Your puppy will want to explore the world using their nose and their mouth. Puppies will also go through a teething process just as a baby would, which is wen they lose their baby teeth and grow their adult teeth. This involves biting and chewing on everything, which can be destruction and painful! While this is normal for a puppy to do, it is definitely something you will want to stop early.
While a puppy is growing and losing their baby teeth, they will want to chew on things. This can be furniture, clothing, or even you. It is completely normal to have a puppy that bites and chews on things, but you don’t want them to hurt someone or destroy anything. There are several things you can do to help the puppy through this process and make sure they are not biting you or chewing on your furniture as well.
Noise Training
You will want to train your puppy to know that biting and chewing is not ok to do on you or the furniture. When your puppy starts biting on you, make sure to say no in a stern voice and also to make a noise to alert the puppy that it is hurting you. If you have ever watched dogs play together, when one dog bites the other dog too hard that dog will make a high pitched yelping noise. This lets the dog know that they have bit too hard and the dog will back off.
You will want to do this same thing with your puppy. When the puppy bites you, make a high pitched yelp or “ow wee” noise. Do not yell or scream at the puppy but try saying “ow wee, no.” You will come to find out what noise works best and how high pitched you need to be because when you make the noise your puppy will stop and look at your curiously. It will be learning that this noise means you are being hurt.
Redirect
This can be helpful in letting the puppy know what is and is not ok to chew on. This may be harder to do as you may not have a toy nearby to redirect the dog to, but you could keep it handy especially while playing with your dog.
If your puppy is having serious trouble not chewing on the furniture or shoes, you can also use a repellant that will keep the puppy away from the item. These work by having a bitter taste to the dog that will not harm them. Once they tried to chew on something they will not like the taste and will stop chewing on it. This can be difficult to use if you dog seems to be chewing on so many things, and if you don’t want to spray it on your shoes.
Stop Playing
If your puppy bites a lot while playing, there is another form of training you can do as well. When your puppy starts to bite while playing, stop playing with them. This will let your puppy know that if they bite then playing stops. You can also fold your arms or turn your back to the puppy. If you don’t pay attention to the dog for a little while this will signal that play stops when they bite. Over time they will learn that biting is not a part of playtime.
The most important thing about stopping your dog from biting or chewing is that they have to be monitored at all times until this phase is over. The best way to curb this behavior is through training and redirecting the puppy because they don’t know that they should not be biting.
Conclusion
Over time with training, you will see that your dog will chew less or biting will become softer. Eventually once the teething process is over they will also stop biting or chewing all together and will not have to be monitored. Just remember, if you are not able to monitor the puppy, for example if you need to leave the house, then they should be in a crate or kennel so that they are not able to chew on items in the house.