My Husky Turbo, had a puppy nipping problem like most pups, but he is 4 mounths and his adult teeth are growing in and now its hurting BAD! we thave tryed yelping, using a mesh muzzle and then stopping playtime when ever he bites but its not working! i need some tips to help stop bitting, im worried he is going to bite a younger family member! please!! what can i do its not getting any better, it is only getting worse! am i doing the right thing? or is there more i can be doing to prevent this? thanks

~Slinkyslinks.

Can you describe what you're talking about more specifically? When does it happen? What are you doing with him/to him just before it happens? Where is he biting you? Is is really biting or teeth on skin, or both??

If the biting is occuring on your hands, what I do, is hide my hands behind my back, and then Okami looses interest in me. If your talking about biting in other places like feet, arms, legs ect, I would seek professional advice from a trainer to target your specific situation.

Have you used the neck scruff physical correction? Chuck is only 3 months old but a very stern NO generally works, followed by a brief break from whatever we're doing. Alternatively or as a next step, I'll grab his lower jaw, and press his tongue to his lower mouth firmly. Doesn't fancy that.

For serious offenses that hurt or lunging at people, I give the neck scruff a tug that produces a yelp. If there's out of control energy too, I go time out in the shower stall in the dark. God those are soul crushing but he's getting incrementally better and I do the physical ones less and less (and we still have a great relationship).

i am not doing anything when he bites. all i do is sit down on the couch and he walks up dive/tackles me an starts bitting. he usually only bites hands and arms. and sometimes when your just petting him he is being all nice and then all of a sudden he starts bitting. and i have not tryed the scruf yet, i am not 100% sure what part is the scruff sice he has a lot of fur, i dont want to grab the wrong part of his neck and hurt him.

I had such a huge problem with this, it only stopped at about 7 months. But it took me awhile to find the solution (at least for my one). All I did was ignore, if you've asked any professionals thats probably the first thing they'll tell you to do anyway.
Of course consult a professional if you feel it's dangerous.
But if you ignore, and I mean while that little gremlin is attached to your arm like a fish on a hook, no wincing, no yelping, no looking, no moving your arm around, just silently moving to another room and shutting the door while acting like NOTHING is going on and waiting until he's not interested. Hopefully - and should be rather quickly - it'll stop. But it won't happen the first or 2nd time, you've got to do it every single time, not react once. Cause you've reacted in the past he'll think 'this works more often then not' for who knows how many times, you've got to keep at it until his attitude is 'this doesn't get me what I want.' AND it even gets him less then what he had, which was your presence.
To sum up this lecture, ignoring him lets HIM figure out; biting doesn't get him attention. Not only does it not get him attention. Biting makes him isolated. And as a pack animal isolation is the best punishment available.
P.S. IMO isolating by putting them in another room as a "Time out" doesn't work cause they still had your attention for that moment you took the effort to make them come with you.

I had a big problem with this with my puppy too, he's mostly outgrown it, but has regressed a bit since entering his adolescent phase. I would estimate he stopped around the 4-4.5 month range. He still does it every once in a while, especially on walks (which is a different issue), but now responds if I say ow in a high voice. Dizzy was with his littermates until 9 weeks, but he was the most dominant puppy of the litter and had terrible bite inhibition. I looked like I had a really psycho cat for a while. What seemed to really help him the most was actually doggie daycare and time outs. It's also been really helpful in teaching him how to play more gently with smaller dogs. For the daycare, it was really great for him to be around well socialized older dogs that would correct his behavior, but there are trainers supervising just in case anyone gets too wound up. His biting came from excitement mostly, and he wanted to play. In terms of timeouts, it was helpful because a lot of his biting came from excitement so a few minutes up to 15 in a designated time out area to help calm him down was perfect and then when I let him out, a more quiet game or activity.

I noticed that if I was playing with him, or trying to give him attention, it would put him over a certain threshold of excitement and he would turn into an evil little shark. Once I realized this I really limited how I would play with him along with regulating my 'vibe.' I tried to be very calm, slow in my movements and deliberate with our interactions. I read into calming body language for dogs and started to implement some stuff like that with Dizzy, for example, the look away. When he was getting intense or annoying, I would hide or cross my arms and turn my head away. It would intensify his reaction for a minute, then he would give up and lay down. I learned to read his signals and would shut down play before he got to that excitement level. I also taught him 'off' which essentially to get his mouth off of whatever it was touching, whether it was my arm, ankles, shoelaces, toys, furniture, or anything else. That made a big difference, it was something to start teaching impulse control and focus that energy on something.

Thank You for all this help, i will try this out and see if it works.

One more thing to add, to me it really sounds like he's trying to instigate play, so it would be a really good time to pull out some treats and do a 10-15 min training session on anything you're working on, down, sit, stand, or new tricks. It will take him out of that I'm bored and I wanna bite stuff mindset, to a more focused mind set. I recently starting teaching Dizzy 'find it,' there are step by step instructions on how if you google it, but basically you hide food or treats in really obvious places and let them see where you put it, and then say 'find it' and reward them when they do. The first time we did this, I worked with him for 20 min and he was so tired after lol. Lots of thinking for him I guess... If he gets too excited during training sessions and bites or jumps on you, put him in his time out area to cool off lol. Good luck, I hope some of this helps.

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One more thing to add, to me it really sounds like he's trying to instigate play,

This is what I was thinking! Karli would do this the most when we were playing, a lot of the time when we had her pull rope out. I found that if I pushed the pull rope into her mouth instead of my hand (like she's chewing on my hand and I shove the rope in her mouth in place of said hand) she'd grab the rope. I consistently did this for over two weeks and during that time period, her biting got less and less. It got to the point that when she realized it was my hand in her mouth, not the rope, she'd stop and her teeth would barely touch my skin. Huskies are smart, but you have to be consistent in your training. Now she only bites my hands if she really wants to play and that's only after shoving the pull rope in my face for five minutes lol.

Ditto Jen and Roxy, that's why I was asking for more specific details to rule out aggression.

Sounds like bite inhibition is a "Husky thing" and was probably the most difficult life lesson to teach Link, sounds like for most others as well.

I definitely had to learn to distinguish biting from teeth-on-skin. I found for me (and Link) it was important to allow him to use teeth-on-skin sometimes, but my rules and my control only. He's never bitten anyone or me but obviously that would not be okay.

I get down on all fours and we play chase and play like Huskies, and this is when his teeth can touch my skin. The great thing about it is that it gives him an outlet to play like a Husky at home , with me, and we bond and have fun. Most importantly is that it provides ample opportunity for guided discipline and corrections because he knows what is acceptable and what isn't. I personally think NO without a corresponding YES is pointless.

The other time he tries to use teeth-on-skin iswhen he is communicating hunger or potty needs, but even then he gets corrected sternly and ignored because that his control and his rules and that isn't acceptable. I then turn the tides and get him to do something before answering his request.

Through all this he knows very clearly about bite inhibition, and the parameters of teeth-on-skin have been set pretty solidly as well. Link is a mouthy dog and so we needed to find a happy medium.

seattlesibe wrote:

I get down on all fours and we play chase and play like Huskies, and this is when his teeth can touch my skin. The great thing about it is that it gives him an outlet to play like a Husky at home , with me, and we bond and have fun. Most importantly is that it provides ample opportunity for guided discipline and corrections because he knows what is acceptable and what isn't.  I personally think NO without a corresponding YES is pointless.

Another great post Jeff. I'm finding that with that kind of all fours play, him 'winning' the game means getting to me and nipping. Just to be clear - when you're doing this play, you let him 'mouth' you for lack of a better word as long as it's not painful, and then draw the line at biting down? I'm struggling with the boundaries of play in general.

Yeah, so the trick is a quick correction, stern and with eye contact (very important). Keep in mind too that at your pup's age you're not gonna see any quick fix revelations in terms of their ability to know right from wrong.

Consistency and patience on your part is key. In my recent experience raising Link true recognition of right from wrong with bite inhibition didn't start until the 6 month period. I'm pretty sure that as a cognitive concept they aren't really capable of much before this time . Hopefully more experienced folks chime in here.

This is especially true when the rightness or wrongness of the exact same behavior is relative to a certain time or context. That is cognitively advanced stuff for a dog.

I personally think that so much of what we are trying to teach them just involves channeling their needs and drives, not getting rid of them. It seems like with them and mouthing (teeth on skin not biting) you just need to teach them about context and severity and you can do this through controlled play sessions. Play is how animals learn life lessons early on. Discipline and obedince regarding right and wrong are advanced cognitive skills that come much later.

Oh yeah, and at your pup's age prevention is the key. Never give in to his provocation. Never do things that cause him to escalate beyond what you feel is appropriate. Never allow him to get anything good from nipping or mouthing unless you are controlling the play session and in this case the play itself should be the reward. No treats or petting or affection without absolute calmness and sitting still.

Don't create a monster.

Thank you everyone for your tips and imformation.

yeah my husky is terrible about nipping when ever we go out in the backyard. not to bad in doors but really bad out back. if you turn your back on her she will jump up and nip you on the back of the arm. crabbing her on the back of the neck just makes things worse. she thinks we are playing. I too don't know how to brake her of this. she is 11 months old now. Very set in her ways and probably the most resistant, stubborn husky we have owned.