Puppy Behavior Problems – Prevent Barking, Biting and Chewing

Puppies are cute and lovable, yet we often let them get away with puppy behavior problems like excessive barking, chewing, jumping, or even biting. When the puppy matures, these behaviors will no longer be cute. That’s why you should train your puppy to behave well while they are still small and highly trainable.

Unnecessary Barking

Among the most common puppy behavior problems is incessant barking. Puppies tend to bark at almost anything. Barking is their way of expressing themselves. But you can teach a puppy when it is alright to bark, and when it isn’t.

As with any behavior training, the way to encourage good behavior is to reward or praise it, and the way to stop bad behavior is to withhold something the puppy likes, like your attention. So when it barks unnecessarily, turn away from it. And when it stops barking, that’s the time you pat its head or play with it.

Biting and Nibbling

Sometimes, puppies bite playfully at your hand or fingers. But soon the bites can become more than just playful nibbles but real bites that actually hurt. If he does this habitually, it will also become natural for him to bite as a form of aggression; then you’ll have some puppy behavior problems.

When a dog bites out of anger (or even by accident), the consequences could be disastrous, for the person who was bitten, and for the dog. So from early on, puppies should be trained not to bite humans, or to stop biting on command.

For more aggressive and fiercer dogs, teaching them to just follow commands may not always work, especially when the dog is angry or agitated. You may have to enroll him in a dog school where a professional dog trainer can correct puppy behavior problems.

Chewing

Puppies need to chew constantly on hard objects to keep their canine teeth from getting too sharp. The thing to do about your puppy’s chewing is not to stop it from chewing altogether, but to teach it not to chew on forbidden objects. One way to do this is to teach your puppy to obey when you tell him to let go of an object he is chewing on.

You can also train your puppy to allow you to open its mouth without going through puppy behavior problems like biting or snarling. This can be very useful when you have to pull out an object from the puppy’s mouth very quickly, like when the object he is chewing is poisonous. In such cases, you will no longer have the time to coax the dog in case he refuses to let the object out of his mouth.