Still mouthing?

[Leo0106]

Hi all,
I've had a quite long struggle to get my pup (now 11months) to stop with his play and frustration biting.
I posted previously and had a lot of help with this and his frustrated and attention seeking biting is practically halved compared to what it was a month or so ago however his mouthing behaviour when he is tired is still pretty prominent.

Leo will come for a cuddle on our laps during the day when he wants a nap however when he wakes up or stirs or is trying to get settled he will often try to mouth our hands. This also happens sometimes if we are stroking his belly.

I know mouthing is quite common however Leo can get a little hard with it especially if we discourage it... Just wondered if you have any ideas to try and limit this?

So far we have tried the following from 12 weeks old:
Saying 'ouch' or yelping -this excites him and makes the biting harder
Total ignorance and leaving the room- this works however the actual act of removing him from our lap to get up and leave makes him do it more
Holding my hand still and giving a firm 'off!'- this sometimes works and sometimes dosnt (although we havnt been trying this for very long) He will sometimes remove his mouth for a short period where we will then give him praise but he will generally start again quite quickly.

Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated! I understand it might just be a bit of perseverance with using the same thing but just wondered whether it was a normal behaviour and if there's anything I'm not doing!
Thanks in advance

[hoover]

Ollie was similar but by this age we consistently removed him from the room to have time out in the gated kitchen...by lead as need be as at times we could not safely handle him (although I think he was over his really bad stage by 9 months or so).  He would promptly fall asleep as it was tiredness which was the route cause.  It is probably hard for Leo to really fall solidly asleep on your laps so he will be exhausted and yet unable to sleep  and will of course be playing up so I would say he needs to go to another room or crate, although I know you are not keen on the crate. 

Ollie at the age of 2 sleeps most solidly in another room without distraction, if we try to keep him with us he will still mouth as he does not drop off solidly...just imagine if you were never able to completely fall asleep but were always pulled back to consciousness every few minutes through distractions, you would be grumpy too.  At the age of 2 his mouthing is much more gentle and controllable and of course we know when it  does happen it is kind of our fault as we could have insisted he had a proper undisturbed sleep and provided the right environment for this, but because we love having him with us we have let him try to sleep on the sofa.

[Leo0106]

Hi Hoover
Thanks for your response, yes I do feel sometimes we want to just have him with us and that is selfish on our part, he does go for 'settles' behind the gate in the evening and throughout the day where 99% of the time he just falls straight asleep.
Maybe we need to be putting him back behind the gate the first time he mouths? Rather than encouraging him to stop?

We were keeping his lead on him when he was regularly attacking our legs for attention however when we use his lead in the evening to take him back to behind the gate he just lays down and refuses to move haha
I will try just giving him 1 strike and he's out tonight... sometimes he will fully fall asleep on us. Dreaming and everything but that is defiantly more when it's just me around and no distraction of daddy!!

[Emilyoliver]

Hi, have you ever tried just keeping your hand still, in his mouth?  I've done it with my puppies.  I think often the 'yelping' or 'no' and pulling of hands away can excite them further and they carry on grabbing for your hand or whatever.  It's a bit like playing tug with a toy.  As soon as you stop pulling, they stop.  It's part of the game. Then you can quietly move your hand once he's calmed down.  it's also less disruptive than having to remove him from the room every time he does it. 

[Leo0106]

Hi emilyoliver yes this is something that we have begun trying quite recently.
I find that during the day it works...ish. He will mouth my hand, I'll stay still and give a very slight gasp and he will pull away. I'll praise him for pulling away but more often than not he will go back to mouth again which I know may just be part of the learning process. At night he he less tolerent and will just carry on going haha

[Londongirl]

I found that in certain circumstances Henry would still mouth even up to about 18 months of age. His particular crazy place was on the sofa. He’d come up for a cuddle but would very quickly do what we call ‘go curly’, when he’d twist and roll onto his back, flail with his paws and nip. He really wanted a cuddle, but just couldn’t seem to stop the nipping. If he started, I’d get up and walk away a few steps. He’d very quickly jump up and follow me. Then I’d sit down. Rinse and repeat until he’d give up and walk off. If we really needed peace and quiet on the sofa we’d put him behind the gate in the kitchen.

Now he’s two and seems to have managed to grow out of it and can stay sensible when he’s on the sofa - mostly.

So really, I think Leo will grow out of it along with your management of not allowing him to rehearse the behaviour. He has a long history of mouthing and nipping, so it will be a long tail of the behaviour extinguishing, and there is always going to be one situation that’s last to resolve.

[ips]

I found that in certain circumstances Henry would still mouth even up to about 18 months of age. His particular crazy place was on the sofa. He’d come up for a cuddle but would very quickly do what we call ‘go curly’, when he’d twist and roll onto his back, flail with his paws and nip. He really wanted a cuddle, but just couldn’t seem to stop the nipping. If he started, I’d get up and walk away a few steps. He’d very quickly jump up and follow me. Then I’d sit down. Rinse and repeat until he’d give up and walk off. If we really needed peace and quiet on the sofa we’d put him behind the gate in the kitchen.

Now he’s two and seems to have managed to grow out of it and can stay sensible when he’s on the sofa - mostly.

So really, I think Leo will grow out of it along with your management of not allowing him to rehearse the behaviour. He has a long history of mouthing and nipping, so it will be a long tail of the behaviour extinguishing, and there is always going to be one situation that’s last to resolve.

That's exactly what eze does in the evening when she is tired, cushions and throws pushed off the sofa whilst doing so. Interestingly she sometimes nips and chews lynns clothes but never does it to me. No idea why that would be.

[hoover]

As an add on to the keeping the hand still in the mouth method, we used to gently make a fist and carefully probe further into the back of Ollie's mouth which made continued mouthing an uncomfortable exercise for him and also meant he couldn't bite as hard. 

[Leo0106]

Thanks all, from what you all mention, particularly the nipping at clothes and the curling up on his back literally sounds exactly like Leo. So I'm pleased it's not abnormal!
Leo defiantly goes more mouthing crazy on the sofa, and at times he will just jump up and bite the throw cushions.. which he knows is a massive no no as he stares at me while he does it, ready to pounce away as if nothing happened!
I've gone for the 'one chance and you're out' tactic tonight and he's just chewed the cushions, been put behind the gate and has fallen straight asleep.
I do believe it is all down to tiredness! He's 11 months old today so hopefully only 13 more months of it... 

I have a feeling I am only noticing his mouthing more now as he is biting so much less in all other situations. I think to us it became just another day to day battle but now he's biting less we feel quite shocked when he mouths haha

[Micahs Mum]

Micah is a lot younger at almost 16 weeks but his mouthing was very painful.

As others have said his mouthing & behaviour deteriorated when he was tired so  early on I learnt to give him plenty of time to sleep undisturbed in his crate in a different room & not waiting until he's really tired to do it. When they sleep on us they don't get the sleep they need that will help his  behaviour but rather disturbed light snoozing. I totally understand that you love to have him snuggle with you but the need to crate him to rest fully won't last forever then you can have years of nice snuggling without any mouthing!

I have found that giving him time to sleep before he gets overtired has led to a dramatic change in level of mouthing & general  naughtiness, in fact he rarely mouths now.

That said, it is important that we teach them bite inhabition & that we humans are big softies so that if ever a circumstance, say when badly hurt in a lot of pain & lashes out, his bite won't be very hard. That is the theory we teach but I have never been in that circumstance to know if it works!
I used this method but only when he was well rested.  I used to yelp but this time I've use a low tone "ouch that hurt" so it didn't excite him more & then very briefly ignore him. In a way you're engineering a time when he will mouth by playing with him. When  you first start this it will be quite hard bite, what your aiming to do is say. "ouch that hurt" etc slightly sooner each time & what you will find is the more you do this the mouthing will become softer & softer. Now Micah barely applies any pressure.

Also Micah was very grabby when it came to giving him treats which hurt a lot! I wouldn't release the treat if he did that. Invariably he'd have got up from his sit position so I'd get him to sit & try again this time saying gentle & only releasing it when he was gentle.

This was like a two pronged attack because when mouthing if on the rare occasion he  applies a bit to much pressure, I say "gentle" & he corrects himself.
Even if yours isn't grabby you can still say "gentle" as you move your arm down to give the treat & then say "good gentle" as you release it.

Sorry for the long reply! Hopefully I described it accurately & clearly! It's such an important aspect of training.





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