Our Mastiff Puppy Won't Stop Biting the Leash & Us!

In this practical Ask Cindy Q&A session, Ed Frawley addresses a common but frustrating challenge with an 11-week-old Mastiff puppy who constantly bites the leash, grabs at handlers during collaring, and shows zero food motivation despite being underweight. The owner has tried standard redirection techniques with toys and treats, but the puppy drops toys immediately and returns to biting, making even basic handling like putting on a harness nearly impossible. Cindy provides targeted solutions including upgrading to extremely high-value food rewards like cheese, chicken, and steak in tiny pieces to break through the puppy's disinterest in training. She explains the critical difference between toys the puppy has constant access to versus special redirection toys that only appear during handling sessions, recommending soft stuffed toys with paracord attachments that can be yanked away to increase the puppy's commitment to holding them. Cindy emphasizes that this biting phase is temporary and will fade after teething if properly managed, directing the owner back to Michael Ellis's puppy material for detailed redirection techniques.

This video is essential for anyone struggling with mouthy puppies, food motivation issues, or basic handling challenges during the critical early weeks. Perfect for large breed puppy owners, handlers dealing with non-food-motivated dogs, and anyone learning proper redirection techniques.

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When people have specific training questions we recommend that they go to our website and post those questions in the ASK CINDY on the front page of leerburg.com. Cindy has been training dogs since she was a teenager and has competed in several dog sports at a regional and national level. She was also a vet tech and owned a boarding/training and grooming business for many years as well as breeding working Dobermans and Belgian Malinois under the kennel name Kaiserhaus.

Questions posted to ASK CINDY are answered almost every day. They are also recorded in our systems if a dog owner has additional questions Cindy will review the previous Q&As and this helps her give better feedback and assistance.