11 week pup out of control

[jackiemdreamer]

I have house trained my pit pup with ease.Getting him to calm down his chewing and biting is a different story.He has plenty of toys,has a tie-out for play but does not like it.Takes walks easily,and calm.Recently,he bit a friend in between his legs,and my husband.I am a first time pit owner and when he gets all fired up,he starts barking and growling at me,and coming towards me.Ive tried the advice of many online sources.Can anyone help?

[APBT Answers]

Sorry to hear of your puppy troubles. I'd contact a behaviors for serious one on one help. They can come to your home and will show you exactly what to do and how to do it. As a first time owner they can help you a lot in the training world.

Other then that dealing with biting pups isn't fun. I'm having a similar problem with my Cani Corso. I'm not sure what other advice you have been given. What I do is tell the pup no in a very firm, strong voice. I also grab their muzzle and say it and look right in her eyes.

Sometimes it depends on the situation if they are all fired up and playing they might just get more into it if you grab them and think its a game. Thats when you say no grab the muzzle and remove them from the situation. Totally ignore them. If you put them in a kennel crate or say if you are playing on the floor and they start to bite you, do the NO exercise and stand up, totally ignore them and walk away. It takes a lot of repartition and consistency. They should eventually learn that playing rough/biting equals no attention and these dogs strive on attention. I've been using the same for the biting and its helped a lot. In just a few days she's toned it down. Last night I was playing with her on the floor, I was sitting down and she went up to my hand, hit it with her muzzle and almost went to bite and then rethought it. I had already done the no exercise 6 times in a row about 15 minutes prior to that, but it takes effort. Today she hasn't bit so far. She's acted like she wanted to, she can get excited when playing, but I'm not another dog nor am I a play thing so I won't let her treat me as such. I can tell when she is thinking about it and I give her the verbal NO only before she ever gets too far.

You really want to observe when this biting happens.

Are you encouraging rough play? Some people do this, wrestle with the pup, grab their head, make them growl and try to bite.

Are they just going through a really playful stage? Pups are like kids, they love to play, sometimes I find they are worse then my son about getting into things and tearing them up. Remember that if they were with their littermates they'd probably still be playing the same way they are biting you. They will also chew/teeth like babies. They usually don't start losing their baby death until around 6 months but they may still love to chew up other things. My pup is the worse chewer I have ever had, she will start chewing just about anything. I use the same technique for that as biting. So far its helped a lot, she will still say start gnawing on the couch, but when I say no she stops.

Are they exhibiting dominance aggression? In that case its more of a concern. Either way you want to discourage it and train them its not acceptable to bite. But if they are being dominant you may have other challenged down the road. This is not usually the temperament of an APBT but some can be dominant and some owners may foster it. If you let the pup always get their way, let them on the couch, the bed and do whatever they like, they will think they can do whatever they want whenever they want.

Knowing the situation can determine where the biting is coming from.