To a puppy, everything is new, interesting, and exciting. This means that our puppy will try to bite, play with, and chew just about anything that he sees.
In addition, puppies have the infinite energy of youth. Like the Energizer Bunny, they can keep going, and going, and going. After a nap, their engines rev-up from SLEEP to GO, faster than you can catch your breath and shout “Stop!”.
Sound and movement are especially irresistible to a puppy.
The more we shout and move our hands, arms, or feet around, the more likely our puppy will get excited, bite, jump, and act even more crazy.
A very important part of training my puppy involves managing his excitement level, and teaching him self control. By doing this, I set my puppy up for success, and reduce out of control biting and jumping, before it occurs.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
~~[Benjamin Franklin]
1. Nothing in Life is Free (NILIF)
NILIF stands for Nothing in Life is Free. It is a great way to train a puppy, build a strong bond with him, and remain sane in the presence of our bouncing ball of fur.
NILIF is simple – we just ask our puppy to do something for us first, before we give him anything in return. This includes food, toys, freedom, and yes, even our affection.
First, I train my puppy to do some very simple commands. Here are three simple commands –
1. Look
Look simply asks a puppy to give us eye contact for a short amount of time.
- I train this command by showing my puppy that I have a piece of food.
- I say “Look”, and bring the food up to the level of my eyes.
- Puppy will naturally follow the movement of my food-enhanced hand, and look-up at me.
- As soon as he looks, I mark the behavior (Good!) and reward him with some food from my other hand.
- As my puppy improves, I get him to look at me for longer, before rewarding the behavior.
2. Touch
Touch asks a puppy to gently touch our hand with his nose.
- Again, I let my puppy see that I have some food in my hand.
- Then, I close my hand, move it a short distance away from my puppy, and say “Touch”.
- Puppy will naturally follow the food. At first, he may try to mouth or lick at my hand. I ignore these behaviors and wait until he touches my hand with his nose.
- As soon as that happens, I mark the behavior (Good!) and reward him with some food from my other hand.
3. Sit
Sit is a useful evergreen command. Even after our dog has matured into an adult, we will still find this command to be very handy.
- To train a Sit, I show my puppy that I have some food in my hand.
- I close my hand and move it over and above my puppy’s head. He will naturally want to follow my hand, which will cause him to turn his head up and move his rump down into a sitting position.
- Some dogs may move backwards instead of sitting. That is fine. I just repeat the motion until I get a Sit. However, it is important not to repeat the verbal command. I only say “Sit” once.
- As soon as my puppy sits, I mark the behavior (Good!), and give him a treat from my other hand.
Once my puppy understands these simple commands, I ask him to do something for me, before I do anything for him in return. For example,
- Ask for a Look, before giving a puppy affection or tummy rubs.
- Ask for a Sit, before we open the door for our puppy to go on his daily walk.
- Ask for a Touch, before we give a puppy his interactive food toy.
This teaches our puppy that the best way to get what he wants, is to do what we want first. When my puppy bites, I no-mark the behavior (Ack-Ack) and give him an alternate command (e.g., Sit). This not only teaches our puppy what not to do (bite), but also what to do instead (sit).
2. Drag Lead
Sometimes, puppies get so excited while playing, that they are no longer able to listen to us. In general, I try to step in and have a play break before this happens. However, we may sometimes miss our window of opportunity, and our puppy becomes so excited that he will not stop biting or jumping.
In such situations, I find that it is extremely useful to have a drag lead on my puppy. By using a lead, I can easily control and stop his bad behavior.
Often, when a puppy bites, our instinct is to try and stop him by using our hands and arms. We push back, shout, and move-around a lot. All this hand and arm movement will only get him even more excited, because he thinks we are playing with him. Furthermore, rapid movement may trigger a dog’s prey drive and get him to bite more, and bite harder.
To stop a puppy from biting, it is important to stay calm, don’t shout, and not move in a fast and erratic fashion. Instead, I calmly pick up the drag lead and move my puppy into a quiet area, where he can calm down.
I use a flat collar with the drag lead. Do not use an aversive collar such as a choke chain or a prong. Such collars are risky. Some choose to use them during supervised walks, but they should always be removed at the end of the walk. I also cut the loop of my drag lead, so that it does not catch on furniture or objects in the house, while my puppy is running around. I only use a drag lead when I am around to supervise.
3. Lots of Exercise & Play
Puppies are extremely energetic and curious. As such, they often need a lot of activity and play time.
If we do not provide interesting and supervised activities for them to do, they will figure out their own activities which will rarely appeal to our human sensibilities. Bored puppies will start chewing on books, curtains, furniture, and people.
To reduce puppy biting, make sure to provide him with a lot of physical and mental stimulation.
Interactive food toys are a big favorite with my dogs. Instead of presenting food to them on a silver dog bowl, I put some of their food into interactive food toys. In this way, they are motivated to work on the toy, and they get mental and physical exercise while figuring out the best and fastest way to get at the food.
Daily walks will also help to drain a puppy’s energy. Make sure that a puppy has had all of his shots before taking him to areas where there are other dogs, and where there is poop from other dogs.
Puppies also love playing with other puppies. Nothing burns quite as much energy as a fun puppy chase and wrestling session. I make sure that all my puppy’s play-mates are balanced, healthy, and have had their requisite number of shots.
Other fun puppy games include soccer, catch, fetch, tug, and flirt pole.
4. Rules and Routine
Puppyhood is the best time to teach a dog new tricks. Puppies learn quickly, and are usually eager to please.
I set up a fixed routine for my puppy as early as possible, and also start enforcing a consistent set of house rules. My puppy routine includes food time, play time, walk time, chew time, grooming time, training time, and most important of all – sleep time. Puppy sleep time is when I get some much needed time-off, away from Energizer puppy. *Hooah!*
In the beginning, it is best to institute more house rules and to address them consistently. In this way, our puppy does not develop any bad habits, which will be hard to break later on.
My dogs have the following house rules –
- No getting on furniture.
- No biting on people or people stuff.
- No pawing on people.
- No guarding of toys or food.
- No bullying of other dogs.
Congratulations on your new puppy! Puppy time is precious and passes very quickly, so enjoy yourself and take lots of pictures. 😀
Yeah, I had the same experience with Sephy.
That is very well said. I think that is the crux of the issue.
I am actually in northern CA. I have only visited LA a couple of times, so I don’t know the area well. The trainers that I liked most either work in a well-run shelter, or are in charge of a good dog daycare center. In both these cases, they had a variety of balanced dogs that could work together with my dog.
I notice that you’re located in CA. If you can recommend a great (positive reinforcement) trainer in the LA/OC area, I’d be very curious to talk to them.
Hi there. The boyfriend has very little interest in taking care of the dog. I was the one who wanted a dog (I waited 15 yrs!) and so I try to not burden him with day to day activities. He almost never joins us on walks (although I would have liked the company) and rarely feeds or teaches the dog. He does sometimes play ball with him, which the dog truly loves. Their relationship was rocky from the start… he was not prepared for the biting and sometimes feral nature of a Shiba puppy. Neither was I frankly, but I have an enormous amount of patience when it comes to animals. Not so much with humans….
At any rate, before aquiring a dog, we watched tons of Dog Whisperer and discussed every episode. After getting the dog, he decided that the show seemed unhelpful in the puppy phase, and stopped watching. I read tons of books on dog training and he occassionally skimmed one or two for choice bits.
He’s very fond of informing me that he did “not want this animal.”
Although there are times when they get along beautifully and he’s very good with Maverick (the dog). But overall… it’s been a rocky road between the two of them.
With regard to Cesar Millan (whom I greatly admire) – the alpha roll has only caused chaos in our home. Maverick responds horribly to it and the violence only escalates.
What I take away from the show is keeping my intention in my mind and trying to focus on my energy and what I want the dog to do or not do. It seems to work really well. I just can’t seem to make the boyfriend believe this is a great way to connect with a canine.
And yes, we’ve discussed the incident quite a bit.
He claims the dog was in no danger and (after a rant about how it was a human’s right to kill a biting dog) he insisted that he would always lash out when feeling cornered and attacked, but not with deadly force.
We can’t really seem to agree on what transpired.
I would love to hire a private trainer but was out of work for 6 months and money is very tight right now, so I’m still reading up on dogs and more training advice. And looking for a new place to live…. As I’ve just grown so weary of the constant fights… most surrounding how to raise a dog. And then reminders about how he never wanted one. I’m sensing I need to find a new bf that truly loves dogs – and most importantly – can exercise restraint and extreme patience with them.
Hi. I’ve read a great deal of your training advise and have found it very helpful. My 10 month old Shiba is a fantastic dog about 70% of the time and the other 30% he’s a serious handful. Maybe that’s a good ratio for a Shiba? He’s the first dog that I’ve raised so I don’t have much to compare him to and I’m kind of making things up as I go. He’s learned quite a bit and bites far less than he used to (those puppy teeth were brutal) but he still chases and tackles the cat (when he’s not grooming the cat) and unfortunately it causes my (ex) boyfriend to become enraged. He has far less patience than I do, and as a result he’s much more frustrated by my Shiba’s less than perfect behvior. This past week he tried to protect the cat, got bit, and then seized the dog by the scruff of the neck, lifting him high into the air. When I complained, he tossed the dog down the hallway. I was horrified. I can’t risk having my dog injured by my loved-one and I broke up with him the next day. We’ve been together 3 years and have been living together the last 2. I realize this is not a relationship advise column, but what I’m looking for is a way to convince him (and future suitors) that the dog requires patience and that anger only heightens his bad behavior. I figured it was worth a shot to reach out to an outside source. I’m fiercely protective of my animals, and I fear that the next man might do even worse…. So here I am seeking human-animal relationship advise. Any words of wisdom welcome.
My family just bought a 2 month old German Shepherd pup who just loves to bite me and my things but even my simple comand of ‘NO!” doesnt work on him all that much.
hi i just got a new dog and he is trying to bite people and he whines but he doesnt play that much also he is around 6 weeks old and a yorkie
Hello I have a deer head chihuahua who is a little over a year old. She is so adorable and lovable, whoever she has this one biting issue!! She’s not aggressive at all. Well when we come in from being out at say the store or something. Naturally she is excited when we return. She’ll do the whole run around crazy and jump on things but then as she’s sitting on the couch or bed as you walk past she bites you. Not hard or aggressively but bites. My biggest concern is she loves children but when she first meets them she jumps up and bites their hand. It’s kind of like her little greeting. Now she never hurts anyone while doing this but I hear ” oh she bit me not hard but she just nibbled on my finger.” Help!! I know she isn’t hurting them but I still do not want her doing this. What if she does this and someone decides to be silly and make an issue of it. What can I do?
I have a 2 year old Pit Bull Terrier mix and just recently got her from a shelter. Things were going good for a while but now she is biting constantly… she bites on her bed, my clothes, and ME. I am covered in HUGE bruises all over and I don’t know how to get her to stop. She is so loving and follows me everywhere but when ever I play with her this happens. She is high energy and i like to take her out for a walk and play but I have stopped playing cause of what she does to me. Im assuming she is just playing but i need this to stop. Ive tried just about everything “timeouts”, sprays, giving her a toy instead, holding her mouth…. everything i have done has made it worse. HELP!!!
i was wondering when you put your dog in timout, do you close the door so he cant get out? If you do close the door how long do you keep him in there.
Hi, I have a 11 week old Pomeranian lately she’s been very aggressive, yesterday she bit me in the foot!! What can I do to make her stop? Also, me and my fiancé are trying to potty train her but she still pees and poops everywhere!! She chews and drags the puppy pads!! Please help!