I'm not sure whether that makes sense. I have an adult dog and now a pup who's at that lovely nipping and biting stage. I am curious to find out if any one here with more than one dog found it helped or hindered the bite inhibition process . I look forward to reading any replies.
Re: Is it easier to teach a puppy bite inhibition with an adult dog in the family? If you have the sort of adult dog who is tolerant of puppies but will still tell them off if they do something that's not appropriate - such as nipping too hard, you might find it easier. However you will still have to work at it yourself because you may find the puppy learns not to bite the adult dog hard, but that behaviour doesn't transfer into humans so the pup may still nip you and you will still need to teach bite inhibition.
Re: Is it easier to teach a puppy bite inhibition with an adult dog in the family? Also, dog fur is far tougher than human skin - so the pup needs to learn different strengths of bite! Gypsy (10 weeks) is doing really well and can now 'mouth' people without biting *most* of the time.
Re: Is it easier to teach a puppy bite inhibition with an adult dog in the family? Cassie , surprisingly , has been extremely tolerant of Cupar biting her. I have been encouraging the whole family to "allow" him to "bite" and hopefully teaching him what's a soft mouth. I don't have as many bruises or scratches than i did. So I do think there is a big improvement from a couple of weeks ago. The only time when he hurts now is when he's excited, so we have some timeout time. I had wondered about the adult dog in the house as some mornings I feel like a bad "mum" for allowing Cassie to entertain Cupar while I have my coffee.
Re: Is it easier to teach a puppy bite inhibition with an adult dog in the family? I definitely think so. I have always had older dogs and a pup and I have never really been bitten much. My current 9 year old Mally told Meg off quite firmly when she was about 9 ish weeks and she never really nibbled him or us since. If she does get near us its mouthing, she has never hurt us. I really believe older dogs teach pups a lot
