Ok so I have a 9 week old lab bitch ... she has now decided to start pinching everything in site and chewing it ... now labs should be soft with the mouth (gundog) ... and I worried and need to nip it in the bud now ... what shall I do ?
puppy started chewing She is starting to chew everything in site playing like running off with shoes ... how can I stop as I'm worried about not being soft mouth she is 9 weeks old
Re: chewing It is normal, but yes, you need to start training bite inhibition. Lots of good info from Pippa here to get you started - http://www.thelabradorsite.com/your-labrador-puppy-biting/
Re: puppy started chewing Hi there, you can't stop your puppy chewing, unfortunately, they all do it. But what you can do is protect the things you don't want her to chew, and give her some great things of her own to chew. Puppy kongs filled with food and frozen, are great for keeping puppies busy and out of mischief. Here's an article on chewing Coping with chewing which I hope will help. Plus there is a good thread on Kongs somewhere, I'll find it. Here we go the Kong thread
Re: puppy started chewing Tonishaw, I've merged your two topics so you just get replies in the one place
Re: puppy started chewing I'd give whoever invented Kong's a medal they are brilliant mine has about a third of daily kibble in his with chicken stock drizzled in then plugged with cheese or pate and frozen he loves them and so far hasn't chewed anything he shouldn't (except the toggle on my house cardi) keeping them busy seems to be the key. I'm ordering a wobble Kong as these look great for when there needing to keep brain and mouth occupied. Good luck.
Re: puppy started chewing My puppy would take training treats with a chomp -- had to be quick to get my fingers out of the way. I was told this was bad, that he was supposed to have a soft mouth being a Labrador. I was mortified. But he's 2.5 years old now and has the softest mouth ever, likes to gently hold my arm when we're playing. I didn't train him in any particular way to bite softly, probably just common sense things like squealing if he hurt me, which came naturally (I'm assuming all the tips and techniques are all written down clearly on this website). I realise now, in hindsight, that he was just a normal puppy that was discovering his world with his mouth -- as do human babies, except they don't have sharp needles in their mouths. I did lose four pairs of Havianas!!!! He trained me to be very neat -- my husband was happy with this. I also found that feeding raw meaty bones was an excellent way for him to work his jaw to exhaustion. But having said that, his jaw became strong very quickly, and what took him 45 minutes to chew became a 15-minute exercise. We lost a skirting board along the way and I had to repair my mom's antique table leg, but now we can leave anything lying around and he doesn't touch anything other than his own toys and chew things (hooves, etc). But of course I'm using my "random" sample of ONE dog to offer advice!! I am sure there are far more experienced people on this forum with excellent advice. One thing that did work for us, though, was never to make him feel he had to give up something permanently. What I mean is: if he pinched something he shouldn't have, to make sure he didn't run away with it or clamp down harder on it, we'd just say: Show me what's in your mouth. Then he'd spit it out and show us and we'd become very excited with his showing us this thing. He was allowed to pick it up again. If it was something we thought might cause harm or he could damage (like shoes!), we'd ask him again to show us, and then take it away and give him something nicer to chew. To this day, I can ask him to give me the chicken foot or meaty bone in his mouth, and he will -- I suppose he lives in the land of plenty and knows there's always another chicken foot waiting for him!
