I have a 4 month old lab crossed with a staff and need some advice. he keeps constantly biting my arms and am concerned he may do it to one of the children. Im not really sure if this is play biting or not as he does it not only when were playing but randomly just sitting on the sofa or when i come in the door, or even when Im just walking around the room he will bite my legs and hands. Any advice on how to stop this? any advice would be much appreciated :-)

If he's not drawing blood congratulations your pup has bite inhibtion.

Diminish puppy play by encouraging "attack" on approved objects like dog toys. Rather than wasting lots of energy attempting to stop something, what works best is teaching an acceptable alternative.

If you get basic obedience in place, it helps your pup calm down as it feels (paradoxically) more in control, as it can do things to improve life eg) be rewarded for lying at your feet etc That also helps the family calm down, because they can control the young dog, by having him earn. So your attention needing pup, can be asked to "lie down" say, and be rewarded for that, rather than get your attention by pouncing on you.

You really want to be the focus of any such puppy play, trying to stamp it out on you, would increase risk of it happening to children when you're not looking instead. Of course you cannot let a dog be unsupervised with young children!

Been using toys to play with him but he still bites me, has drawn blood on three occasions too. Will keep trying, thank you for the advice :-)

It sounds like your pup is biting because he's excited. Or possibly teething. I can only tell you what worked for me


If it's teething: try to ease any teething troubles by making sure your dog has plenty of teething chews. Letting them crunch ice cubes can help, or make a frozen kong. Charlie would come a bite my foot gently to let me know something wasn't right when he was a pup - it stopped naturally after he stopped teething. When he did it and sat good, he got an ice cube. If he easily stopped nipping and was happy crunching the ice cube i knew it was nipping due to teething.

If it's excitement: Some advise you to walk away from a pup thats biting you, i'd certainly stop any game you were playing, but what worked for me was to get Charlie to sit and to sit beside him on the floor and stroke his chest in a slow circular relaxing motion whilst gently praising him for sitting nicely. Have a toy nearby so if he tries to nip you then you can put it in his mouth. If you can't calm him down, walk away slowly and sit in another room for a few minutes.

i have a 12 week old staffy x labrador and she is the exact same! When i first got her i told her no! And she responded ay stopping. But now she doesnt listen and bites me and my partner she just goes on 1 and she really hurts when she bites especially when she bites my nose

At around 16 weeks Kilo's biting pretty much ceased entirely, however very occasionally he still play bites if he gets really over stimulated, usually a game gets out of hand for him. The only thing that reliably works is to keep all my movements calm, slow and deliberate, not to give any attention at all, slowly turn away so that he cannot grab clothing etc and fold my arms. I also just stare off into the distance.

After just a few seconds he is still excited but calming down enough for me to gain his attention, ask for a 'down' and a 'wait'. I make him wait for about 10 seconds then release him with some praise - this is sufficient for him to be back in control of himself again then the game / training etc can resume.

A method I used when I needed it when he was younger was simply diverting Kilo's attention from biting with a toy, or starting a training session (just the word 'training' would stop the bite as he loves it because food is involved!). If the excitement was due to tiredness popping him in his crate calmed him and he used to instantly fall asleep. If you can begin to wok out what has triggered the biting, you can hopefully work out how to stop it.

I try very hard not to make any form of noise as it eggs him on and not to push him away or make quick hand movements as this stimulates him also.

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This is why when you first get the puppy, you teach bite inhibition, allowing gentle mouthing but hope the pup ceases briefly, when you show "pain" by a yelp, or "ow!". Unfortunately that excites some pups (especially terrirers).

Unacceptable behaviour ceases play; but puppies need to play in calmer ways, and also do other things, that teach them how to get on; hence my first posts emphasis on alternatives. It's a medium/long term approach but makes sure the pup learns what "stops the fun".

The best resource on this is Dunbar's articles The Bite Stops Here by Dr Ian Dunbar, the Dog Star Daily site has info to, so you can see where you're at Raising A Puppy | Dog Star Daily. Now if you're playing games that are over-excited the puppy so it jumps, nips or goes for you, you're playing wrong; a pup has fun playing with calming pauses and without stressful pup-human interactions which lead to things, the common adage is "avoid growly games".