Beagle puppy biting?

Question

Is it normal for an 11 week beagle puppy to bite non-stop?
She doesn't just nip, she bites, and she has very sharp teeth.

Would this be considered a behavioral problem? Or is it normal?
What can we do to prevent it?

She has plenty of things to chew on. She has atleast ten toys, and she can down a huge bone in a matter of two days.

This has become a major problem. She bites everyone, and we have a five-year-old in the house that doesn't understand that the dog will hurt her.

HELP US! Please!

Answer 1

Mine did a little of this when we first got him too. I think it was just his way of playing and of course at such a young age, there was no way he could have been doing it to hurt us. Beagles are by nature extremely loving, gentle dogs. Like your puppy, he had countless toys to play with.

To get rid of Billy 's playful biting, we took advice from a great book which basically said that to let your puppy know that this is unacceptable, stop playing with him and walk away the minute he starts biting. Reacting angrily encourages the puppy to do it again and any reaction at all is just giving the puppy attention - which is what he craves.

The book also mentions children in regard to this problem, saying that the automatic reaction of a child is to retreat or fun away, which can encourage the dog to run after or try to bite again. The puppy sees this as him being able to exert dominance over the child. The advise was to immediately distract the dog with a chew toy - so that he learns to associate biting with his toys and not with you.

The book is "Breaking bad habits in dogs" by Colin Tennant, who's an expert dog trainer and canine behaviorist. You can get it on Amazon )follow the link below) for as little as $2.50 before shipping.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102-1808011-5148163?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=breaking+bad+habits+in+dogs&Go.x=5&Go.y=5&Go=Go

Answer 2

Dog this age is not biting, she is mouthing, quite normal - like teething is for infants.

You need to make a sharp sound like "ouch", "no", "yip" and immediately turn away and stop playing with her.
That is what her mother would do - and this puppy really should be with her mother yet.

Do this every single time she bites you - sharp sound and turn away, stop playing with her, ignore her completely - she will get the idea eventually and stop because she loses your attention then.

As to your 5 year old, you really, really need to keep the dog and child from every being alone together - you have to be there or keep them separate at all times. A five year old child is likely to respond by hurting the pup and a pup that age has no idea she is hurting your child by her mouthing.
This combination is the reason dogs gets dumped for biting - please monitor the situation closely until the dog is old enough to be trained - at the moment you have an infant dog and a small child on your hands.

Good luck, the mouthing will pass if you discourage it every time, never let the dog have your fingers or feet in her mouth - and be careful with your child and your puppy together - never leave them alone.

Answer 3

It is normal, and you can train her to stop by using Bite Inhibition techniques:

Bite Inhibition
Puppies are very energetic and playful. You want to teach them to be obedient as young as possible. In this case, teach him bite inhibition:

1. When he nips you, then yelp ! This will startle him and he will back off. Pet him for stopping.
2. If he nips you a second time, then yelp again, and pet him if he backs off.
3. If he bites you a third time, then yelp, and turn your back for 15 seconds. Then turn and pet him. If he comes around before you turn and he licks you or barks, then he is apologizing. Accept this and pet him.
4. If he nips a fourth time (they can be hard headed), then yelp, and turn around for 2 minutes. Again accept the apology, if offered. If not, then turn around and pet him.
5. Finally, after the fifth nip, yelp, then get up and leave him alone. Don't move him or put him in the crate. Instead, you move to somewhere that he can't follow. After 5 - 10 minutes, you can return to him, or just leave him alone.
6. The next time you pet him, repeat the sequence, he should respond a little faster, and learn not to nip you after a week.
7. You can fine tune the process so that he mouths you or only touches you with his lips. I taught my dog to mouth me... I didn't have the patience to go further.

The reason for doing this is to train the puppy how fragile human skin is. When puppies are in the litter, they bite each other to play. If one puppy bites too hard the sibling will yelp. If the biter doesn't back off, then the injured puppy will not play, and all the puppies will treat hard biting in this way.

Most puppies want attention and will learn anything so that they don't lose your attention. If you learn this method, you will have a powerful training tool.

Answer 4

It's normal.. Just correct her when she does it.. Either gently hold her muzzle and tell her NO.. Or Take her mouth off your hand and give her something else to play with.. Or get up and leave the room so she learns that you will not play with a little girl that acts that way. Just about the time you teach her that.. she'll start to teethe at approx 14-16 weeks of age.

Spray the kid with Bitter Apple spray so the dog won't bite her.

Answer 5

You need to assert that YOU are the alpha dog. Do this as early as possible. Think like a dog. When your dog bites, do what the alpha dog would do. They would gently, but forcefully, put their mouth around the dogs neck and make it submit. Do this by making your hand into a "claw" or "jaw" shape, and grab the neck, without much pressure and without hurting the dog. You can also then press the dog onto the ground, with the belly up. Dogs respond to touch much more than sound.

Answer 6

As a professional dog trainer for over 16 years, I have to tell you my strong opinion that you need these group classes for obedience training. http://OnlineDogTraining.enle.info/?JaXm

Other pet warehouses are there to get you to buy their products and hang around their strore. And their trainers are their employees...never forget they have an agenda. Most of the trainers have very little education--if they had actual training and skills they wouldn't be there making just over minimum wage--trust me on this. But even if they did have experience and talent...a group setting is a terrible place for learning to take place. It's distraction training and it is the LAST phase of training not the first. You wouldn't have your child try to do their homework in a toy store, would you? Of course not...the level of distraction would be too high! It's the same with dogs. Having said that, these classes can be an excellent way to socialize dogs...but not to train them. And while they appear to be cheaper than a professional trainer...you have to attend many more sessions to get the same results because of the poor learning environment--so you wind up spending MORE money for less training than you would with a professional. Save your money and go to someone who actually knows how to train dogs. OR, read books and try to train your dog yourself. There is nothing they train at a Petsmart or Petco that you can't do yourself with a couple of hours of reading.

Answer 7

I had the same problem and solved it very quickly, when the dog bites squeeze it's mouth shut firmly, they bite their own tongue doing that, and after about a week of consistently doing it every time they bite, they stop. When you squeeze the dogs mouth firmly you need to say NO BITE!!!

Answer 8

11 weeks is a baby and will bite for several more weeks. There is no way to stop them except to keep your fingers out of reach. Our baby Papillion is a nipper, but all puppies do this, and will out grow it. NEVER NEVER HIT HER. She is doing what dogs do. Don't worry, just be careful.

Answer 9

Once again, I highly recommend posting your question over at Start Puppy Training -
http://www.dogwise.com/itemdetails.cfm?ID=DTB722
A friendly group of positive trainers and people who want to teach their puppies, and help them work through unwanted behaviors, without cruelty.
Never, ever alpha roll your dog, or try to "squeeze the muzzle", or physically punish her, as many people on this site are eager to have you do. This will certainly lead to bigger problems.