Cooper will be 6 months next week and the biting is not getting better. Its definetly out of play and not aggression but it's scary and hurts like heck. The thing is it can happen out of nowhere and you can't just remove your attention from him because he will just keep jumping up and biting what ever he can grab and you can't get away. We started training classes last night and the instructor say he's mouthy you better get a handle on that now... really?! I can't leave him alone with my 9 year old. Any suggestions.. or has anyone had a lab at this age still biting. I want to believe it will stop but from everything I've read it should have stopped by now.
Sparky is a little over 7 months now. 6 months is when most of his baby teeth fall off and the adult teeth come out. He is less nippier now. He will nip at me if he doesn't like what I am doing to him. He used to suddenly started going at me out of the blue, but I found out it was his way of telling me something like he needs to go potty/pee. There are times he would do this and I will do the turn around and stop play thing, and I find him peeing behind me. We have a crate in the living room and when he starts to lose control and doesn't want to get redirected he gets some timeout inside until he settles. He is alot better now.
This is probably controversial and perhaps totally flies in the face of conventional wisdom in regard to biting, but I don't teach mine not to bite, but to bite/mouth gently - bite inhibition. He's 17 weeks now and most of the time he mouths fairly gently - sometimes he gets overexcited and I have to put him behind a baby gate until he calms down, but my hands and arms are in much better shape than they were a month ago. My two previous Labs mouthed until the day they passed, but they were extremely gentle by adulthood - more holding my fingers/hand than actually biting either.
Hi, my first post in a while, biting was what brought me to the forum, my Cassie was a real crocopup, and like you @Diane0712 I felt she should have been through it by months from what I'd read, she wasn't!! I too looked like a self harmer. About that time I joined a training class using force free methods and it really re enforced the advice given here about removing interaction with them etc. And also a "tug" game which helped to teach that dog teeth and human skin contact is unacceptable. At 9 months it rarely happens -- mouthing is gentle now, unless she wants something - to go outside, or has lost a toy under the cooker or some such.
