BITING AND MOUTHING

[Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles]

Biting and mouthing can lead to some serious consequences. 

What are some ways to stop this?

What works? What does not?

[Julie B.]

I am becoming a bit concerned about all of the postings concerning out of control puppies and biting... I am wondering whether I have just been lucky so far with my pups or if my early bite inhibition training really worked. When my pups are little I play a lot with them and their toys. If they try to bite me or my hands I immediately substitute a toy and praise them profusely. This goes on for months but I have never had pup older than 3 months that bites me. I also do not play any games with my hands and I teach this to anyone who comes over to play with my puppy. I always tell them hands are for loving, not for playing. I am getting a new pup in less than 2 weeks and I have my fingers crossed that my training will do the job and I don't get a difficult dog. I know their are varying degrees of personalities in puppies but I hate to hear about the behavior problems that go on for months. That would be really frustrating.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

The percentage of first-time dog owners among doodle owners is much higher than it is for most other "breeds". (The reasons are best left to another discussion.) Many of these people have no experience with raising puppies, I think that's why we hear about so many problems with puppy behaviors.

[Julie B.]

Interesting analysis Karen. I would love to do an unscientific survey regarding "bad puppy behavior". Some of the questions I would ask:

Male or Female?
How many dogs have you owned?
Other dogs in household?
Age when pup was brought home?
Relative size to other litter mates?
Age when obedience training was started?
Breeder? (I know this would be controversial but it may be a breeding issue that should be addressed...)
Time home with pup?
Amount of exercise each day?
Color and coat type of your doodle? (Not sure if this matters but it would be interesting to see the results... ) I know you don't think that poodle type coats have more poodle tendancies but unscientifically I do. If a doodle exhibits more genetics of a poodle in their coat why wouldn't they also exhibit more poodle tendancies in their behavior?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I definitely think the "breeder" or source of the puppy makes a huge difference. The very best breeders socialize the puppies before they even come to you. And how the puppies are housed plays a huge role...are they with their mothers & littermates in an indoor environment? Are they in outdoor kennels? Have they been in cages since birth (pet stores, puppy mills). Those things make such a big difference in a puppy's "education" of apprpropriate behavior.
To answer your other question, each genetic quality is separate from every other one. A dog doesn't "exhibit more genetics of a poodle in their coat"...they simply got the particular combination of dominant & recessive genes for the coat that resulted in a poodle coat. For every single genetic characteristic, there is one gene contributed by the mother, and one by the father. In each pair of genes, one will be more dominant over the other. When it comes to coats, there are several pairs of genes involved: one for curl, one for length, one for thickness. (Color involves a separate set of genes, and is more easily predicted.) Some of these features are dominant over others, so the overall combination of genes will determine the final appearance of the coat. This is not a matter of opinion, it's basically a math problem. And one set of genes has nothing at all to do with any other set. Genes don't get inherited as a group, they are random. Curly hair is dominant over straight; large bones are dominant over small, etc. In every pair of genes, one has dominance over the other, but you can contribute either one to your offspring. That's why two brown eyed people can have a blue-eyed child, but two blue eyed people cannot have a brown eyed child. If you have blue eyes, you have two genes for blue eyes, because blue is recessive. In order for your eyes to appear blue, both of your genes have to be blue. You cannot contribute any thing other than blue to your child. So two people with blue eyes cannot have anything but a blue eyed child. If you got one blue gene from your mom and one brown gene from your dad, your eyes would appear brown...because brown is dominant over blue. But you still have that gene for blue which you could pass on to your child. If your husband also contributed a recessive gene for blue eyes, your child would have two genes for blue and his eyes would be blue...from two brown eyed parents. Genetics are very complicated and difficult to understand, impossible to explain in casual conversation. But essentially, any living creature can conceivably exhibit all of his father's characteristics, all of his mother's characteristics, or any combination in between. It's simply a spin of the genetic wheel.
Color genetics do actually have some influence on behavior/intelligence/ personality...but that's because the gene pool for certain colors is much larger than others.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

From day one, I would let out a big cry if Peri mouthed me. It startled her so much, she figured out that mouthing = hurting mom. Every once in a while she tries to mouth, not bite, and it is when she is excited. I still do the crying thing and say no. Even though it doesn't hurt me one bit, I don't want her thinking she can do this to a baby/child one day. She stops immediately and moves onto a toy or pillow (not the most desirable, but better the pillow than me).

[Amy & Bernie]

I yelp too and it works! My husband likes to wrestle with him, and he lets him, but I always yelped, quickly followed by "gentle!" when he mouthed me, from day one in our home, and he doesn't even try that kind of behavior with me anymore. Because he knows what 'gentle' means we ask our guests to say that if he mouths them - I think we lucked out though, he associates females with gentle, and guys with wrestling more often than not. It's not perfect, and we don't have any kid issues, but for 5 months old we're grateful for any positive consistency!

[Robin, dalai, and Parker]

Dalai was very mouthy as a pup. What seemed to work best was to put butter on the back of my hand and say "kisses", which taught her to lick instead of nip. I know some people don't like being licked by a dog, but I don't have a problem with Dalai. She is very stingy with her kisses!

[Beverly & Teddy]

I may have to try this with Teddy because he is still very mouthy as he approaches 6months. I have other dogs mostly labs and do not remember this mouthing and biting being such as issue before. I have tried the yelp and I have tried the stern "no" and I have held him down (made him madder) and even tried time outs and ignoring it (got many surprised bites that way) also tried going into basic commands. All methods worked temporarily but he always tries it again. Now it is less often but he still bites at me mostly when he is wanting to me to play with him and I try getting one of his toys but he will still bite me if I look away or stop playing with him for a moment. Keep the suggestions coming cause I am willing to try most anything.
Does it eventually go away once they are older? Again I don't remember this being an issue with other puppies I have had... at least not as much as Teddy!

[Elise & Remy]

this sounds exactly like the issues we have with Remy (and what we have tried to do to fix it!).  I tried yelping when he was a small puppy, holding his mouth shut for a while and (lightly) swatting his nose when he was a little bigger, and at times now I simply have to hold his mouth shut tightly and hold him down on the floor and then put him in time out.  It hasn't really gotten us anywhere.  I am really concerned because for the most part he is a very calm, sweet, loving, dog, and I want everyone to see that side of him, not the mouthing side!  He has not broken my skin when he bites/mouths, but I do get bruises from his strong grip!  He is 70 lbs now and I want this resolved so that I am comfortable with him being around our friends, family, as well as strangers that we come across on our walks. I don't know if he will grow out of it or not, but I don't really want to wait for that to happen and then just have it be that much harder to fix when he is older.  

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

This is a very old discussion.  You may want to put this question in the Training Group or even Puppy Madness for feedback if this discussion didn't give you the input you need.

[Veronica Z.]

My doodle is four months old today and we definitely have basically the same situation as yours. She will only stop temporarily and for us, when we yelp, it seems to make her more excited. What I have noticed is that I can nip it in the bud if she hasn't reached a very high level excitement yet. I can simply put two fingers up and say "ep, ep, ep, ep, ep," and she will stop and just kind of look at me. Then I give her a treat and/or effusive praise. It is definitely most difficult to control in the evening when she goes into full crazy puppy mode and she is so excited and crazy that she doesn't really respond to anything, although playing fetch seems to really distract her and burn energy. I had a dog for 15 years before her (not a doodle), we also got him at 8 weeks, and we never had this problem. At least for us, that definitely accounts for our lack of experience with this particular problem. For the most part, however, I think we've made a lot of progress and today she gets her last puppy vaccinations and we'll be able to really walk her and take her to the park because I think the lack of exercise also contributes to it.

[a.k.a. Rodney]

Amen! I am in the same boat..two more weeks of no walking b/c of waiting for the 3 rd shot. It's very hard to keep them tired and burn off the energy. Thankfully my grandchildren here this week they are doing a good job of that, but they leave Sunday..2 more weeks of no walking. she does respond to any distracting noise to tell no biting allowed...however, my young grands aren't really capable of puppy training...so we have a lot of crying from the kiddies & high pitched noises from adults...this will get better I am sure once I am able to reclaim my house & puppy plan once they leave:) also I have friends who like to visit a pup and don't want to be " mean" by reprimanding the baby...it's a lonely job being the "bad cop" but I have the long term in mind..so I'm the bad cop, but good mom...if you catch my drift