Hi everyone. I’ve never joined a forum before and don’t really know how it works, but here goes! I came upon this site while looking up information about puppy biting. We have a 9 week old yellow lab who is biting (really biting - drawing blood) nearly constantly when she’s awake. I’ve watched countless videos and am working on my bite inhibiting training technique, but so far having her join our family has really been challenging. My children (ages 12, 17,21) are steering clear of her at this point because it’s painful (literally and figuratively) for them when she bites them, and in the meantime I’m trying to figure out how to “step away” from her when she bites given that when I need to step away she’s usually attached to my leg with her teeth dug in at that point. “Yelping” only makes her dig in harder... I am covered in bandaids and Neosporin. I would love and deeply appreciate any guidance that any of you might offer. Many thanks for reading this!!
Hi and welcome from me and my 15 month choc lab Isla. It's very challenging in the very early days with the biting and chewing. Our girl was terrible at both! We calmly (if possible. While being painfully bitten!) and consistently placed her away from us whenever she bit down on us,which was pretty much all off the time. We had baby gates on most doorways and placed Isla over the gate ending all play or attention. Eventually this worked and if Isla started to bite and we stood up as if to put her over the gate she would stop straight away. Hang on in there,it will pass soon even if it doesn't feel like it
Hello! My pup is now 7 months and we had a similar experience with the puppy biting. It was surprising how continuous it was and like you my kids avoided her. It did subside slowly over a couple of months. We found that yelping at her made her bite harder too and bark at us. We mostly redirected by making sure she had something in her mouth to bite or if that failed we removed ourselves. As she got older she'd have time outs in the crate. I eventually noticed she was sometimes over tired and biting more as a result. The biting and nipping didn't stop overnight but over time it did reduce and stop.
Thank you. We are working on doing exactly what you describe. It’s hard to imagine that it will work, but hearing about your experience is very helpful. Right now we are trying to focus on appreciating the small moments of success...
Hi Maisie, Welcome to the forum. You might find this article helpful too: https://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-stop-your-labrador-puppy-biting/ Let us know how you get along!
