For new pet owners, a biting puppy may seem like a cause for alarm. Biting is usually seen as a sign of aggression in most canines, and if you have no prior experience raising puppies, this may seem like the case with yours as well. However, let us reassure you that puppy biting is completely normal and only causes concern in certain situations.
Puppies frequently use their mouths to express themselves and explore their surroundings. Meaning, because biting is such a basic form of expression for them, there could be many reasons why they do it.
Puppies have tremendous control over the strength of their bites and will usually avoid hurting you. However, some pet owners may want to reduce or eliminate this behavior before their nipping puppy develops into a biting adult dog.
Without proper training this behavior can persist into the adult years, and it some instances can become dangerous especially around children!
Properly training your puppy to bite less is a time-consuming process that requires extensive intervention and behavior modification. Incorrectly training your puppy can lead to, at best, no change in the biting or, at worst, more painful bites.
Fortunately, this article will teach you everything you need to know to understand why your 4-month-old puppy is biting you and how to stop it!
As mentioned above, puppies can bite for a variety of reasons. It’s a relatively routine process that puppies go through as they mature and begin interacting more with the outside world. However, there are times when biting is a sign of something more serious, and knowing when your puppy is biting out of distress will allow you to respond appropriately.
Teething
Teething is a months-long process that begins at two weeks when a puppy’s baby teeth appear and end when they have their last adult tooth.
Like a human child, a puppy’s teeth begin to fall out at around 3 to 4 months old to make room for their adult teeth. However, unlike in humans, the development and growth of adult teeth are often uncomfortable for the puppy, resulting in sore or even bleeding gums. Puppies relieve their discomfort by biting or nipping on you or other objects.
Teething is a perfectly normal part of a puppy’s development, and there’s no need to worry when they start to exhibit this behavior.
Playing
Another reason your puppy might bite you is to relieve boredom. Puppies bite and nip when they play, and they get excited when someone responds. While a puppy’s mother teaches him or her how to control their bites from a young age, the more eager they become, the less control they have.
Noisy and physical play, like gentle pushing or wrestling, can both excite a puppy and cause it to bite harder and more frequently. While adults may be less affected, young children, who are more likely to roughhouse with the puppy, will receive most of its bites.
Pet owners are frequently concerned about this type of nipping. When puppies are excited, they often growl and bite fiercely, sometimes drawing blood. Inexperienced pet owners will often confuse their rough play for aggression, but it’s impossible to determine a puppy’s aggression level based solely on their bite and the sounds they make.
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Fear
When a puppy is afraid or poorly socialized, it will bite. When a dog is scared, its instinct is to either leave the area or use its teeth in self-defense. As a result, they will bite much harder than when teething or playing, with the potential to cause real damage.
While it can be difficult to tell when a puppy is biting aggressively, there are several distinct signs of fear. For one thing, biting will not be their first instinct; they will resort to avoidance behaviors to put distance between themselves and you.
Mitigating a fear response requires a much more complex and time-consuming training process. However, the best way to avoid being bitten is to let your puppy have some space until they feel safe around you.
What Does Older Puppy Biting Mean?
While virtually all puppies bite, when and how they stop biting depends on a few factors. For instance, different breeds of dogs will develop at different rates; larger dogs will mature slower than smaller ones. Slower maturation doesn’t imply more biting.
Considering these differences, a puppy may stop biting when it’s around 6-months-old without your direct intervention. However, they may continue to play-bite well into their adulthood. Typically, puppies who receive a lot of attention will bite when they play.
Remember that puppies enjoy roughhousing and making loud noises; if you yelp or gently push them when they bite you, it reinforces that behavior. An older puppy or adult dog who continues to bite is most likely doing so to gain your attention.
Studies have shown that a puppy’s breed can influence how playful a puppy is during the first eight weeks of its development. Research the behavior patterns of your specific dog’s breed to find out more about their particular development.
Knowing your puppy’s innate characteristics and aggression levels will help you understand them better when they get older.
How to Stop The Behavior
While 4-month-old puppy biting is normal, you may have young children in the home who you’re concerned will get a severe bite while playing with it. Fortunately, you can use various effective training techniques to control your puppies’ biting or eliminate it if they’re older.
The first step is to introduce your puppy to safe chew toys and encourage them to bite the toys with treats and praise. Remember that biting is healthy for teething puppies because it relieves gum discomfort.
Next, since puppies bite harder when they’re overstimulated, it’s essential to give them time to calm down. Play with them as usual, but walk away or refuse to interact with them if they bite your hand. You don’t have to ignore them for long, but you must do so consistently so that your puppy associates a lack of playtime with biting.
Additionally, if the puppy becomes overly excited, you should physically remove the puppy from the situation. Putting your puppy behind a dog gate or similar barrier for a few minutes until they calm down will help establish a link between “time out” and biting, which reduces the behavior.
Training a puppy not to bite is a time-consuming, labor-intensive process with several potential pitfalls along the way. Contact us at Off the Leash Dog Training If you want to guarantee a significant reduction in harmful behaviors.
Our dog trainers are dog psychology experts who know the best training techniques to ensure your puppy learns desired behaviors while remaining true to their instincts.
If you are looking for the convenience of an online dog training program, we recommend Doggy Dan’s Online Dog Training course. Dan delves in dog psychology and uses videos to present each technique so you can learn along at home.
Brain Training For Dogs – Eliminate Your Dogs Bad Behavior!
- Learn how to reveal the hidden intelligence inside your dog
- Force-free gentle methods that are proven to work
- Course created by a CPDT-KA certified trainer
If you follow our link and make a purchase, we earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
