AllDogsWorld

Puppies play with each other by wrestling, chasing and biting. When puppies are separated from their littermates and taken to a human household, they will try to play with us in the same way.

Play biting means puppies will bite at our hand, faces, hair, feet or clothing. Play biting is an exciting game for puppies, especially since their milk teeth are very sharp and we human often squeal and pull away, making us more fun to run after. As a puppy grows, the bites become incresingly painful and uncontrolled. Some puppies owner encourage puppies to play rough and tumble games, allowing the puppy to bite their hand and to hang on their clothing.

Solution for play biting

It is important for you to have a toy ready with you whenever you are interacting with your puppy, as puppy will try to get you to play. Keep your hand and everything else still, except for the toy moving.

Try to ignore the bites and encourage the puppy away from your hands with the toy. If the bites are too persistent or too hard, yelp loudly enough to stop him in his tracks, then offer the moving toy instead. If this does not stop the puppy from biting, get up and walk away instead. End the game everytime puppy bites too hard.

Make sure the toy playing is fun and rewarding for the puppy. The toy has to be more fun than biting human. Provide many of these play sessions throughout the day so that the puppy learns appropriate ways to play and he no longer needs to play inappropriately.

Food guarding usually begins with the dog growling, then escalating to snarling and even snapping in the air as a threat. If these behaviour is ignored, and the dog has enough confidence, bites may result. If the dog owner punishes food guarding behaviour, the aggression can escalate quickly as the dog is now also becoming worried about aggression from the owner.

We can prevent food aggression in puppies by teaching them that hands come to give, not take away. This is done by luring them away from what they are eating with a titbit that is much smellier and tastier than the food the puppies are eating.

While the puppies are concentrating on the titbits, the food or chew that they are eating can be removed. The titbit is then given to them before the food or chew is replaced. If this happens regularly, the puppy will soon learn that human hands come to give rather than take, and so there is no need to be aggressive.

Note : Feeding puppies from the same bowl causes them to compete for food which can teach them how to be aggressive over food from an early age. This will cause food aggression. Feeding each puppy from a separate bowl helps prevent this.

Solve food aggression problem

If your dog is growling, biting, snapping or attacking over food, you will need professional help from a pet behaviour counsellor in order to solve the problem safely and successfully.

The solution lies in teaching the dog that approaching human hands are good news rather than bad, but this needs to be done very carefully. It is important to solve food aggression problem rather than just managing it in case someone, particularly a child, approaches unexpectedly one day while the dog is eating.

Until you can get help, try hand feeding, feeding in a different place, scatter feeding which reduces the amount of food in one place and placing food inside strong toys so that your dog has to work to get the food out. Care should be taken to leave the dog alone while he eats until you are able to tackle the problem with a professional.

As well as making sure that your dog is safe around food, it is also important that he should learn not to guard bones and chews. This needs to be done in similar way, patiently teaching your dog that your hands come to give, not take.