Now I want you to meet Blaze.
He's a little 14 week old Australian shepherd puppy and we borrowed him
specifically for this video so that we could give you an authentic example of,
you know, dealing with puppies that do a lot of nipping.
Now I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
We're actually shooting this portion of the video at the very end of our
session. So we've been working together where for about 20 minutes now.
And at the very beginning of our session he was doing a lot of nipping and
biting, but through good information and quick timing and clarity,
I now have a puppy that's just, you know,
calmly laying at my side and just being an absolute angel all through giving
good information.
So let's take it back for the last 20 minutes to see what we've been working on.
I'm Kayl McCann. This is Blaze. Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
Students come to us with biting questions all of the time and our response to
them is always the same.
The very first thing that we ask them is do you have a leash or a line on your
puppy?
And when we mean that we mean all of the time when they're outside of their
crate, people are usually really surprised by this.
And I just want to kind of show you a few examples.
So I have a nice leather leash attached to this puppy Blaze here and this is
what I would use for training. But this type of leash,
I wouldn't leave on my puppy all the time in the house.
He could probably chew it or get it caught on something.
So something like this is a good alternative. It's an old leash.
The end of the leash has been cut off so it can slip and slide around the house
a little bit more easily.
So this is what I would attach to my puppy all of the time.
The moment they come out of their crate,
this would be attached so that if my puppy makes any poor choices,
I can easily take a hold of the line and get control.
A big mistake people make is they like to chase the puppy around the house or I
try to catch them when they've done something wrong.
And that really changes your, your status as, as the person who's in charge.
If you're the one chasing the puppy around the house for a few minutes,
the puppy thinks that's a big giant game and now you know,
they're more likely to repeat that poor behavior.
So we need to diffuse the situation immediately with some type of leash or line.
So in terms of your puppy nipping and biting at you,
these tools are essential in order for you to be able to get control of your
puppies, jumping up to nip you, grabbing your house, coat, your, your slippers,
whatever it might be,
now you're going to have something to grab onto so that you can properly
discipline the puppy without getting into a big wrestling match.
Now a really common place that puppies are more prone to nipping and biting at
their owners is when they're elevated on something like a couch or on a bed.
And the reason for that is a lot of dogs have you know,
a little bit more of a false sense of confidence when they're raised up to be at
a similar level at you.
And there are a lot closer to our face and a lot of the time if we're up here,
we're paying the puppy and then they nip at our nose,
we're trying to correct them and we're eye to eye.
It doesn't really give the dog a very good clear picture that you're in charge.
So if you're having any nipping issues at all,
especially when your dog is being elevated up here, we suggest that you get,
Ooh, I'm actually getting nipping right now. Hey, knock it off.
So I'm going to correct him and what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually
place them on the ground because I don't want to give them the luxury of being
able to be up on the, the better the couch here and was going to make him sit.
It's enough of that. Go ahead. And they're going to loosen the leash.
Noops make him sit here again. Loosen the leash and I'm loosening leash.
Yes, good baby.
Because I want him to choose to sit here a little bit more on his own.
I would just want him to remain here until I release him again.
This is a way that I can establish control as if to say, guess what?
You don't get to call the shots here. I do. Good boy. Okay. Yeah.
Hey, so what's my idea that he gets up and move?
So I'm taking him out of position where he's feeling a little bit more confident
and sure of himself and I'm putting him into a place where I'm a little bit
higher level,
he's lower level and I can be clear about what my expectation of him is.
Good boy. And when it comes to addressing,
nipping or biting consistency is really key.
You'll notice that he nipped him bit at my hand there just a little tiny bed and
only once, and I addressed it immediately.
A common issue that people have is they sort of allow it to go on and on and on
before they actually decide to deal with it.
And I was able to do a sort of a small correction with him and then got him on
the floor and I had diffused the situation in, in you know,
seconds versus allowing it to go on and on and on.
So make sure that your timing is very quick and you're very consistent with your
expectations on what you want for your puppy to be doing.
Now he talked about try not to have your puppy elevated up at the same level as
you, whether you're on a better couch. But the same thing goes,
goes for being down on the floor.
It's really common for us to sit down on the floor with a puppy to interact with
them or to Pat with them or play with them. And you know,
if your puppy is going through some stages where they're doing a lot of nipping
and biting and you're down on the floor,
you actually might be provoking them a little bit more.
It's very difficult for puppies to understand when it's okay to be wild and
crazy and nip and bite and when it's not,
especially if we're putting them into situations where they've rehearsed
wrestling and biting before, you know,
when your puppy was in a litter with their brothers and sisters,
they would have been all on the ground and wrestling or rolling around with each
other, biting each other. And so this is a familiar territory.
So if I'm on the ground and I'm pushing them around and doing a lot of playing,
you're going to see automatically he goes to a using his mouth.
And now I'm putting him in a situation where I'm more likely to get bid at and
then I'm going to have to go through correction.
So we want to try to avoid this type of thing until our puppy has a better
understanding of,
of whether they're allowed to use their mouth of course or not.
Believe it or not, there's actually specific time.
So today that we know puppies are more prone to nipping and biting,
you might have found this with your puppy at home already.
Maybe there's a certain time in the evening where they are extra crazy and we
call it witching hour. The puppy having zoomies,
and when the puppies are really overexcited like this and you try to take
control, there's a much more likelihood of them trying to nip and bite you. Now,
during these times,
it's really important that you're armed and ready with some type of leash or
line on on your puppy. However,
you can actually go one step further and you can try to weather the storm a
little bit more easily by being prepared for these moments. You know,
making sure that you're training your dog, you know,
a few hours before or you know, exercising them,
letting them exude their energy a little bit more so that you know,
by the time seven o'clock comes around in the evening,
your property is actually tired out. They've had a big full day,
they've had lots of exercise, they've had a lot of mental stimulation,
and there's not as much need for the dog to be ripping and roaring around your
house.
Now there's going to be times where you miss the boat and when zoomie hour shows
up, your puppy's going to be wild and crazy.
And we know a lot of people just sort of think to themselves, okay,
my dog has a lot of energy so I need to play with them.
I need to get this energy out and I want you to be very careful about, you know,
grabbing their favorite toy or whatever and then playing with them right away.
You know,
if he's nipping and biting at me and I just very quickly get a toy and give it
to them, I may run into the risk of the puppy saying, you know,
if I jump at you and act really crazy,
then you're going to get something and play with me. So if I, you know,
I'm getting behaviors that I don't like, I need to first address that.
So I would slip my hand on the collar.
I would go through all of my settling techniques until the dog was calm and then
I have two choices. I could then say, you know what,
I'm happy to play with you right now. But guess what,
I'm going to start this game. So I might start with him sitting. Can you sit?
Good boy. And then I might say, okay, got it.
Yeah, good. And I'll engage with them in a little bit of the toy work.
But again, I started it and then I can also finish it.
So then I'm in charge of the situation. You got to grab onto that thing.
Good boy. Go to. Then I could work getting him to drop it.
I might trade him a little bit here. Hey, good boy. Good.
Or maybe I want him to go in his crate so I could try getting him in the crepe
by throwing a little piece of food in there. Okay. Like this.
Oh now it's pretty common that if your puppies, you know,
I'm just gone through a whole little disciplinary thing or if they're in a bit
of a mood that they might not happily go in. And again,
you just need to put them in their crate happily.
So I'm just going to make him go in and you create and you go, good boy.
Good boy. Yes. Good for you.
And then I can shut the door from there. Good, good crate. Yes.
Good boy.
I could throw a couple of cookies in there and just let them chill out there for
a few minutes and then when I'm ready,
bring them back out and we can do some training once again.
Now when it comes time to you know, do things like handling your puppy,
whether you need to touch their paws, wipe their paws off, look in their mouth,
clip their toenails, whatever it might be,
that's another common place where puppies will do a lot of nipping and biting.
And one of the little secrets us dog trainers have is that before we've ever had
to clip their toenails or look in their mouth or do any of those things,
we have had several training sessions of rewarding our dogs for allowing us to
touch them in those different body parts.
And this is another common mistake that people make.
They expect their puppy to accept things when they actually haven't done the
homework to prep their dog to think it's a really great thing if he's had all
kinds of repetitions of me holding his collar or looking at his eyes or whatever
it might be and being rewarded when I go to do those things when I actually need
to. I've got all kinds of money in the bank and you know,
he's going to be more accepted.
So I'm just going to kind of show you some of the exercises that we do to help
prevent nipping and biting in these situations down the road.
What are you looking at? You, you just notice my shoe laces. Oh my goodness.
Come here.
So I'm going to put a little bit of food on Blaise's nose and while he's
snacking away, I'm going to just run my hand over his ear. No, again,
I'm not petting him. We pet our puppies all the time.
I'm deliberately holding him so he's comfortable with that action. Good boy.
Now while he's doing this,
I'm conditioning him to accept this and to love this because I'm feeding him.
At the exact same time and that timing is really crucial.
Now I might sort of pull on his tail a little bit. Yes, good boy. Ooh,
down the wrong tube. Hey go go boy. Yes. Good. So again,
he's snacking away. I can touch upon in the switch hands here.
I'm going to hold this pause. I do it. Good boys.
We went to sniff it there so I'm just going to draw his attention away.
We are really chewing those treats buddy. Yes, good boy.
I might put my hand in his color. Yes, good boy.
I am making it really,
really easy for him to be successful so that if I need to do some touching
again,
he's been conditioned and practice that these things are really good positive
things and I don't have a puppy that panics or worries when I need to you know,
touch his body wherever I need to.
Now we spoke about the importance of not necessarily having your puppy elevated
face to face with you,
but the same rules apply for when you're down on the ground with the dog.
If you're down on the ground and you're doing a lot of snuggling or cuddling or
maybe you're doing a lot of wrestling,
this is also a really common place for the puppies are more prone to feeling
comfortable enough that they can nip and bite at you. You know this,
this is a very similar setup to what they would've done when they were a puppy
with their brothers and sisters wrestling and nipping and biting.
Now we don't want to discourage you from playing with your puppies though.
Being able to play with them is really important,
but how you play is going to make or break whether you're more likely to get
your puppies to nip and bite at you. So if you're going to provoke play,
you're being so good.
It's important that you are ready to settle in to stop the puppy if they happen
to do anything that you don't like,
which is why it's crucial that you play with some type of leisure line on.
So I'm going to see if this little puppy Blaze will play with me for a second
and I'm going to do some play things.
And then if he's doing a great job and I'm happy with this by style,
I'm going to ask him to settle. I'm going to slip my hand in his collar.
I'm just going to reward them for being calm and accepting my control if he does
something that I don't like during the play though,
I'm going to address it by sliding my hand on the collar and correcting him for
the nipping and, and we'll see what happens either way. K pop you on a plate.
So I'm going to get up on my feet here. Ready?
I'll keep up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up.
Good boy. Now I'm going to try a settle,
so I'm gonna slide my hand down the car. Oops. So he bit at my hand. That hurt.
Good boy. That's better. Good baby.
Yes. So he was super respectful there.
I have my hand in his collar.
I squeezed it tight a little bit there to correct them.
And as soon as I did that he went, Oh, sorry. And as,
as I saw that sort of settled soft look in his eye,
I was not so formed with my hold and I'm going to go back to praising him.
Good boy. He needs to understand that when I take his collar,
he's not going to be corrected.
So I'm actually just going to reach my hand in his color again here. Yes.
Good boy. Yay. He was really good that time. So I'm going to give him a reward.
Yes. Good boy. Yay. Good for you. You're going to try it again.
Put my hand in its color. Yes. Excellent. Very good boy.
He needs to understand that when I take control, really good things happen.
Well done.
Now another situation where we find a lot of puppies that are more prone to
nipping and biting is when they're already in a very submissive position.
And this can be really confusing, so if is sort of laying down here,
a lot of puppies will lie over like this and they'll lay on their backs.
You can rub their belly. Now he's looking pretty calm here,
but this is a really common place where people start to get, Oh, you're so cute.
And they start to do a lot of petting of the puppy and the puppy starts to lie
in their back and then they start to wave their paws around and then you start
to get a lot of nipping. So again, if you're having a lot of nipping issues,
putting your puppy or in this position or allowing them to be in this position
is maybe not the best idea.
You might be better just to sort of encourage that your puppy to be up in a sit
when you're doing a lot of petting or handling rather than letting them I paid
go upside down on their back again. So again, he wants to go here.
Let's see what he does for the sake of the demo. Good.
I might try and touch his paws a little bit here. Good. Good choices.
Young man. Good boy. Good. So he's making really good choices. But again,
this is not a smart thing for you guys to do because I'm setting him up to fail
more easily here and I don't want to be doing that.
So when I go to do some handling, I want to clip his toenails,
I want to check them out.
I'm going to put him into a position where I have more control,
whether he's sitting or standing. Now, from here,
if he goes to nip and bite at me,
I can address the the nipping much more easily. If he's flopped back, you know,
on his back and rolling around,
it's hard for me to get his color and the whole situation just goes on and on
and on.
So really think about sending your puppy up to be in positions where you're
going to have more control and they're less likely to bite at you in those
moments.
Now we have several videos related specifically to stopping your puppy from
nipping and biting. So I want you to check out that playlist right here.
If this is your first time on our channel,
make sure you hit that subscribe button.
We post brand new videos every single week to make sure that you have a
well-behaved four legged family member. I'm Kayl. This is Blaze. Happy training.