[MintLatte]

Hi,

I'm 19, and I have a one year old hound mix. Basically, he's been biting me constantly. In the morning, he'll greet me happily with kisses. Then when I sit down with him, he starts biting me. He bites my feet, my hands, my arms, and rips up my sleeves. I have to fend him off for 30 minutes sometimes and I get scared of hurting him. It's been going on for months. If I play with him, he'll play for the toy for a moment but then go back to biting me. Also, why is he only chewing me? He doesn't do it to my parents or sister. I'm not sure what I am doing different. He is a pretty hyper and jumpy dog overall, but yeah, I'm the only one he bites. He has a fence outside he runs around in to burn off energy.

I'm just depressed because I don't see him much(I'm in college and go home on weekends) and I feel like most of the time we spend together is him biting me. He was biting before I left for college btw.

 

[Littlefox]

You need to teach him that the only thing he can put his teeth on are his toys, not your body or your clothes. The way you can do this is to remove yourself as soon as he starts biting you. Praise, lots and lots of praise for playing with the toys. Show him you enjoy playing with him, but say "Ouch" and walk away as soon as his teeth touch you. For some dogs shouting "Ouch" snaps them out of it, for others it only excites them more. For our pup Trixie I say in a pretend sad voice "Ouch" and she immidiately either stops or bites softly (she is only 10 weeks old so she is learning bite inhibition, there it is important for us to allow her to bite us to learn which bite is too strong).
It helps if you have baby gates set up to get away without him following you. Only stay away a few minutes and try again to get him to play with the toy. He needs to see that he can get attention and playtime with you as long as he does not bite you.
Are you getting him to run and exercise to use up his energy?
Also doing daily training sessions to teach obedience will help redirecting him when he misbehaves.

 

[dogslife]

Is he *biting* you or is he *mouthing* like a puppy? (check out the difference on Google/youtube).

 

[Shandula]

Then when I sit down with him, he starts biting me. He bites my feet, my hands, my arms, and rips up my sleeves.

Are you down on the ground with him? In general if you’re down on the ground with your dog (especially young dogs!) they read this as a clear sign to play. Depending on how you play with your dog, you might get different play styles.

I have to fend him off for 30 minutes sometimes

Are you pushing him away/redirecting his head etc? That all sounds like rough-housing, and depending on the dog can be a VERY fun game. In fact, I play “bitey-face” with all three of my dogs where I make a claw hand and push them around and they mouth me in return.

He is a pretty hyper and jumpy dog.He has a fence outside he runs around in to burn off energy.

What about mental training or enrichment? What about going for walks to really encourage him to use his nose? Why don’t you try to teach him some tricks? Most hounds I know are pretty food motivated so you could teach him fun tricks like spin, roll over, or shake a paw.

Another option would be to feed him his meals outside on the grass (before it gets too cold!), this would cause him to have to sniff/snuffle through the grass for his food. It’s an excellent way to both slow down a gulping dog and encourage some light nose work.

Ultimately, if you want him to stop mouthing you, you need to teach him it is unacceptable. You’re probably the one he does it to because you’re fresh and exciting every weekend, whereas he sees your parents every day.

You can do this by offering him a toy, and as long as he plays with the toy that’s fine. The moment he mouths you instead or grabs your sleeve, say something like “ouch” or “oops” (I choose these on purpose because it is hard to say them in a super angry tone) and immediately remove yourself from him, and go into a room and close the door. It only has to be for a few seconds and then repeat. He will learn that playing nicely will cause play to continue, mouthing will cause play to end.

 

[MintLatte]

Are you down on the ground with him? In general if you’re down on the ground with your dog (especially young dogs!) they read this as a clear sign to play. Depending on how you play with your dog, you might get different play styles.



Are you pushing him away/redirecting his head etc? That all sounds like rough-housing, and depending on the dog can be a VERY fun game. In fact, I play “bitey-face” with all three of my dogs where I make a claw hand and push them around and they mouth me in return.



What about mental training or enrichment? What about going for walks to really encourage him to use his nose? Why don’t you try to teach him some tricks? Most hounds I know are pretty food motivated so you could teach him fun tricks like spin, roll over, or shake a paw.

Another option would be to feed him his meals outside on the grass (before it gets too cold!), this would cause him to have to sniff/snuffle through the grass for his food. It’s an excellent way to both slow down a gulping dog and encourage some light nose work.

Ultimately, if you want him to stop mouthing you, you need to teach him it is unacceptable. You’re probably the one he does it to because you’re fresh and exciting every weekend, whereas he sees your parents every day.

You can do this by offering him a toy, and as long as he plays with the toy that’s fine. The moment he mouths you instead or grabs your sleeve, say something like “ouch” or “oops” (I choose these on purpose because it is hard to say them in a super angry tone) and immediately remove yourself from him, and go into a room and close the door. It only has to be for a few seconds and then repeat. He will learn that playing nicely will cause play to continue, mouthing will cause play to end.

I'm not sure it's college though. During summer break I was the one home the most and he was biting me then too.

He usually bites me when I'm sitting on the couch. I do push him away yeah or try to distract him. We do give him peanut butter but I am not sure if that's a bad thing(like it being a reward). I do hide in the bathroom when he's biting me but I'm not sure if that counts.These are all pretty good ideas, I'd probably have to talk to my parents about some of them. I've actually never even took him for a walk(my sister's done it mostly).

 

[dogslife]

I think I see part of your problem. I'm going to assume that when you say "biting" you mean the kind of biting involved in play and not an attack.

He usually bites me when I'm sitting on the couch. I do push him away yeah or try to distract him. We do give him peanut butter but I am not sure if that's a bad thing(like it being a reward).

Ok... what you're doing here is reinforcing the behaviour. Dog's minds are really linear.

He bites you, you give him attention and peanut butter. So what the dog learns is "when I bite I get play time and peanut butter".

He likes play time and peanut butter.... so what do you think he learned to do when he wants it?

See?

If you want to teach the dog to stop that then you need to discourage the behaviour. There are basically four ways you can do that. They fall out like this. I'm going to use the words "positive" and "negative" but you need to understand before you read this that what I mean by positive is to *add* something and by negative I mean to *remove* something. It's not what you usually think when you hear those words.

(sidebar: if you want to learn a little more about operant conditioning, you can start with a website like this one: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/waymaker-psychology/chapter/operant-conditioning/)

1) positive reinforcement:
a) *add* something the dog doesn't like. For example, you could spray him in the face with a water bottle. I'm not suggesting you do this, but for the concept it is illustrative.
b) *add* something the dog likes. You would do this when the dog STOPS biting you and you want to reward that. For example, you can let him sniff the peanut butter but only GIVE it to him when he STOPS biting. This is how most dog training is approached these days.

2) negative reinforcement:
a) *removed* something the dog doesn't like. This isn't used much in training but conceptually you could see it like this. Suppose you play an uncomfortable sound that the dog doesn't like as soon as he starts biting and only STOP playing that sound when the dog STOPS biting. That would be this kind of thing.
Another example would be if you were to pinch the dog when he starts to bite and stop pinching him when he stops. Old school trainers used this technique but it's totally taboo today. I'm including it for completeness.
b) *remove* something the dog likes. For example, if he bites you could get up and leave the room, taking the peanut butter with you. Close the door and come back to try again in a few minutes. Each time he bites, you leave and come back later. Eventually the coin will drop.

Approaches built around 1b and 2b are common in dog training these days.

So.... you can try this: When your dog comes around to "play", let him sniff the peanut butter but don't give him any. If he plays "nice" then give him peanut butter (1b). If he starts mouthing/biting, then pick up the peanut butter and leave the room with it for +/- 5min (2b), rinse and repeat.

With a few dozen repetitions, you should start to see a marked difference in his behaviour. Beyond that, it's a question of fine tuning.

I do hide in the bathroom when he's biting me but I'm not sure if that counts.These are all pretty good ideas, I'd probably have to talk to my parents about some of them. I've actually never even took him for a walk(my sister's done it mostly).

Hiding in the bathroom is a little like 2b but it's not effective if the dog is allowed to wait outside the door for you to come out. That's just playing hide-and-seek with him. To really apply 2b, the DOG needs to be isolated, not you.

Good luck.

 

[MintLatte]

That makes sense. Peanut butter isn't all the time but yeah. We have a water bottle too. It's play biting I'm pretty sure. He used to leave bruises and stratches but not recently.

One thing I'm still confused about-why only me? I know there's the college thing, but before college during summer break when I spent most of my time at home, he was being bitey then(and leaving bruises). How do I tell what I'm doing different?

 

[dogslife]

Well... I don't think you'll get a really definitive answer to that over the internet.

However, like I said, dogs are pretty linear. If he's only biting you then you have somehow, whether conscious of it or not, taught him that it's ok.

At this point I wouldn't worry about that too much. I would just go about training it out of him.

 

[mustluvdogs66]

Do you yell or squeal when he bites? Something you’re doing is encouraging the biting.
Redirect his biting to a toy. If he doesn’t want the toy, then totally ignore him until he calms down. Pushing is attention. Any attention (bad or good) is attention. No water bottles. That doesn’t show him anything except water and humans spraying water is either fun or scary (depending on his personality).
You need to start working with him. He needs to see you as someone who will guide him vs. being another “puppy” he can play with.
Walks are Very important. The yard is very boring (imagine if you were only in your room 24/7? Boring, huh?).
Start taking walks with him. Ask him for sit, down, stay, etc... before giving him any attention. Take part of his breakfast/dinner and do some training sessions with him.