Puppy update on William

A note from puppy William‘s (formerly Sweet William) new family…

WilliamHi Kristin,
Sorry to take so long to get back to you. It’s been a crazy week, and William has been the least of the chaos! He is a super puppy. The only problem is he has his days and nights mixed up–he sleeps all day, then we’re up most of the night. I’m hoping to get him turned around starting tomorrow.

Any advice you can give on biting, I’d appreciate it. William loves the boys so much, that he just bites the heck out of them. They aren’t able to enjoy him yet like they want to.

Good to hear from you. No wonder he was always so sleepy when people were coming over! I wonder if any other puppies are that way – that would make sense, he and someone else staying up all night playing and lounging around sleeping all day…

About the biting. Biting is very normal puppy behavior. He needs to be trained not to bite humans or our clothing EVER. So, every single time he bites you tell him sharply “no BITE”. A yelp will work too. Then you put something that is ok to bite into his mouth. You want to get it across to him what is ok to bite and what is not. Should he continue biting you want to up your response…a sharp hand clap, a louder yelp, nothing crazy but something sharp that will break his focus on biting. If it continues you just walk away, stop playing with him. He will get the message but it is hard for a puppy to learn not to bite – it’s sort of what they do. So all playing with the boys needs to be supervised by an adult until he learns not to bite. No 8 year old is able to be consistent or firm enough to get the message across to the pup – he’ll just take it as play and the biting will likely get worse. This is key – the puppy has to understand that biting is wrong, and if we aren’t clear, or firm, or sharp enough they do just think we’re playing, which is the absolutely wrong thing to associate with biting.

Hope this makes sense. Give it time and treat it like any other behavior you want to shape or change and you will see results. Just don’t give up, tell yourself he “is just a biter” or let your boys handle it themselves and you should be fine.

Keep me posted!!

-Kristin

June 19, 2009 • Tags: , • Posted in: advice, behavior, dog ownership, observations, puppy update, pups, story update, training

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