All puppies love to play! They often tell us this by coming up and performing a play bow. A play bow gesture is exhibited as the rear in the air, tail wagging, and paws and head lowered to the ground. Exuberant puppies often give a playful nip to us instead just like they would their littermates. Especially if we ignored the play bow. These puppies are just soliciting or asking for playtime.

If there are other dogs in the house this request to play is fine between them. However, If this request to play with humans includes a nip, our first response should be to not play. It is important we learn to communicate with our pets in a way they understand. We do this by understanding the motivations behind their behaviors. This request for play, so an adequate "punishment" is to withhold play for the inappropriate behavior. If you do play after they nip or bite, you are teaching the pup it is not only okay to bite you, but it is a good way to get your attention. I f the pup tries again turn your back or move away. If you begin this pattern early, nipping is easy to correct. If this has been developed into a habit, it gets harder and harder to correct.

Inconsistency is one of the most common mistakes we encounter. Every person this puppy interacts with has to ignore the solicitation to play with a nip. When some people allow it or when you occasionally allow the nip the pup may perceive this as an indication they did not nip often enough or hard enough. This encourages the pup to bite harder and more often and make it more time consuming to correct this inappropriate behavior.

Puppy Excited Biting

Puppies need lots of play time, exercise, physical stimulation and sleep. 17 hours of sleep on average! When any of these needs are not met they are more likely to get "wound up". We've all seen it. The pup who was playing just fine for a few minutes and then suddenly is playing very rough, biting or running circles around you or the house and lunging with teeth bared. It is a game where they have become out of control. This play is hard to interrupt. They will play with their littermates like this and if they get to rough their littermates will yelp and will stop playing with them. If their are other dogs in the house who can safely play with the pup they can help to teach them. The pup learns not to play out of control and how to control the intensity of their play. You should be able to call a pet's name and it stop whatever it is doing. This includes play with you or others, running after a rabbit, chasing the cat, or fighting with the neighbor's dog.

So How do we Respond?

In the end we want to teach the pup any teeth on human skin past a gentle touch makes everything good stop. Read the article about Play Mouthing and Bite Inhibition to teach gentle mouthing. When the puppy reaches excitatory stage they are beyond the point where they can learn in this heat of the moment. They are to wound up and we must change our tacticts until they learn bite inhibition. Also, use this method when there are children involved in the play.

In this frantic moment we must remain calm, stop all play and mark the stop with a verbal cue that will eventually be all that is needed to interrupt the behavior.

Best Option

1. Stop play and mark the with a verbal "awe" in a disappointed quiet tone.
2. At the same time cross your arms and put your fists near your arm pits to remove your hands from your puppy.
3. If you are not already standing and the pup continues biting at you, stand and turn your face and body away from the pup. If the pup was in your lap set them on the floor as you do this.
4. Hold this frozen posture, slowly and silently count to 3 before resuming interaction. If the pup has settled play again.
5. Repeat this every time the pup gets overly excited.
6. If the pup is with children when this occurs it may be necessary to pick the pup up for a few seconds or hold on to a collar, or remove the pup to a time-out. Time outs should not last more than 5 minutes.