today is that there's a certain time of
the day that he tends to do more nipping and biting.
And that's towards the end of the day after she's had a long day of work and
he's been in his crate and now she's ready to wind down for the day.
And Watson is not, he is still ready to party.
And so picking and choosing what you do with your puppy during times where they
go through that witching hour, that,
that time where they're a little wild and crazy can lend to whether your puppy
is going to have more nipping and biting and crazy fits or whether they're not.
So if your puppy has been pent up all day,
or they haven't really had a lot of exercise,
and you're trying to figure out what to do with them,
to avoid them getting into that witching hour,
think about what you can do to them.
That's going to be productive with their energy.
That might be a really great time to get out some treats and do some training
with them to do some trick training,
do something that's going to make them use their brain in a positive way. Um,
that's actually going to allow your dog to think a little bit.
It's going to get them focused on working. And when he's working,
he's less likely to nip and bite at me.
That also might be a time where I practice doing some tug exercises with him and
let him release all that energy out on a toy rather than my clothes or my skin.
That might be a time to practice some restraint,
recall games up and down the hallway. I promise you if you do 10 or 12 of those,
your puppy will be pretty tired.
And then you can go and hang out and relax for the night.
Maybe have them lie with you and chew on a bone.
Or you might just want to watch your show in peace with a glass of wine and
throw them in their crate again. And, you know,
do another little training session later in the night. But, you know,
try to make sure that if there are certain times in the day where your dog is
energetic, try not to just let them be in that moment.
Try not to let them just be loose in the house or that type of thing,
because you know, they're more prone to making poor choices in that moment.
And it's normal. They're a baby puppy. That's, you know, got a lot of energy.
So instead, you know, kind of stay one step ahead of them,
do other things with them. That's going to be successful at tiring them out,
but also is going to put them in a situation where they see that you're in
charge. They like listening and learning with you,
which means they're gonna be less likely to nip and bite at.
You at those moments. We've talked a little bit about.
Management now,
but it's basically impossible to supervise and manage our puppy.
Every single second of the day, we've got lives to live. We've got stuff to do.
And there's going to be times where we just cannot put all of our focus into our
puppies. And a lot of the time when my students come to me and say, you know,
my puppy's nipping and I'm having issues with my puppy being bratty and wild,
I'll often ask them, are you utilizing a crate?
And the reason why I asked that question is I want to make sure that there's
some place that our puppies can go where they can't get into trouble and they
can't rehearse bad behavior while we're occupied doing other things. Good boy.
And a common answer that people will give me is that, yes, we have a crate,
but he's not used to it yet.
So we're not using it all the time until he likes it.
And what I want to teach you about is that the crate isn't,
we want to teach the puppy to love the crate.
And I'm going to talk to you about that. But the crate is not optional.
We want to be able to put the puppy in the crate whenever we need to at any time
that we need to. So, you know, he's being pretty, pretty good right now,
but I'm just actually going to throw him in the crate here. And, um,
I could use a little bit of food. I can help them.
Or if you have a puppy that's really resistant to go in,
just place them in the crate. Here bud, good boy.
I might toss a few cookies in there. Get your little bum in there too.
It was not very graceful. There we go. That's okay.
And then I'm going to just shut the door and then I might just hang out here for
a second. And if he's quiet in the crate, yes,
the boy I can reward him for that.
I might put him in the crate and give him something to do while he's in there.
I might, you know,
put us a treats in a Kong or give him a really yummy bone to chew on when he's
in there. So he has something to do,
but whether he's tired or energetic or whatever it might be,
if you have a zoom meeting to jump on, or if you have to run the kids down to,
you know, a soccer game or whatever it might be,
we need our puppies to be able to go in and out of this crate all day long.
Now you are going to work on building value for teaching your puppy to go in the
crate.
And we actually have great videos that specifically walk you through that type
of training session,
but don't be afraid to use your dog's crate for hours at a time during the day
minutes at the time, if you need to have a shower, pop your puppy in the crate,
because if you're showering your puppies running around the kitchen,
while you're doing your own thing,
who knows what kind of mischief that they're getting into. So again, hi Bubba.
What we want to try and do with our puppies is mold and shape them to do the
right things.
And if we're putting our puppy in a scenario where it's too easy for them to
make a bad choice,
if you're in the other room and your kids are playing with the puppy
unsupervised,
you're opening up the possibility for your puppy to nip and bite them without
any consequence. So you have utilized your crate to the best of your ability.
Sometimes it's a bit challenging in the beginning,
but once they understand that this is their place to kind of hang out and chill,
you can use it as much as you want. And as the puppy gets more training,
you may choose later in life to wean off of it a little bit.
But for now we want to utilize the crate so that you have an opportunity to have
a break from managing and training your dog. And that's going to reduce nipping.
A lot. Look into my eyes,
look into my eyes.
I will mesmerize and hypnotize you into being a good puppy.
This it didn't work. Another.
Mistake that may lead to your puppy,
doing more nipping and biting is a lack of consistency in the home.
And this could be between the adults in the house.
This could be maybe between kids and adults in the house,
but dogs really crave consistency in a lot of clarity in their rules.
So it's really important that you sit down with your family members or whoever's
going to be interacting with the puppy and decide what you like and what you
don't like about the puppy's behavior.
Hopefully everybody's on the same page that nobody wants puppies, nipping,
and biting at them or their clothes. And if that's what the rule is,
everybody needs to be following through.
Because if sometimes we're letting it go or other times we're a little slow to
respond,
it can be very confusing for our puppies and the road to success is going to be
a lot more slow. Now I do want to address the kid thing though,
because we do have kids and puppies together, which can be very, very durable,
but puppies are a lot more prone to nip and bite at kids because they view them.
As you know, you know, more as litter mates, they squeak these squawk. They run,
they're cute. They're fast. They're very attractive to puppies.
And a lot of puppies, you know, are,
are more prone to nipping and biting at them. And, you know,
we would never suggest for kids to be in charge of disciplining or addressing
the nipping. We would always want the adults to be doing that.
So when you have your kids and your puppies together,
there needs to be 100% supervision so that if your puppy makes a poor choice,
you're able to step in there and do something about it. Now,
the premise of this video is not so much correcting your puppy from bite,
from biting. It's teaching your puppy, not to bite by having better training.
So when I have my puppy around kids, I'm going to,
to avoid situations where my puppy might nip at them.
I'm not going to let the kids run around or, you know,
jump on the puppy or be poking at the puppy or wagging their toys up everywhere.
If kids are going to be kids,
I'm going to put the puppy in the crate and let the kids do their thing.
If the puppy is out with the kids, we want to work on calmer exercises.
There's so many great things that you can do to get your kids involved with the
puppies, like having them, you know,
get your puppy to sit or teach your puppy a fun trick, and then have the,
you know, the kids play around with that. Um,
but teaching your puppy to sit and be calm and accept food and accept calm.
Praise is a really great way to start teaching the puppy,
how to behave better around the kids. But again,
think about the scenario that you're putting the child and the dog in or the
puppy in and decide whether it's an opportunity for your puppy to make poor
choices or whether you're controlling the situation.
So your puppy can learn what they should be doing differently.
Now they have some great management and leadership tips underneath your belt.
It's time to learn more about puppy biting training,
click that card right there to check out our puppy biting playlist,
give you're looking for some more help with your puppy out for biting issues.
Make sure you check out our Puppy Essentials online course,
we will have an opportunity to get feedback and instruction from our
professional trainers.
The link to that is in the description below on that note,
this is Watson I'm Kayl, happy training.