Puppies biting at hands is a real problem. That's not only annoying,
but it also hurts a lot as well. Today.
I'm going to talk to you about a whole bunch of things that people do that
actually can provoke this problem from happening. And then of course,
what you need to do differently to stop it. I'm Kayl McCann.
This is nine week old puppy Smooch. Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
Now let's talk about the first thing that I'm doing wrong. Number one,
that entire intro that I just did, I was allowing him to gnaw on my hand.
It was mostly to make sure you guys could see that we have a naughty little
puppy here that we have to fix,
but allowing him to chew on my hand for this long is not very good dog training.
Dogs are within one second. So if I allow him to chew on my hand this long,
and then all of a sudden I tell him he's not supposed to do that anymore.
And then, you know, the next day I let them chew again.
And then I tell him he's not supposed to do that anymore. It can be really,
really confusing.
So we're going to talk about how to deal with our puppies with really good
timing so that it makes sense. So, oops. So if he goes to bite me right away,
I'm just going to change positions here and I'm going to prevent him from doing
that. Now, the second thing that I want to talk to you about is this line.
Having a line on your puppy is also really helpful.
If our puppies don't have a leash or a collar on,
and I have to grab the actual puppy, my hand has to go around his head.
He's far more likely to bite at me when I have a light on,
I can control him. Now he's being a bit of a turkey right now,
so I'm just going to actually pull him in beside me.
And I'm going to do a little passive restraint just to get him to settle down.
Settle. Good boy. Don't to yell and scream at my puppy. Good boy.
I'm going to hold them in a little bit more of a controlled way. That's better.
That's a nicer baby. I'm just going to stop him again here.
What I want him to do is sort of be like limp noodle in my hands.
There that's more noodly. Good boy.
Now three, however, reading your dog's body language is really important.
Oh, we're going to try and bite the face are we?
Now here's another thing we need to be careful of.
Don't hold your puppy up near your face.
When you're trying to tell them that they're doing something wrong.
Keep your posture up a little bit more. In fact,
I could even change my body language to be a little bit more in control.
So I can just going to bring myself up a little bit more.
He's not very limp in my hands.
He's kind of looking for something to do is I'm just going to simply hold him.
That's better or do the noodle test. Good boy.
You're so cute. You're so cute. Good boy.
Now I'm going to put him down and I'm just going to move this line so he doesn't
go to bite at it. Good boy I'm going to place hiom down to see what he does.
I so right away, he bit at my knee and the line. So I'm going to pick them up,
knock it off. That's enough. Settle. Good again. Timing.
I didn't allow him to biteat my knee for, you know,
a few seconds or a minute or so, and then pick them up.
I'm going to stop them right away. Now I'm going to put him down.
So when you bite all the fun stops. Good boy. That's better.
Good. Excellent. There. That's nice.
So now he's choosing to pay attention to me. He's not,
I have a couple of treats ready and waiting.
Pocket. Yes. Good choice. Yes.
Good boy. That's such a good man. Good for you.
So again, reacting quickly when he makes a wrong behavior is so important.
It's not about yelling and screaming and making it a big deal,
but it's about having to feel a little item and the items in place that allow me
to have control. He has a collar on, he has a line on, I can easily get him.
I'm not down on the floor in his face.
I'm keeping myself up a little bit taller and immobilizing him when he's doing
something. I don't like. Good boy. Yes.
And then once I have him in a calmer state,
I'm taking the opportunity to reward him very generously
as he makes good choices. You're such a good boy.
So the other thing that I was doing before that was actually provoking him to
bite was how I was interacting with him, with my hands. You know,
if you expect your puppy not to bite at your hands,
it's very important that you don't interact with your puppy in a way that
provokes them. So if I want to pet him and snuggle him and love him,
which I want to do all the time,
I need to make sure that I'm touching him in sort of a calm, smoother way.
Good boy. What a lot of people end up doing is they say, Oh, what a good puppy?
And they put their hands all over the puppy's face. Now look,
as soon as I start to do that, I now have a bitey puppy. Again,
as soon as they start to pet him in a vigorous way.
And I put my hands all over his face like this,
I'm encouraging him to actually nip and bite at me and I don't want to be doing
that. So when I go to pet him and praise him,
I'm just going to hold him a little calmer. Good boy.
And I'm going to pet them more softly. Good boy. Yes. Good.
That's better. Thanks. Oh, I'm getting a bit of biting.
So I'm going to tell him Nope. That's enough.
Stop. Good boy.
Oh my God. That face is a killer. Good man. Okay.
So we're going to lie down and we're going to fight on the line.
I don't really want him to do that. So I'm going to lift him up again.
That's enough. So.
Stop boy. Go ahead.
Well, the line away. So this can't be a vicious circle there.
Yeah.
Excellent you're laying. Now I'm going to go back and reward.
You are the superest puppy. Yes, you are. Good boy. Good.
I'm going to try petting me.
Again. Oops. Oops. I'm gonna put my food away.
I'm going to take a hpold of him.
They will flip around like that. That's pretty common.
It started turning into like a they do alligator rolls. That's better.
Hi good boy. Now let's try that again.
I need to move my line out of the way here in a place in down. Just settle.
Good boy. Settle, settle
good. Or yes. I just use the line to immobilize them.
They're a little bit again. Look how fast I'm reacting to his behavior.
That's what's making such a big difference. Now. I want to be able to pet him.
Calmly like I was showing you before without inviting me.
So I'm just going to hold the food away and I'm just going to pet them calmly.
Yes. Good boy. Put my on his face here. Yes.
Excellent. And again,
I'm training him to understand that when humans and come in, yes,
you don't nip and bite Yas. Good boy.
You get love and you get treats. Oh, you're making such good choices. Yes.
We want to teach your puppies what we want them to do.
We need to give them lots of positive reinforcement,
but we also need to make sure that we're addressing things that we don't like as
well. But at the same time,
sometimes the way that we interact with our puppies actually caused them to make
poor choices.
And then we ended up getting ourselves into these situations where our puppies
are doing so much nipping and biting.
But if we just approach things a little bit differently,
we could have avoided it all together. Good boy, good look.
What great choices he's making. And just a matter of a few moments. Now,
what happens if you're starting to get a lot of success with your puppy,
not biting at your hands in there, your puppy is making good choices around you,
but then your spouse comes home or you maybe have kids or your friends come over
and your puppy says, well, maybe I can bite your hands instead. You know,
what do you do? Now? Our golden rule is that we,
we don't really want people who don't own your puppy or interact with your puppy
on a regular basis to ever be the ones to discipline your puppy.
That's your job.
Our job is to teach our puppies how to behave well around other people.
The other role that we have is we don't want children to do any type of
discipline with the puppy.
It can be very difficult for children to do it with proper timing and technique.
And sometimes it can actually teach the puppies that they're, you know,
a little bit more of a litter mate, rather than being respectful.
So I want to walk you through what it looks like.
If your puppy happens to be biting at somebody else's hands and you're going to
need to address that appropriately.
So it's really common when friends or family members come over and
they want to say hello to the puppy, that they often will interact with them.
I wait this way. So they're always over the top with the
dog. Look at him, look at this guy. Oh my goodness.
There. And again, I don't really want my puppy. Being, number one,
I don't want somebody to interact with my puppy this way,
because it just provokes him.
But I also don't want to sit here and just allow my puppy to learn that he can,
you know, grab my friend's jeans and he's really biting the hands now.
So let's just walk through what we should do differently. So again,
I have the line on, so the next time he goes to bite, Hey mr. No way.
I'm going to take the line. Good. Let's just get you under a little bit more.
Control. Good boy. Good settle. Good. Okay. Try and pet him again.
Good buddy. Let's go. Nope. So good.
Back to the same technique I was using before.
Boy, that's better. Good. You try and pet him again.
Yeah. Okay.
So as soon as you, you don't know if you could see there,
but he flipped over and he didn't actually bite you, but he opened his.
Mouth towards, so I'm just going to stop on that's enough. Good boy. Now.
He's made three sort of bad choices and you know,
he's not being horrible. So what I'm going to do is, I mean,
to help them to be a little bit more successful.
So I'm going to get some food out this time. Good boy and reward for calm puppy.
And I'm going to have Ken pet him. Yes boy.
Yeah. So rather than allowing him to make a poor choice,
I'm going to help him make a better choice.
Good, good boy. What if we go a little bit closer. Good boy.
Come on up here. Good. There. Yes.
Good. Yeah.
That was nice. So that time he turned towards Ken's hand and he didn't nip.
He just sorta checked him out that time. Yes. Good boy.
You could also have your family members or your friends do feeding themselves.
I'm going to give Ken a couple of treats. They're very, very tiny puppy treats.
Good. There we go.
And so now we're conditioning the puppy.
When somebody comes down on the floor to say hello to you, sit,
be calm and then cut them with the other hand.
So he's just getting used to that too. There we go. Yay. Good.
Excellent.
So if we're trying to stop her puppies from nipping and biting at our hands and
being crazy, we have to make sure that how we interact with our puppies,
isn't causing that to happen. You know, and I tried to stop him a few times,
but what you need to understand about a puppy is they're always going to do what
they find most rewarding.
So even though I stopped him every time Ken went to say hello,
when there was no other reason with the food being there, he went, okay, well,
this is pretty fun. This is pretty fun. The more I let that happen,
the less likely I'm going to stop it,
which is why we rerouted went to more of the food direction.
I'll look at the great choices that he's making. Yes, good boy.
In case you guys can't tell it is actually me,
but I think an important part of this exercise might be coaching your family,
coaching your friends on what they should do.
And maybe we can talk a little bit about that. Yeah, definitely.
We want to make sure that we are coaching our friends and family.
You know Ken obviously is playing a part of a very unsavvy dog person,
which is not the case at all. However,
there's lots of times when you know,
we've had friends or family come over and puppies are so cute.
And the most common thing that people do is they go, hi,
speaking voice happens. And then it just sends the puppy over the edge.
We know that about people. So right away, we will coach people right away.
You know try not to pet the puppy. You know,
if they're jumping like that or here's some treats or working on getting my
puppy to sit,
you want to control the narrative a little bit so that your friends and family
have a better idea of how to interact with the puppy.
There's been some times too,
if we've had our puppies around kids that I'll actually pick my puppy up and
hold my puppy in my hands so that they're not down on the ground and being able
to kind of run around and jump in and bite,
I'll let them have like a pet or two and then the puppy goes away.
And then the most important thing to remember is that so that your timing is not
severely impacted by you trying to manage a bunch of people, manage your puppy.
If you're not able to work through it in the moment and be able to actually
address the biting of the hands, the moment it happens,
then you need to make sure you don't have that puppy in that scenario in the
first place. So maybe puppy needs to be in the crate when you know,
people come in the house or there's a more exciting thing that happens.
So that I'm ready when it happens to be able to address it.
Because circling back to the first point that I made is, you know,
if I'm letting the puppy knock on my hands for a little while or jump on that
person. And then all of a sudden I say, okay, fine. That's enough.
It's not clear to the dog puppies, dogs, like things that are black and white,
not things that are like a sometimes rule that he didn't all the time rule
because then they know how to change their behavior and do what you need them to
do. Now I want to show you guys a training exercise that you can do.
That's going to be a great one to start with anyways, just in your training.
But it's also one that we really like that helps teaches your puppy to be a
little bit more respectful around your hand,
especially when you're holding food.
And basically what you're going to do is you're going to take a couple of treats
at, Oh no, there we go. He started already.
I went to have a food in my hand and I felt a little bit of teeth on my hand.
Again, he's not biting me drawing blood or anything drastic.
He's just not being careful around his teeth with his teeth around my hands.
I'm going to offer my hands.
Yes. Good boy.
I felt licking that time.
I felt his teeth, but very gently.
Yes. Good boy.
So if I get a paw or if I get anything that I don't like,
I'm simply gonna say ah ah, or you could even use a word like ouch,
and you're going to take the food away. If he's polite.
I'm gonna let him have it. So I'm going to offer it to them.
Yes. Good boy.
And that was when I'm holding the food, I'm going to show you guys quickly here.
I have the food in my hand and I'm covering it with my thumb.
We can't get at it. And what I'm going to allow the habit.
I simply just lift my thumb and let them have the food.
And rather than holding the trees between my fingers like this,
which is something I would work towards, that's actually really good puppy.
Good boy. This is actually more so you being so gentle with boy. Yes.
This is actually a way harder way to feed your puppy initially by holding the
treat like this, because the puppy can get around your hands a lot more easily.
Now he's doing great.
Obviously his mother has been practicing this a little bit,
but this is how I would suggest that you start. So again,
I'm going to cover my hand. Okay?
Yes. Good boy.
I'm going to be really nitpicky with him here. He's not biting me.
He's just being a little bit rammy and rough.
And I want him to be a little calmer. You wait your turn. You're like, man.
Yes. Good boy. Good boy.
Yes. That was a better one. Good. Man's good.
Oops.
Yes. That's better. Good. So what I'm.
Looking for here is that he approaches the situation a bit more calmly.
This is a great way to have your family members do as well.
You can have your kids do this too. You know,
I would practice with adults a little bit,
make sure you're probably kind of has an understanding of the game before you
let the kids practice. But this is a great way to teach you,
probably to be a little bit more gentle and aware of how to use their teeth when
they're taking something out of your hand. And again, it's not,
I don't wait to the puppies, like actually fighting me.
I'm just looking for intention.
I'm looking for the puppy to be a little calmer and I'm more respectful around
me. Why don't we have the food in the hand present.
Now there's a lot of mistakes that people make when it comes to puppy biting.
So if you want to check out a video that talks specifically about those things,
make sure you check out that video right there. Now,
if you want to go pro a puppy, who's biting your hands to a puppy.
That's sleeping in your hands.
Make sure you check out the link in the description below to our Puppy
Essentials online training program, where you can work with one of our trainers.
On that note. I'm Kayl. This is Smooch happy training.