We just picked up Bella

[Stacie]

She is sirry cute... So full of energy. The one thing I can say I dont like right now is she is extreamly mouthy. I have never experienced this before. My hands are actually bleeding in a couple spots. Any suggestions on how to handle this? I am attaching a pics she gave me they took 2 days ago.

[Denise & Hunter!!!]

OOhhhh She is sooooooo adorable!  What a beautiful doodle! She reminds me of my Hunter when she was a baby :-) She was very mouthy to, I would just give her an alternate to my body parts to chew on.  One she really liked was a frozen Kong, I would put a little peanut butter and plain nonfat yogurt in it and freeze it.  GOOD LUCK! Can't wait to see more photos and hear more of her antics :-)  You will love this group too :-)

[Adina P]

She's simply adorable!  (Remember to click the second button above where you type your text--then you can get the photo DIRECTLY INTO your post and visible rather than as an attachment).

[Camilla and Darwin]

Wow, she is so cute! Lots of great advice already posted, so I will just say hang in there!

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

Good news is that around 5-6 months the puppy teeth will fall out and the mouthy won't be as bad!  You can work with her on "no bite" as well.  Those puppy teeth can be brutal .... Keep chew toys handy to stick in her mouth.

[Sally, Ditzy Mitzi & Sgt. Pepper]

I used to actually spray Bitter Apple on my hands and everything else Mitzi put her mouth on when she was younger.  It

may be sticky for a minute or two but it helped.   Congratulations on Bella's homecoming! 

[Deanna & Desi & Cori]

Sedona was a very mouthy puppy.  We asked our "Puppy 1" trainer for suggestions on how to eliminate the mouthiness and she actually encouraged us not to.  Rather, her feeling was that it was better to help puppies "calibrate" the pressure of the bite so that as adults they'd be less apt to bite too hard and really do some damage.  Each time Sedona mouthed too hard, we yelped like a mother dog or litter mate might and stopped playing with her.  If her mouthing was "appropriate" the play continued.  She learned very quickly.  We also made sure she had plenty of nonhuman things to chew on. Eventually, as she grew, the frequency of her mouthing decreased - but when she does "nip" it's very gentle.

[Leslie J]

Deanna is right- when puppies get "mouthy" it is part of the process of learning bite inhibition.  Here's an article about the issue:

 

http://www.paw-rescue.org/PAW/PETTIPS/DogTip_BiteInhibition.php

 

BTW, Bella is absolutely adorable!

[Lynda Kamrath]

Our 7-mo-old ALD is also very mouthy, but he is actually being friendly and doesn't really bite.  My instructor at the obedience class, however, says that I need to get in control of his mouthiness. He did nip frequently when he had his puppy teeth and something that worked for us is to put our thumb in his mouth and hold down on his lower jaw for about 5 seconds.  We didn't say anything, just put our hand in his mouth.  That kind of stops the mouthiness.

Bella is very cute.  I expected her to be older.

[Lorraine Bromley]

Have fun and buy some bandaids Neely always loved to chew the bandaids off instead of our hands, then you play chase the dog with the bandaid stuck on its chin before he eats it game!

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

We nicknamed Luna "land shark" until she got her adult teeth ;)

 

She has now (at 6 months) transitioned from being a land shark to a lick-a-holic.  Just be consistent with bite inhibition training and when she's done teething she will stop being crazy mouthy ;)

 

What worked really well with Luna was every time she would bite we would say "ouch" and immediately stop playing and leave the room (for about 20 seconds), and she genuinely seemed "sorry" and would play nice for a while.

 

You may want to have a set of special shirts you wear when you're playing with her, ones that you don't mind having puppy teeth sized holes in...

[Sue, Murphy and Bella ()*o*()]

Stacie, she is just so cute. Being as I have a Bella too, I am very partial to all Bella's now. Enjoy. The nipping gets better especially after all the puppy teeth have fallen out, around 4-5 months old. Good luck