[thatsmia]

My now 10-week-Old pup still bites pretty hard. She’s a German Shepherd/Lab mix and I don’t know what to do to keep her from biting. She starts puppy classes after Thanksgiving but I don’t want her to bite other people. If there are any tips I could use that would be great. I don’t know the best method of how to stop her.

 

[Lillith]

At that age, biting is incredibly normal. They don't understand how to play with humans yet, because they played with their mouths with their litter. That breed combo will also add to the incredibly land sharkiness!

When puppy bites you, redirect to a toy and and praise her for biting the toy and not you. If she continues to bite, get up and walk away. Step over a baby gate, close a door, whatever, just withdraw attention for a few minutes. Then try again. If the pup continues to bite you, it may be time for a time-out period in their crate with a chew to calm themselves.

This is a process that takes an incredibly long time. It's months of patience and consistency, but it will get better. Bites will get softer, and the dog will begin to think more about where they put their mouth.

 

[Life With Atlas]

I agree with Lillith! You're in for a little bit of a ride with the biting for awhile until she starts to figure things out. I don't have any additional info to add to what was said above, but just wanted to say there IS a light at the end of the tunnel. It took Atlas about 6 weeks with us before I started to notice a bit of a change with his biting. And that was more that instead of chomping as hard as he could, he would make an effort to be more gentle. The actual biting didn't consistently stop for awhile after that. If you are more consistent than I am, you'll probably have a lot faster success, but either way, they do eventually stop! Just keep reminding yourself how cute she is and it will be worth it in the end.

 

[Wowlovely88]

Yeah...the biting probably won't let up for a while. Of course you can still do some things to start curbing the behavior/teaching your pup bite inhibition. I have found in the past when my dogs were puppies I would warn guests about the mouthieness. And then advise them that the most boring hands are "missing hands" either held behind the back or even literally sat upon when the puppy gets mouthy. Once those fun fleshy chew toys go away..And the human becomes boring. The puppy will give up and (probably) look for a new target.

I also like to redirect a bitey puppy to a fantastic chew toy. When Kylo for example was a puppy he was VERY bitey. And often would give kisses and then excitedly grab a nose or ear...Gotta say puppy teeth bit down on the nose brings instant tears to ones eyes....So when ever I noticed he was extra excited/stimulated I would usually say a kind "Hey" to get his attention and then would shove his favorite toy in his face. I would then get him playing with that. Praising like crazy etc.

Now at 2 years old every time Kylo gets super excited/happy/stimulated his "go to" behavior is to grab his favorite chew toy and naw like crazy.

In my experience most pups lose the crazy biteyness somewhere around 6-8 months of age. Again this is just my experience. Every dog is different.

Good luck! They don't refer to puppies as land sharks for nothing.