Today, I’m going to demonstrate, with Winston
here, how to stop a puppy from mouthing. Puppy’s like to explore the world with their
mouths. And this is all fine until it comes to your
skin. You need to be able to find a way to play,
in an appropriate way, so that your skin doesn’t get hurt when your puppy mouths you, during
the play process. Here, hi. Hi, hi, hi. When you’re playing with your pup, this
is great play. You can see that he’s not using his mouth
on me at all.
If he does open his mouth and it touches my
hand, that’s okay, but as long as he doesn’t bite down. But as he gets more aroused, he’s more likely
to do so. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And as soon as he does so, play is going to
stop. What happened is as soon as I felt his teeth
on my skin I yelped a little bit. That’s what puppies do to each other in
the litter when one bites down too hard on another. They yelp to let that puppy know: that hurt. I yelped, and immediately got up and walked
away. Biting stopped playing. Now I’m going to go back into him and start
playing with him again, and seeing if he’s going to put his mouth on me again.
Hey, right there. Because playing is really important for your
pup, so you want to be able to play with your puppy like this. But there have to be boundaries. Because what you don’t want is to have a
puppy that has a habit of mouthing and that mouthing becomes so hard, and it doesn’t
stop, and it continues as the puppy grows until it gets into being an adult dog. And then that mouthing is really, really hard
and can really, really hurt. You can redirect your puppy’s mouthing onto
something more appropriate by using various kinds of toys.
Now, some puppies will be more motivated to
play with soft toys like this, than a rubber toy like this. Some puppies won’t like a soft or rubber
toy but will like a rope toy. Every puppy is different. Only by purchasing some of these toys can
you find out what toy your dog really likes. And so when all the chewing is directed on
the toy that means the mouth is going to go over the toy rather than on your clothes,
or on your skin. Plus, it’s an awesome game. Puppies like this, love to seek and grab and
play and pull. And all of this play is such great bonding. You can use rubber toys like this and put
a little puppy-appropriate food in them, so that all of the sort of mouthing, the desire
to mouth, goes on the toy, again, instead of you.
He’s not hurting my hand at all, but all
of his attention is going toward the rubber toy, and the food that I put inside it. And that turns a mouthing dog into a dog that
is playing with you, through this toy, and using his tongue to lick the toy, rather than
his mouth around it. And that’s how to stop your puppy mouthing,
positively. I’m Victoria Stilwell for eHow Pets..
