Conventional advice regarding puppy mouthing, nipping, play biting, and jumping behaviors rarely has the promised impact. Learn why the pseudo-scientific, âredirect with a toy,â âignore bad behavior, reward good behavior,â etc., are bad ideas, and discover why conveying a clear âNo!â is important not only in successfully discouraging the behavior but also in positively impacting the training of life skills like “Stay,â “Come,â and “Heel” – No Matter What. All without bribing with toys or treats, or resulting to âmight is rightâ.
Rethinking Puppy Training: The Ineffectiveness of Popular Mouthing and Play Biting Techniques and the Power of Firm Boundaries
The Positive Trap
If youâve been scouring the Internet looking for solutions to your puppyâs relentless mouthing, nipping, play biting, and jumping and were advised that all you had to do was be âall-positiveâ and redirect your puppyâs attention to a chew toy or turn your back on your puppy, or ignore your puppy, or time-out your puppy, or pretend to be hurt by crying out (pretend?), you quickly discovered when it had little or no meaningful impact whatâs often the first in a long line of nonsense on the Internet when it comes to companion puppy and dog training advice.
For many, more often than not, the aforementioned misguided advice regarding puppy biting, mouthing, nipping, and jumping actually escalates the behavior. Worse still, what puppy owners following this sort of mistaken advice donât realize is that it lays the groundwork for not being taken seriously when youâre trying to teach your puppy actual life skills like âCome, Stay, and Heel – No Matter What.âÂ
Companion dog trainers that recommend the aforementioned nonsense regarding addressing puppy mouthing, nipping, play biting, and jumping up are adhering to a mistaken companion dog training ideology that is typically self-described by various marketing catchphrases such as ‘All Positive/Purely Positive/Force-Free/Never Say No/R+âŚâ, treat, treat, treat.Â
Science Based? Well, Sort Of
puppyAnother common misleading claim is when these âredirect with a toyâ trainers say theyâre âscience-based.â For many companion dog trainers, the world of behavioral science, at best, starts and stops with B.F. Skinnerâs operant conditioning. And all too often, ill-advised cherry-picked aspects of operant conditioning. the companion puppy and dog training world seems to be largely unaware that there are vast swaths of other areas of study (ethology, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, etc.) that have many useful things to say about, amongst other things, how higher-order social species life skills are learned and taught.
They typically fail to acknowledge how much their approach and results depend on a highly controlled environment. Think Orcas in an aquarium, rats in a laboratory maze, and dogs in an obedience ring versus out in the real-life environments their loving authority figures must cope with when teaching actual life skills. Consider the dogs you see in competitive obedience. They are, more often than not, trained in this manner. Impressive on the surface; however, once the dog and handler leave the âtheatreâ where the âplayâ called obedience was âperformed,â try removing the leash and treats. Not many would successfully be able to get their dogs to their cars.
Also worth mentioning keep in mind that this ‘All Positive/Purely Positive/Force-Free/Never Say No/R+âŚâ, treat, treat, treat approach may have proven effective in coaxing Orcas captive in an aquarium to do some impressive tricks; however, it has been spectacularly ineffective on convincing Orcas to not kill their trainers from time to time. A virtually unheard-of behavior when Orcas are in their natural environment and are near swimmers, divers, kayakers, etc.
Long story short, thereâs nothing the matter with your puppy. Thereâs nothing the matter with you. The problem is with the approach. Whatever they want to call it, âAll Positive/Purely Positive/Force-Free/Never Say No/R+âŚ,â this is an approach to behavior that not a single higher-order social species on the planet embraces to teach their youngsters life skills.
Consequences of Bad Adviceâ
Giving bad advice to companion puppy owners regarding a puppyâs mouthing, nipping, play biting, and jumping can have some pretty serious consequences.
Consequence 1
Dogs trained in the unnatural approach of ‘All Positive/Purely Positive/Force-Free/Never Say No/R+âŚâ, treat, treat, treat will still be profoundly loved and will love their owners, but they end up doing so poorly in life skill obedience (“Stay,â “Come,â and “Heel”) that they live a lifestyle a far cry from what their owners had imagined when they decided to live life with a dog. Instead of learning early in life that their owners arenât roommates but are loving authority figures, they end up thinking, âComeâ means, âIf you have a minute, check your daytimer.â âStayâ means, âDonât move until Iâm out of treats.â walking with their dog is starting to make one of their arms longer than the other. These âtrickâ versions of “Stay,â “Come,â and “Heel” impact the dogâs access to their ownerâs life, both at home and when a reliably obedient dog might otherwise accompany their owner. It is more of a âhouse arrestâ lifestyle than their actual potential if their owners hadnât been led astray by pseudo-science.
Consequence 2
Here is a word-for-word quote from someone with a normal 9-week-old Rottweiler puppy,Â
âShe is not responding to correction. (correction as in redirection, not actual correction) She rag-dolled my 5-year-old child on the shoulder. Sheâs constantly herding people. When you yelp to let her know her bites hurt, instead of releasing, she goes harder.  She picks up her food bowl and shakes it. My daughter is now scared of the dog.â
Outcome: The dog returned to the breeder.
This is a not uncommon outcome. Some dogs do end up returned to the breeder. However, some are surrendered to rescues.Â
Consequence 3
I was once given a case study to review by a dog trainer intended for submission to prove her worth in a dog training ‘All Positive/Purely Positive/Force-Free’ certification process. The dog in her case study was a Golden Retriever, initially around ten weeks of age, and the dog owner was a single woman.Â
Images showed the woman was covered in scabs from the puppy mouthing, nipping, and play biting and that her clothing paid a similar price. Overall, it is an experience shared by many puppy owners.
The trainer indicated that she had recommended that the woman do all of the ‘All Positive/Purely Positive/Force-Free’ strategies (redirect with a toy, time outs, crying out in pain, etc.) The trainer proudly indicated after only four weeks, the puppyâs mouthing, nipping, and play biting had (in her words) âextinguished.â
Question 1 For The Trainer
If the puppyâs mouthing, nipping, and play biting had been directed towards its mother, how long would it have taken to âextinguishâ the behavior? 30 days? Or, considering that any three or four-week-old puppy nursing vigorously with a mouthful of razor blades has the potential to lacerate its motherâs ânursing apparatusâ enough to put future nursing in jeopardy, would it take mom four weeks to convey, âItâs not that I donât love you, but right now, Iâm not asking you, Iâm telling youâ. Even outside of nursing, most mother dogs will put up with a lot, but when they’ve had enough, every pup in the litter knows. Have these trainers never seen a mother dog “inform” her pups that their nursing days are over?
Question 2 For The Trainer
If this dogâs owner had one or more young children, how many weeks into the four weeks of âtrainingâ would it have been before the average mother of young children was forced to return the pup to the breeder or surrender to a shelter?
Ironically, what the above trainer attributed to successfully âextinguishing after 30 daysâ wasnât really âevidenceâ that the approach worked. Experienced puppy trainers know that almost all puppies where it isnât correctly addressed outgrow the majority of mouthing, nipping, and play biting somewhere between 30 and 90 days. For them, the mission of who’s in charge has been accomplished. In the case of puppies âtrainedâ in this way, theyâve learned who is the teacher (them) and who is the student (their owners), and as a result, real-world current and future life-skill obedience becomes much harder for the companion dog owners to teach.
Evolutionary Biology Provides Hints
Mother dogs obviously canât sit down with their puppies to talk about their feelings or provide encouragement to “Use your words next time.” When a pup uses its teeth too roughly when engaging with its mother, this is the catalyst for the first lesson that all puppies learn from their mothers. That lesson is that mother dogs use tone and body language not only to indicate love but also to warn their puppies that theyâre not asking; theyâre telling, âNo!â Puppies that ignore the warnings are subjected to some level of physical discipline in keeping with the puppyâs development, further motivating the pup to at all times consider their motherâs tone and body language.
What Should You Do About Your Puppy's Mouthing, Nipping, Play Biting and Jumping?
Your goal is to convey to your puppy that âYouâre not bad, youâre puppy isnât bad but mouthing, nipping, play biting, or jumping is bad.â That means you respond to this unwanted behavior with a consequence conveying, âIâm not asking you; Iâm telling you.â I advise clients to apply the consequence three times in a row for each application. Donât confuse this with sending a âMight is rightâ message. That is another approach to dog training that should be avoided. âMight is rightâ can very easily convey to a puppy that you are indeed bad, lose confidence, and become submissive.
There are various ways to send an âIâm not asking you, Iâm telling youâ message to a puppy without undermining confidence or trust. I donât make specific recommendations without meeting the owner and puppy directly, or on occasions where that isnât possible, review some video examples of what the current situation is. The reason for this is which approach you choose depends on how long your puppy has been subjected to the redirection, etc. nonsense, its age, its personality, and your handling ability. etc.Â
I also like to make sure that the pupâs unwanted behavior isnât being exacerbated by insufficient mental and physical stimulation, too infrequent feedings (or nutritiously inferior food), all of which can be influenced both by the puppyâs current age and breed genetics.
Scaremongering And Ignoring Real-Life
There are those that embrace the ‘All Positive/Purely Positive/Force-Free/Never Say No/R+âŚâ, treat, treat, treat ideology that alleges that force and abuse are indistinguishable. Iâve often wondered how many trainers who say they are force-free have raised a child. I donât know about them, but I think most mothers and fathers would agree that of the years between birth and adulthood, the first third is the most physically exhausting. Try changing a cranky babyâs diaper, or cram them into a snow-suit, or a car seat. Thatâs an example of a useful application of force.
As the childâs cognitive ability matures, we begin removing consequences for certain behaviors. Where would we be without that particular tool in our toolbags? If applying a consequence, and that consequence is the removal of a valued privilege, like access to video games or a smartphone, try and convince that youngster youâre not applying force. It may be psychological, rather than physical, but to them, at least based on the drama that follows, there is apparently little difference. Mother dogs, canât sit down with their pups and talk about their feelings, so when the tone and body language donât work, the pup may find itself pinned down by a motherâs paw, or nipped, etc.
All higher-order social species have loving authority figures in their lives, teaching them in an age-appropriate manner life skills that, upon occasion, require sending a message of âIâm not asking, Iâm telling you,â and, failing that, a meaningful consequence. Regardless of the species, dogs, wolves, apes, or human beings, if we didnât have people in our lives who cared about how we turned out, at least in the human realm, most of us would be dead or in jail. In the animal kingdom, most would simply be dead.Â
Discipline is just a tool. It is a tool that, when wielded wisely, mitigates the much more painful lessons that life will otherwise provide.Â
There is nothing to fear from the tools themselves. The problems arise when there is a fool at the end of the tool.
Long story short, pick your puppy trainer wisely. It’s an unregulated industry.
Finding a Trainer To Help With Your Puppy
I wrote an article on how to separate the wheat from the chaff when youâre ready to look for a companion puppy or dog trainer. Questions You Should Ask Before Hiring A Dog Trainer (Especially If Theyâve Given Themselves A Fancy Title – by John Wade)
I also created an eBook, âWhat Are The Different (and best) Puppy and Dog Training Methodsâ, Keep in mind, it’s not a DIY guide on how to train a puppy or dog. It’s an overview of the different approaches you will encounter in a search for a puppy or dog trainer and how to separate the science from the pseudo-science. Similar to the article above but in greater detail.
If you’re in the London, Ontario region, click on the button below to review my extremely thorough Puppy Right Paw Forward Life Skills Program.
– John âAsk The Dog Guyâ Wade
3 thoughts on “Puppy Mouthing Nipping and Biting”
Hello John. I’d like to know how much you charge to come to our home for puppy training please.
Hi Paula,
I’ve sent to the email you provided a detailed overview of what offer. For others, regardless of geographic location that are struggling with the puppy stage, particularly mouthing, nipping and biting I have a very effective ‘V-Session‘ I won’t be able to make things magically easy but I can help by making it easier to get where you need to go.
Regards,
John ‘Ask The Dog Guy’ Wade
Embracing Science and Common Sense
http://www.askthedogguy.com
>>——->;â
I PRESSED ON
Hi John!
First of all, I must say I found your Youtube video by accident but I’m SO glad I found you. We’ve had our Rottweiler puppy for about 4 weeks, she is almost 12 weeks old. We’ve tried EVERYTHING the “All positive” trainers told us to do but she gets aggressive, bites even harder and really does act like she’s the teacher.
Thanks a TON. For the first time in weeks I feel like I’m on the right track.
Kind regards,
Mickayla Sijtsma from The Netherlands