Puppy Mouthing

Just like babies explore their world by putting everything into their mouths puppies will mouth everything. If the behavior goes unchecked, it can become problematic by them chewing on inappropriate things and as adult dogs, nuisance behaviors. I have a sneaky feeling I have a mouthing monster over here; I'm going to show his owner Holly how to deal with this. So the first rule is to take a zero tolerance approach--no teeth on skin whatsoever, even if you think it's by accident—and everyone in the family needs to be onboard with that. So if his teeth touch your skin at all, you're going to use a very firm--egh-egh-egh--and at that moment deliberately put him down, stand up, and walk away. For a puppy some of their most prized time is spending time interacting with you, so by ending it really quickly you're going to highlight to him what he's done wrong. Why don't you give it a try…

uh uh uh!!

After a couple of minutes you can come back and interact with him….. and then if starts mouthing you're going to repeat the process. Good boy… For WebMD's One Minute Puppy Trainer, I'm Kate Jackson.