Biting! Help!

[fidoprincess 0]

So I was just posting about how well potty training finally went for us after such a rough start and I am so thrilled with our little guy but he is still biting us! Help!

He is so smart, rings the bell to go out now, does all kinds of tricks for us like rollover but still, every time we play, he ends up biting us. He has a ton of toys and loves to play fetch and tug games but if he fails to retrieve the toy, he will just run over to us and bite our hands. He also growls! He also runs over to us and bites us to get us to play if we are doing something else. If I am talking on the phone, he will run up to me and bite my hand to get my attention and it hurts!

We've never had a dog that bit us so we are kind of shocked! We tried all sorts of things like shaking a can with coins, spray water bottle, etc.. but people just tell us he is still a puppy and that will happen. I don't like the behavior and am really starting to get concerned because he will be 5 months on the 16th. From what I have read, for a small toy dog, 5 months is almost out of puppyhood. I was also told it will get worse when he starts teething? He still has all his baby teeth at this point.

My daughter is 11 and she just loves him but when playing with him on the floor, he will drop the toy and go after her. He digs like crazy at her arm or leg and bites her on the face and hands! She has a bruise on her arm where he bit her really hard. My daughter and her friend were sitting on opposite ends of the hall playing ball with him and he dropped the ball and jumped up and bit the friend on the chin. Ack! I can't have that! He has bitten me on the hand hard enough to really hurt me.

We did a lot of reading and know not to do things like hold his mouth shut or hurt him in anyway because they say he will only get more viscious. I do the "roll him over on his side and make him "chill out"" and that works for the moment but the next time, he gets wild again and bites. I had my daughter scream really loud when he bites and turn away ignoring him or getting up and leaving the playing but the next time, he just does it again a few minutes later. Someone will come and sit down and the dog is so happy to see them. They pet him and he licks them and a few minutes later he is biting them! Some of the kids are afraid of him now and that is so sad. He growls all the time too. He even growls at me if I pet him when he is sleeping in my lap! Many times this biting leads to him trying to "hump" our arms!

This biting and growling behavior is different and distinct from what many of you here call "the zoomies" when he runs around like a crazy dog. We just think that is so funny and cute and he doesn't attack us when he is in that mode.

Is this really typical "puppy" behavior or something else? Any thoughts on what else to try? How old is too late to fix this behavior? Anyone else have this trouble? Thanks in advance for your help!

[Kae+Gizzy 5]

We had this for quite some time when Gizmo was a pup. It was horrendous! His idea of play was not ours and we were all left with scratches from those tiny sharp teeth. We tried closing his mouth and telling him no, we would also put him in his crate for a time out (which I didn't want to do as his crate was meant to be a safe haven for him and somewhere he enjoyed going) We also tried rolling him over and holding him down into a submissive position, all of which aggravated the problem.

Eventually I think I read somewhere that we had to yelp, kinda like another dog would if they were hurt by him. Ok its sounds odd, but I remember the look on his face the first time we did it, it was one of surprise..it didn't stop him straight away but it had some sort of effect, and would stop him from doing it for a short time. We would also completely ignore him, so he got to learn that behaving that was wasn't acceptable.

I even spoke to my vet about it and was told that it is part of normal puppy play,he was quite a dominant puppy and needed to learn his place in our pack and he would grow out of it, he did.. eventually. I remember it drove us mad for a while. I hope things work out for you and you find a way of dealing with it. The thing I found is what may work for one dog, doesn't always work for another.

Gizmo will be 3 next month and is the most lovable little guy, it's hard to imagine what a brat he used to be lol

[MisterMom 11]

NO BITE (in a stern voice) and a tap on the nose !!

[mom2Gizmo 24]

I would not tap on the nose, but that's me. I always kept toys close at hand and when he would play bite I'd stick them in his mouth. Eventually they get the message. I do not understand how you got the idea that for a toy dog 5 months is almost out of puppyhood???!!! My shih tzu was a "puppy" way longer than my 58 lb. shepherd mix was. In fact, my shih tzu is exactly 2 years 6 months old now and I'd say he has really calmed down a lot in the past 6 to 12 months. Certainly not before that. I'm not referring to play biting, I'm referring to "puppy behavior" in general. Oh, and I would make sure to neuter him!!

Edited January 2, 2011 by mom2Gizmo

[fidoprincess 0]

Thanks everyone for the ideas. I guess we will stick with the yelping technique and the ignoring. I am so relieved to hear that it's not uncommon and the puppy stage is far from over so we still have time to make strides against the biting.

I don't remember where I read that for toy dog breeds, they mature faster and while it takes a really large breed almost 2 full years to finish growing, some toy breeds are mature much earlier. Maybe it was when I was researching when to neuter. I was reading a lot too about socialization and geez, they write that if your dog is not properly socialized by 4 months, you are doomed!

I even had the vet tell me that our puppy is almost full grown at 4 months! He said the dog may only gain another pound or 2 as he fills out until he reaches 1 year. He is a bit more than 4 lbs but the vet said that knowing his dad was 5 and the mom was 6lbs so I think it is just a guess. I read a lot of posts here that say the opposite and some of your dogs doubled their weight from 4 months so I guess he could be as big as 8lbs or even more. We are still using the borrowed crate and not buying anything until we are sure of his size! We did get one sweater because it's so cold and now we are going to the snow so we need some booties I guess.

As for neutering, when did most of you do it? I read that the later the better for the health of the dog and also in case the baby teeth need to be pulled but with him already trying to hump us!, maybe we should shoot for the 6 month mark?

Thanks again for all of your posts! It really DOES help to know my dog is not out of the norm with the biting.

[mr.coffee 364]

Every once in a while Harley will get riled up and do that...

-m

[Kae+Gizzy 5]

We were told by our vet that toy breeds do mature faster, but only in the growth stage. Bella was fully grown at 7 months old and hasn't grown any since. Puppy behaviour however lasts for a lot longer and I would say it took till Gizmo was around 18 months before he began to mature mentally. My husband recalls the puppy biting stopped when Giz was around 7-8 months. He said they were the longest months of his life

Good luck with your little guy.

[mom2Gizmo 24]

Oh, yes! They do stop physically growing much earlier than larger breeds. But mentally/emotionally they do not mature any sooner. But to give you an idea for the physical end of it, my Gizmo came to me when he was 7 months old at which point he weighed 11.5 lbs. He is now as I said 2 and 1/2 years old and he weighs 12.8 lbs. So you see, he was pretty much done growing. And yes, as young as your dog is it is still a lot of puppy behavior. :dede:

[Luna 8,676]

NO BITE (in a stern voice) and a tap on the nose !!

This is the one thing I have done for over 30 years that works every time on every dog. The tap on the nose (with one or two fingertips) doesn't hurt the dog, but DOES startle them enough to make them think. If the dog persists he or she is put away from me and gets no attention for several minutes. I believe that is called "reinforcement", lol.

Midas at 12 weeks is happily teething away and just LOVES using those new things in his mouth! As soon as you pick him up he will start nipping at your nose or chin, but the tap and command stop him short and we are getting to the point where no matter HOW happy he is to be picked up he is finding other ways to express it.

Kelly (my "land shark") is another mouthy one who loves to do a nice 3-foot vertical leap from the ground and snip at your hand. I keep my index finger tucked in so that as soon as her teeth hit my knuckles my fingertip hits her nose (along with the command) and Ms. Sassy is doing it less and less often.

Perseverance is the key.

[fidoprincess 0]

Thank you all again for your posts. We were out of town so I didn't see all of the additional ones until now. We took the dog on his first snow trip! The car ride was around 5 hours and he did great. At one point he howled in the car and none of us could figure it out until on the way home, my daughter realized that her ears were popping coming down the moutain at the same time he howled. It was so cute, I never had a dog that howled but we all felt so sorry for him thinking it must have hurt!

When we stopped, he went potty right away and was just better than we could have hoped for. As for the snow, he just can not stay out long at only 4 lbs.. He did love walking in the road but the snow was so deep, he couldn't walk at all but he was a trooper and went potty in the snow when he had to. We took the bells and it worked great.

He is still biting and scratching but I realized that when he bites my daughter, she is so wishy washy! She says "no bite" in the nicest voice so we talked about how she has to actually shout and we are still working on it. He is not biting me at all, just everyone else! The growling seems to be getting worse though. We were playing with a toy and he growled at me! If he was a bigger dog, I would have really been scared.

I can't figure out the scratching/digging thing. He comes up and snuggles next to us and then proceeds to dig and dig into our arm or whatever body part he can reach. It's weird! Today though he was snuggled up to my daughter and he started the digging and scratched her right in her eye-ugh. What is he doing? It's like he is trying to make a bed?

Anyway, thanks again for all of your help. Interesting too to read about the maturing thing. I really hope he doesn't get much bigger because he is just the right size now for picking up and carrying. He grew so fast so far and almost didn't fit in the one little sweater we bought him and he really needed it for the snow. We still didn't get a crate yet but it seems like the loaner one is just a good size if he doesn't get much bigger. We took it on the trip and used it one night when we went out. It was nice to know he was safe and not getting into anything but I have a feeling he barked the entire time. I have to use the crate more often because we got out of the habit since I was home so much over the holidays. Thanks again and Happy New Year to all!

[mr.coffee 364]

Harley digs sometimes, but never deliberately on a person...just in blankets, his bed, or occasionally the couch. It never bothered us so we never tried to stop him.

-m

[Kae+Gizzy 5]

Gizmo is a digger. He always does it on our bed and sometimes it hurts as he tends to do it on our legs. He's just trying to get comfortable I guess. We tease him and ask if he's trying to dig his way back to China.

The problem I had was the fact that I had always had much bigger dogs prior to owning my Tzu. Dogs that HAD to behave around myself and my children. They were put in their place at a very early age and were not allowed to jump on people, furniture, the bed. They were taught to behave very early on.

When we got Gizmo, a tiny ball of fluff, he was spoilt straight away and allowed all the home comforts my previous dogs never were. He was treated very much like a human baby. So I totally blame myself for the problems we had with him, and boy we had lots of them!

I still do treat both mine like my Children, although they really are still dogs and I guess that's it right there. Rules still apply, big dogs or tiny ones. They all need to learn what is acceptable early on and what isn't.

With Gizmo we started doing Nilf training. He was rewarded when he did something right. He used to steal stuff all the time, items of clothing, shoes, slippers...trying to get them back from him was a nightmare. He would growl and snap at us when we tried. We had to teach him the "Leave it" and "Drop" command using Nilf. It took a while but he learnt, and we have never had a problem since.

I think it may work with your little guy, please don't get disheartened as it can take a while for them to get the hang of it and to know whats expected of them. I was also told to throw toys for Gizmo rather than hold it and let him pull on it, he was often very growly and snappy with his toys. We taught him to bring toys back and to drop them for us. It has worked and we can now pick up any toy belonging to him, but we still never take anything from his mouth, we ask him to drop and leave first.

I have no idea if this has been any help to you at all but there is loads of stuff on the internet regarding Nilf training, give it a try and see how he does :blush:

[mom2Gizmo 24]

I don't think I've met a shih tzu who does not do that digging thing! That doesn't bother me, though. Gizmo does it all the time. He was never a big biter though. Then again, he did not come to live with me until he was 7 months old though.

[tzuhouse 4]

Agree, they all seem to do the digging thing, some more than others, but mine also dig to China every day. Josie is the worst....she does it in bed every night and has so far ruined two sets of sheets and our couch is getting rather thin....we try to get her to move to different areas, but she has done it forever and sometimes we just don't notice...but when we do, we make her move to other areas so spots don't become thread bare....lol Geeze, what we do for our furkids....

[Shredder 4]

Shredder is a digger also. He can really get going digging really fast... He even does it on the mirror sliding closet doors while lying on his side.. (it's funny to watch) I don't mind it if he is on his blanket, bed or towel, but I say NO when he does it on our bed, leather recliner or couch. He will stop, then give me a look and plop down! ha .. too funny...