Stopping Your Dog From Biting

by admin on February 18, 2011


Stopping Your Dog from Biting


stopping your dog from biting

One of the most important things you need to do when you get your puppy home is to teach it to stop biting. stopping your dog from biting is essential, especially with a big dog like an Akita.

All puppies bite for a number of reasons; it’s a way to explore their environment, there’s also teething issues, sore gums will cause a puppy to bite things to relieve the pain. There’s also the self-defence factor. The Akita is a dominant dog and will look to put its marker down early, biting can act as a defence mechanism as well as a way to establish authority. There’s probably lots of other reasons why your Akita puppy bites. What’s important is that we look at ways at stopping your dog from biting.  The sooner we train the Akita to stop biting the better.

The good news is it’s not difficult to train your dog to stop biting. It just requires patience and constant reinforcement. Awareness is crucial at all time but especially when you are training your puppy. You need to notice everything your Akita puppy is doing. If he suddenly starts biting at everything in the house. If he bites the skirting board, starts to chew the carpet or develops a taste for your chair legs. Then it’s pretty certain he’s teething and trying to sooth his gums.

Simply telling him to stop won’t be enough. You need to buy some toys that are designed for him to chew on. Buy a number of dog toys and place them around the house. Encourage him to use them. There’s plenty of dog toys available out there. Make sure you get good quality robust ones for your Akita puppy. Make sure he knows that it’s ok to chew on these. Toys are a great aid in stopping your dog from biting.

When playing with your Akita puppy if it bites you then you must act immediately. Never allow this to pass. It must know that this is unacceptable behaviour. Simply remove your hand from its mouth and in a firm voice tell your Akita puppy “No” Your voice should be loud, firm but calm. Then stop the play session and ignore the Akita puppy for a while. This will give him the message that if he bites the play session ends. The fun is over.  This is a good method to help stopping your dog from biting.

Every member of the family must give him the same response. Training a puppy requires consistent responses from all family members. Keep it simple and you won’t have any trouble. Start to confuse the Akita puppy with conflicting responses and the training won’t work. Consistent reinforcement is the way to train your Akita puppy.

Here’s some tips on stopping your dog from biting:

Stopping Your Dog from Biting: (Training Your Akita)
Inhibiting your puppy’s Bite

Puppies learn to inhibit their bite among their pack when they are rolling

around with their siblings under the supervision of their mother. Under the

mother’s watchful eye, they will soon learn that it is not acceptable to bite

their family.

When the puppy is removed from the litter, you need to take over this

training and teach your puppy not to bite. This is an essential part of the

puppy’s training and can be done while playing with him.

A puppy will bite naturally, and your aim when training it to inhibit its bite,

is to teach it to play gently without biting, and eventually to eliminate

biting altogether.

The animal behaviourist Dr. Ian Dunbar suggests a four-step process to

train your dog to stop biting. These are:

Stage One: Inhibit The Force of The Bite

The first thing puppies need to learn is that they cannot bite hard. Just

as in the litter, the best way to teach this is during play. In the litter, if one

of the puppies bites another too hard the bitten puppy will let out a loud

yelp. This will stop play for a few seconds and the puppy will know it has

bitten too hard.

The same method should be used during your training sessions with the

puppy. If the puppy bites you, too hard let out a loud yell of alarm and

stop playing. If the bite has been particularly hard, stop playing

all together. Your puppy will soon get the message that biting results in

the stopping of an activity it enjoys.

Stopping Your Dog From Biting:

Stage Two: Eliminate The puppy’s Jaw Pressure

The first stage of the bite inhibitor training will have taught the dog to

reduce the pressure of its bite. Your objective with the training however,

is to eliminate biting altogether. You can achieve this by yelling out at the

slightest bite.

No matter how softly the dog bites let out a yell. Your reaction will soon

register with the dog and he will learn that any biting is unacceptable.

Once the puppy registers that biting is unacceptable, he will “mouth”

instead.

This means he will go through the motions of biting without actually

biting. Stopping this is the next stage of the training.

Stopping Your Dog From Biting

Stage Three; Inhibit the Incidence of Mouthing

If you have reached this stage, congratulations. Your

training is paying off and you are well on your way to stopping your dog from biting. Your

puppy will now be “mouthing” instead of biting. To stop it doing this start

to feed your dog bits by hand.

Decide on the commands you are going to use and stick to them. For

example, Dr Dunbar recommends using the commands “Take” and “off”.

When you want the dog to take the food from your hand, tell it to “take”.

When you want it to stop, tell it “off”. With practice and patience, you will

soon have the puppy taking food only when you command it to and

stopping when you order it.

Once you have reached this stage you can dispense with the food and

use the same commands during play sessions. When your puppy starts

to mouth, give it the command “off” until it stops. The next stage is to stop

the dog mouthing completely.

Stopping Your Dog From Biting

Stage Four: Only Mouth on Command

The last stage is to prevent the dog from mouthing at all. This should

occur around the age of five months. The objective is to teach the dog

that it must not touch a person’s body unless you allow to when you are

playing.

There is a debate about play fighting with dogs. Some trainers

recommend that you do not engage in it at all because it can get out of

hand.

On the other side of the fence, supported by Dr Dunbar, trainers say

play fighting with your dog is healthy as long as it is controlled and the

dog obeys commands given to it at all times.

Trainers who say play fighting is a good way to bond with your dog and

keep it engaged recommend some rules to follow. They are:

Don’t wear gloves. This will cause the puppy to bite harder before

it gets a reaction.

Begin any play fighting with a short training session. The dog will

then see it as a reward.

Stop the play fighting session for short intervals every

thirty seconds.

Biting is not allowed under any circumstances. If the dog bites stop

the session immediately.

The dog must not be allowed to initiate mouthing. It should only

begin on your command and stop when you command.

Mouthing is only allowed on the hands. Not on any other part of

the body.

During play, you will be reinforcing your status as the leader so

you should not allow anything to go unchallenged. Once your dog

accepts that you are the leader and you make the rules he will

develop a trusting and loyal relationship with you.

Never allow your dog to become aggressive at feeding time. If he shows

any aggression, take the food away from him. A dog that

becomes aggressive around its food can be dangerous and may bite if

you go near. This is called “resource guarding” and you should never allow it to happen.

Stopping your dog from biting is a matter of consistent reinforcement. No dog should bite, with an Akita it’s especially important that you neutralize this behaviour before the Akita reaches adulthood.

stop dog biting

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

Elliott March 11, 2011 at 12:43 am

Do you have a Facebook account? would be quite interested to hear more from you.

smithy_uk1 March 10, 2011 at 12:30 pm

Loving your article.

Michael March 4, 2011 at 8:02 pm

I’m sorry to hear that, i’ve seen Akitas attack other dogs and it’s a frightning experience. My own first encounter with an Akita was years ago when I had two Border collies. A guy had an Akita puppy with him and the Akita started to play with one of my dogs. Suddenly it attacked my dog without warning. It went from playful puppy to aggressive dog literally within the blink of an eye. The owner was shocked, saying it had never done that before. The owners of these Akitas, like many akita owners, are not aware of the dog’s characteristics. One of them being aggression towards other dogs, especially male dogs. Unfortunately other people have to pay for their ignorance. This is why this site is constantly emphasising the need to train and socialize an Akita, I also say an Akita, no matter how well trained it is, should be kept on a lead when around other dogs. It is not a dog that can be allowed to run freely. The owner’s assertion that the dog was only being “playful” was wrong. The dog was not playing it was attacking, and if he can’t see that, or refuses to acknowledge it, then he’s not capable of keeping the dog under control. He’s not a fit owner of an Akita because he’s unaware of it’s natural charateristic for aggression towards other dogs.
The fact that he’s unaware of this obviously means he’s not having the dog socialized or trained to surpress this urge. I don’t know what can be done to stop unsuitable owners getting dogs.

Lynda Sharp February 26, 2011 at 1:10 pm

Taking my sons dogs for a walk (a small terrrier and a larger mixed breed) an akita and a boxer came out of nowhere and attacked both dogs. The akita left punchure marks on the terriers neck and terrified the larger dog who escaped his collar and lead, we later found her at home shaking.

This attack really upset my partner and I, we had our 2 year old grandson with us who luckily was behind a fence.

The owner of the akita, who was obviously shaken by the dogs behaviour said the dog was only a pup and being playful.

If this was classed as playful behaviour I really think the dog should have been muzzled.

I would appreciate your comments.

Michael February 26, 2011 at 10:14 am

Hi Robert,

If you have anything to add, let me know. I’m happy to accept good articles with interesting points and publish them so everyone can benefit.

Robert February 26, 2011 at 1:56 am

I await your next article with anticiation hopefully you'll look at the other major items.

neil.haines February 19, 2011 at 6:13 pm

Nice post will be studying the remainder of your web site.

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