12BPCVOD
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[TANGO MUSIC PLAYING]
What I've come to
realize is that most
of not getting bitten and
teaching your puppy not to bite
is a function of how you
interact with the puppy.
I get a lot of calls
from puppy owners
who are very concerned because
they feel the puppy's biting is
out of control.
So I ask them what's going on.
And they say, when we've
been playing with the puppy
for like an hour,
and you know, we've
really been rolled around
on the floor with the puppy,
and then the puppy
starts biting.
And my advice is if
rolling around on the floor
and playing crazy
games with the puppy
makes the puppy
crazy, don't do it.
You really do have to limit
the kinds of interactions
that you have with your puppy.
You can't play wild
games with your puppy
and then expect your
puppy not to bite you.
It's not fair.
That doesn't mean that you
can't play with your puppy.
You do have to play
with your puppy.
But the games have to be
structured interactions
where the puppy is learning to
play in a calm and gentle way.
So using a toy as
an intermediary,
so the puppy actually
isn't biting your hands,
is very helpful.
I would never play with a
puppy with my hands this way.
You're asking to be bitten.
You're inviting it.
You're inviting
the puppy to play
in the only way that
puppy really knows how,
which is to bite.
Calmness is a behavior.
And it can be trained
like any other behavior.
The more calm interactions
you have with your puppy,
the more your puppy is
going to be calm with you
and the less your puppy's
going to bite you.
There's really no reason why you
have to get bitten by a puppy,
because you have opposable
thumbs and a big brain.
So if they start
biting you, just
pick them up and point the
biting part away from you.
Puppies are biting machines.
And they'll grab anything
in their line of fire.
If you present your
hand to your puppy,
it's going to get bitten.
Fortunately, it's easy
to keep your hands safe,
by holding the puppy and moving
your hands out of the way.
Keep re-gripping the puppy or
giving him calming massages,
and eventually he'll give up.
It's not a question
of correcting
or preventing biting as much
as it is of avoiding it.
It never hurts to have
an assistant distract
the puppy with a toy.
Emotion is an extremely salient
cue for the puppy to bite.
So rule number one, if
you're walking or running
and the puppy bites
you, stop moving.
Nine times out of 10, that alone
will cut it off at the pass.
Whenever I walk with
puppies when they're young,
I have food, so that I can
reinforce the puppy walking
next to me and not biting me.
Praise and affection can
also be excellent reinforcers
for walking without biting.
You also will find that
most of your puppy's biting
probably occurs
in the last, say,
30 minutes before
you get sick of him
and put him away for a nap.
Maybe you should
monitor that situation
and put him away for a nap just
before that 30 minutes where
he loses his mind.
Puppies tend to get over-amped.
And when they get
over-amped, they bite.
Many people notice
that the puppy tends
not to bite the
adults in the house
but does bite the children.
And a lot of times
people will say, well,
the puppy's being dominant.
The puppy's being
dominant over the child.
And I'm here to tell
you I promise you
that the reason your puppy
is biting your children
is not because it's dominant.
The definition of dominant
is in control of resources.
So until your dog
grows thumbs and learns
to drive to the grocery
store and buy dog
food, the smallest human
member of your family--
the little child that can reach
up and get graham crackers out
of the closet--
is dominant over your dog.
Because that child has
control over the resources
in the household, and
your dog does not.
What's happening is the
child is interacting
with the puppy in
an excited way.
[CHILD SQUEALING]
And when the puppy
bites the child,
the child has a very
high-pitched, squealing,
jumping reaction,
which is extremely
reinforcing to that behavior.
The puppy loves that.
It's exciting.
And the puppy and the child
will get in a behavioral loop.
And the puppy will
bite the child more.
And then the child screams more.
And then the puppy bites more.
And it can be very hard
to break that cycle.
So as an adult, what
you need to do is,
at least for the
first few months
the puppy is home, carefully
monitor the interactions
between the children
and the puppy,
to make sure that there's
lots of calm interaction,
so the puppy learns to be
calm around those children.
Some of the standard
interventions
that are out there for biting--
I don't know, they might
work on another dog,
but they've always
backfired for me.
For instance yelping, to
me, just in my observation
incites the puppy to riot.
Rolling the gum over the
lip and hurting the puppy,
again, it's just going to
make the puppy a little crazy.
But that's not to say
that if a puppy is
stuck on you like a lamprey
that you're not just
going to do what you've got
to do to pull that puppy off.
I mean, you might even have
to stick your finger in,
you might have to roll
their lip over their teeth
because they can
bite pretty hard.
But it's not-- you understand
you're not training the puppy
to do anything.
You're just saving your leg
from being sawed off by a puppy.
Then what I'll do
is I'll just pick up
the puppy with the biting
part pointing forward
and carry the puppy off.
If the puppy's been
out for a long time,
probably puppy needs to
go in and take a nap.
Or if I feel like it, I
might put the puppy down
and try and train the puppy
now with some food and a marker
not to bite me as I walk along
or do whatever we were doing.
You really have to
make a judgment call on
whether you're going to manage
or train in that situation.
I know it can seem like
a lot of management.
And you are going to have
to manage interactions
between the puppy and children
or the puppy and non-savvy dog
people that come over.
And you may even have to put
the puppy away in situations
where you can't manage it.
And it also is going
to mean that you maybe
can't play the kinds of
games that you might find fun
with the puppy.
I mean fun until you
start getting bitten.
The good news is that if you can
just manage these interactions
for a month or two,
the puppy is going
to grow out of the biting.
If you invest this
management time,
it's going to pay off
for the rest of your life
with your puppy.