I stupidly thought the teathig was nearing an end when all of a sudden when my 6 month old lab gets hyper he started biting... and it is hard! His jaw is much stronger and it appears he has lost all of his baby teeth. What should I be doing to tell him this is not ok?
Bella ( now 18 mnths old ) was exactly the same ,and to a certain extent still is . what I do is let out a really loud exaggerated "OWWWW" ( think more of a howl than an owch ) and over time it seems to have done the trick , as even though she still gets a bit bity as soon as I make that noise she stops biting and starts licking me ( lil 'creep that she is ! lol )
Stanleys 10 months and still bites if he gets over excited. I just take my hand away and say "no teeths" and he turns it to licking
This is a different kind of biting to the puppy play mouthing. It's more of an excited attention grabber type of thing in my experience. But the cure is very similar, stop all play, remove yourself and distract the dog with training.
Poppy 6 1/2 months is doing just the same at the moment, more so when she is excited and been playing with our other dog. I have gone back to stopping play, and if that does not stop her, time out. Feel like I have taken a step back but guess it is just another stage to get through!!!!
I guess growing up is 2 steps forward and 1 back! I too experienced this at 8/9 months mark with Cassie, it's pretty unpleasant. One day I decided I wasn't having it any more and at the first touch of teeth on my flesh I said a firm "no biting" and immediately separated her. It worked almost instantly but still have to be on guard when excitement levels are high.
One of the things I remember from observing behaviour assessments with my mentor and discussions on this type of behaviour with knowledgeable, experienced behavourist/trainers is that once a dog has a full set of his/her adult teeth any connection of those teeth with humans is unacceptable. At the very best a dog hasn't fully learnt bite inhibition or is showing poor manners. Those teeth are a dog's weapons and can inflict serious damage. A common reason as mentioned is a dog becoming overexcited, so learn the signals of your dog becoming over excited and stop all play before it reaches that point. If you dog does grab you disconnect with him/her as you did when they were young puppies. if you are sitting, stand up and turn you head away from the dog. Walk out of the room and leave the dog for a minute or two. Then quietly ether sit down or return to the room and carry on. As we know dogs soon learn what does and doesn't work. @poppyholly You are doing everything right so hopefully the behaviour will soon stop. You haven't taken a step back it's not really a stage to get through, just some poor manners which Poppy will soon put right as she learns that her actions have consequences
Ripple still does this when he gets over excited, there has been a great improvement over the last few months but there are still one or two situations that start him off. I can see when it's going to happpen but have found it hard to get over these, particularly in the kitchen when he grabs my trouser leg and I can't remove myself easily without getting my clothes torn. At 21 months I really thought we'd be over this stage by now .
Kibs also is mouthy when he gets over excited, I trained the command lick and I just move his mouthing into a quick retraining session. but now ive typed that i'm wondering if i'm actually reinforcing his biting by retraining a lick....
