Transcription
Puppy nipping is a thing, and it is not fun. It's frustrating. It hurts when they have these razor-sharp teeth. Um, but what people don't realize is that a lot of the time when people are roughhousing with their puppies, it can cause puppies to be, um, a little bit more nippy and bitey. And it can be a little bit confusing when people are roughhousing with their pups and causing the dogs to to rehearse this behavior. But also, people don't realize that you actually can use play, maybe not roughhousing play, but actual play to teach your puppy how to be a little bit more respectful with, um, with your hands.
So, this is a typical young golden retriever puppy who, as you can see, has no qualms about biting my jacket, biting my hands. And he's not a bad puppy. He's just a puppy that's young and doesn't really understand about bite inhibition at this point, and he thinks playing should include using his teeth on my skin or on my clothing. So, I want to show you a little play exercise that we can do with our puppies to teach them that you actually can play. We can have fun together, but there are a few rules involved.
Now, before I get right to the play part, I actually need to teach the control part first because I need Stephen to understand. Steph's like the perfect name to get you in trouble with. Um, Stephen, I need to teach him how to be calm. I need to have him understand what the expectation is, and I'm actually going to teach him a command called "settle." And the cue that I'm going to get that I'm going to use to get him to settle is by taking a hold of his collar. And when I take a hold of his collar, I want him to understand that he needs to immediately be calm.
Now, we're going to have to start right with in beginning here because we do not have a calm puppy at this point. So, I'm going to take a little bit of food out, and I'm just going to put it right on Steven's nose. There we go. You can see his behavior changed. And I'm going to take a hold of his collar with my free hand here. You can see my hands right in there. Yes, good boy. And I'm going to reward him a few times for sitting and being calm while my hand is in his collar, and I am not being, um, discreet about this. My hands right in there. Good boy. That's excellent.
Now, I'm going to stop the treats and I'm going to let go, and I'm going to try this a few times. I'm going to reach in, take a hold of his collar. Yes, and then reward. So, the hand goes in the collar first. Once I have a good hold, I'm going to, yes, and reward. All I'm doing with this puppy right now is conditioning when he feels me take his collar, I want him to be calm and just be still and await the rewards. Now, eventually, once we do this enough time, I won't need to use the food, but this is very first time working with me and doing this exercise, so I need to make it well worth his while.
Now, you'll notice I'm not giving him any treats during this exercise when I'm not holding him. I want him to think, yes, that this is the absolute best part. Taking the collar is a good thing. It is crucial that you do this step before you do the next part that I'm talking about. If your puppy does not understand that when you take their collar, they need to be calm and settled and relaxed, this game is not going to work. I need, yes, I need a position where he says, "I know my job here. I need to sit and be calm." Um, in fact, I shouldn't say sit. If he just stands and be is calm, that's okay too.
Now, you might not see here, cuz he's facing me, but his eyes are a little softer. He's opening his mouth. He's in a totally different mindset than he was just a moment ago. All right. Now, when I use play to teach my puppy about not nipping and biting, I need to make sure that I have a few things ready ahead of time. So, there's a couple things that I've done here. Number one, his collar is well-fit on his neck. It's just snug enough that I can fit two fingers in there. It's not so loose that he could spin around and and have a little heyday if I was holding on to it. So, the collar needs to be, uh, secure.
The other thing is, I need to have a leash on my puppy because what I don't want him to do is jump in, try, try to, you know, bite me in my clothing and then take off and be able to successfully run away. So, while I might not use the leash a whole lot, it is going to be here as a bit of a backup. I'm in a controlled environment. I've actually rolled my sleeves up a little bit to make them a little bit less appealing. And, um, you could do this with a toy, but I actually want to just go right for the gusto and teach him about how to play with me just with my bare hands, um, and not use the toy. That, that's a great thing to do, but it's almost like a separate exercise.
So, I have treats ready and waiting in my pocket here, ready to go, and I'm going to see if I can initiate some play. Part of the control aspect of this is that I start the game and I stop the game. So, if he comes up and he just starts initiating play right away, I would respond to that by taking his collar and tell him, "Settle." No, no. I need to start it. That's what allows me to to establish a bit of leadership. Play time, play time, good boy.
Now, if I feel any teeth on my skin or on my jacket, I am going to take his collar and then, uh, tell him to settle. He's being pretty good right now. We're playing the floppy dog routine. Good boy. Oops. Okay, he's jumping up and nipping. So, I'm going to take his collar. Settle. Yes. Good boy. Notice that I waited a moment before I said, "Yes," and gave him a treat because when I first grabbed his collar, um, he actually still had his mouth on my skin. He wasn't biting down and, you know, hurting me per se, but he still had his teeth on my skin. Once I continue to hold, I saw the little wheels turn. Yes, good boy, Stephen. And I saw him go, "Wait a second. She took my collar, and I was calm before." So, I waited for him to assume that position, and then I, yes, and rewarded from there.
So, let's go ahead and try that again. Good boy. I'm going to start the game. Ready? Play time, play time, play time, good boy, play time. Now, I'm going to stop before he bites me. Settle. Oops. Okay. So, see how it's hard for me to grab his his collar right now? He's going to bite. This is where I can use the leash to slide down and take his collar. Settle. Yes. Brilliant boy. So, again, I take a hold of the collar, and then I'm going to reward once he's calm. Beautiful bub. Good boy.
Now, if your puppy is really, uh, small or slippery or has a lot of fur, it's hard to get a hold of that collar. You can take a hold of the leash and just zipline your hand all the way down to the collar from there. When you play this exercise, you do not have to only stop once your puppy's nipped and and and bit at your arms. You can stop really at any time because it's up to you to start and stop. But I want him to learn that if his, yeah, actually, he just did a good thing there. He went to bite hand, and instead he went to go to the leash, which I'm absolutely okay with. But I want him to understand that play can continue as long as you're not biting me.
Okay, should we do it one more time? Ready? Play time, play time, play time, play time. Woohoo! Play time. Oh, careful, careful, careful. Settle. Yes. That was your best one. Good boy. Wow. So, um, Steven's laying down this time rather than sitting, and I'm okay with that because what I'm looking for is what's happening up here. I'm seeing a calm puppy. He's giving me really good eye contact. Wow, that's amazing. Good boy.
What a lot of people don't realize when it comes to stopping our puppies from nipping and biting is that actually correcting nipping and biting isn't the sole way that you're going to fix your problem. In fact, you can prevent a lot of the nipping and biting issues from happening in the first place simply by training your puppy. This is one of the things that we really focus on in our puppy Essentials program. We want to teach you about the type of puppy that you have, not the breed, but the temperament and the mindset, so that you can give them and deliver the information that's, um, that's important, and that you're not just doing the cookie-cutter thing. You know, there's times where you're going to set out and work on one thing, and then we might need to shift things slightly so that you and your puppy can find success. And, uh, myself and my team of instructors are really good at being able to read those situations so that we can tweak things so that they work perfectly for you and for your puppy.
Now, you want to keep these little sessions, go boy, you want to keep these sessions really short and sweet. Don't keep going until your puppy gets a little bit exhausted. Do a couple little reps here and there, and then you can stop from there.
Now, the last thing I'm going to show you is just what we call a passive restraint. So, the other thing I want Stephen to be able to be comfortable with is simply being held and being calm. So, you can see for a couple seconds he's fine there, and then he says, "I don't want to be here." And this is typically where a puppy goes to nip and bite. Now, I have a nice calm puppy. Yes, good boy. So, I can say, "Yes." Set him down. I could reward. If you had a family member with you, ideally it would be great is while you were holding the puppy, if they were nice and calm, you could have a family member give your puppy a few, yes, and then treats.
Now, something that I'm doing here is I have my hand just in his collar in between him and me so that I can stop him from turning to nip at me, and I just want him to be like a dangly puppy. And actually, we call this the noodle test. So, you can see if I hold him, he's just like all noodly and relaxed and and, uh, comfortable. Hi, lover. Good boy. Yes. Again, I don't want to do it for too long because I want him to be successful.
Now, this one exercise is not going to solve all of your nipping and biting problems. There is a whole whack load of things that you need to know about in order to get the full picture. But this is something that you can do that can allow you to have some fun with your puppy, play and engage with them, but them understand you're being so good now, them understand that they can play and have fun, but they can do it without using their teeth on your skin and on your clothing. And that's really our number one rule.
If you find that you do this with your puppy and it doesn't go quite as smoothly, I want you to take more time working on the very first part of this exercise, and that is teaching them to take the allowing you to take their collar and reward them. If your puppy is not a master at that, going into the playing part where you're actually provoking play with the puppy is only going to end with your puppy nipping and biting and you not being able to get control. You'll notice that when I took his collar, it immediately calmed him down. So, if you take the collar, you're not immediately getting that, that means you need to go back and work a little bit more on having the puppy understand the expectation that when we hold the puppy's collar, they need to be calm and settled.
Something that's important to note about this game is that it is not designed for all ages of dogs. This little play and settle exercise is something that I would only do with a puppy that was very young, let's say under 13, 14 weeks old, um, and with certain sizes of and weights of dogs as well. As your puppy gets a little bit older and they have a little bit more weight and a little bit more life behind them, it will become more challenging to get them to settle. But just by taking their collar, you know, he is a very 10-week-old golden retriever puppy who's a little bit more softer minded to begin with. If you're at the point in the journey with your puppy where your puppy's a little older, a little bigger, um, there's other tactics that we would use, uh, to work through our nipping and biting problems. But I wanted to make sure it was understood that this particular game is best suited for the smaller, younger breeds of dogs. And the idea is to start this before we have a lot of nipping and and and biting problems.
Stephen is a young golden retriever puppy that's very soft and a little bit more mild, um, but remember, if you have a puppy that maybe is a bit more boisterous and could use slightly different tactics in order to conquer nipping and biting, you're going to want to check out that video right here. On that note, I'm Kale. Happy training.