Do dogs continue to nip and bite throughout their whole life, if they are not corrected for it as a puppy? Or does it naturally start to disappear around 6 months of age (I read that in an article). Now if its sopposed to naturally disappear around 6 months old age and it continues onto 8-9 months, does that mean the dog is the product of bad breeding?

Or is it normal for a dog that hasn't been taught not to bite at 8-9 months to be biting?

I'm refering to puppy biting of hands, feet, fingers, anything close to their mouth.

Now the next part of the question...

If you redirect the puppy's behavior to biting on toys and do not correct him. I guess redirecting would be a form of correction.. But anyways, so if you use the redirection method INSTEAD of Scruff Shake, Prong, Choke, or whatever methods there are. Would redirecting eventually eliminate the behavior as time goes on, since it naturally disappears? or does it not naturally disappear? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks

- Robert Richardson

Robert,

It sounds like your dog is playing with you. Not the teething behavior that stops a little after 6 mo. If you don’t teach your dog that you don’t want him to do it, what’s going to stop him?

There are two types of corrections that you can administer, but it seems that you don’t want to use negative punishment. That’s ok, but please understand that all dogs react differently just like people. Some follow directions and some have to learn the hard way. In most cases they want to do what is right, it’s just the miscommunication that prevents the dog from succeeding.

Positive reinforcement involves rewarding the dog for doing behaviors you want. This method may work depending on your patience and consistency. Results usually take a long time to shape depending on how good of a trainer you are. This also involves redirection as you mentioned. If your dog does well with redirection your dog will learn that playing with you involves a toy and not your fingers. So simply put your dog will learn to bring a toy and when he wants to play. But redirection will not necessarily stop the mouthing behavior if he misunderstands. He may learn that biting your hands and feet will result in “YOU WILL FETCH THE TOY FOR HIM.”

A negative correction will tell the dog CLEARLY that this mouthing behavior is undesirable to you and there are consequences for those actions. There are different levels of correction.

1-Ignore the dog when biting behavior starts. Some try to pass this off as positive training, but is actually a negative reinforcement because you take away what the dog desires “YOU.” It’s like a time out. The important thing is that your consistent, you must react the same every single time. Some dogs you can simply look away and by disengaging the dog will stop, and then you can continue to play. Where some dogs just don’t get the picture and then you have to separate your self by closing a bedroom door behind you until the dog calms down and can take a few minutes.

2-Bitter apple saturated in cotton balls have worked quite well for me. Just making the dog to relate that biting you will result with a cotton ball in your mouth, forced shut for 25 seconds. For most they feel it’s too harsh, but if you don’t want to prong/scruff your dog a good alternative.

3-prong/scruffing is quiet effective. You clearly tell the dog that there are limitations, and he just crossed it. A simple correction sometimes goes a long way. Just make sure that the dog knows that they screwed up, and make up with them afterwards.

As for your question about will this behavior go away? Not necessarily. If a dog learns that the mouthing behavior works for him, why would he stop doing it?

The definition of insanity-Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Actually I am not having problems with my dog.

I am just doing a little research. I noticed when my dog turned around 5 months of age, the nipping and bitting has been tremendously reduced. I tried everything to "stop" the behavior and it seemed like nothing was working, so I just kept up with redirecting the behavior to toys and now the behavior is disappearing.

I was trying to figure out, if dogs naturally grow out of the niping and biting behavior without having to be corrected.

Has anybody else ever experienced the biting going away with age or does everybody start correcting the dog early on for this behavior?

Thanks

- Rob