# Biting/Nipping Temper Tantrums



## BenjiBoy130 (Apr 1, 2017)

Hi all,
I'm fairly new to these forums. I just got my puppy about a week ago and now hes 9 weeks old. He is my everything I love him so much. So far our personal training consists of potty time, nipping and biting, and learning to walk on a leash (if anyone has any advice on this matter, it is highly welcomed). Sometimes he can lay on my lap and be very content with chewing his bone, but sometimes that's not enough and has to bite my hand. I try to redirect him to the bone or a toy instead but then he will throw a temper tantrum and bite harder and get more aggressive. 
He's been very good at letting me know when he has to potty, we have the occasional accidents but he does try to let me know most of the time.
As for the leash, he seems to think its a tug-toy and when I try to get him to walk he tries to shimmy the collar and leash off. I can seem to get him motivated to walk with me.

If any of you have advice on any of these instances, please feel free to share remedies, past experiences, stories etc.


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## cfriend (Dec 22, 2016)

Hi
Congratulations on your new puppy. We had all of the same problems as you. I think with puppies the key really is consistency. We tried a lot of different methods to combat puppy biting from yelping to redirection and just walking away when she bites. Walking away seemed to work best but you can try all of them and see what works. Although improvement might seem slow we just continued with practice and our puppy is now 5 months and hardly ever bites us only when she is super excited. 
For leash walking our puppy didn't ever really want to walk outside with us so we decided to initially just motivate her move (ie jump up and down and run with her so that she is too excited to notice the leash) and then just reward every time she had her focus on us instead of the leash. 
Hope this helps and enjoy this stage while it lasts


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## 2ndhandgal (Aug 29, 2011)

The important bit to remember is they are not temper tantrums and he is not being aggresive, biting and mouthing is how dogs play with each other, they just need to learn we are far more delicate which takes times and patience. Lots of distraction with toys, not over reacting when they do mouth you and teaching them things like "off" or leave all work well but it takes time.

For the lead you need to make sure you do not put any pressure on it to persuade the pup to move, pull by the neck and even the most placid of creatures will resist. Put the lead on and have some tasty treats in your hand. Put one down on the floor next to the pup and while they are eating it, step to the end of the lead, but keep the lead nice and light with no pressure at all on it. When pup has eaten they should wander up to you and you can then repeat, just gets both of you moving with the lead on. When the pup has relaxed when they get to you take one step and then put food down and move away, you can gradually start to move with puppy next to you and increase your number of steps by 1 each time before you give the treat. So 1 step - treat, 2 steps - treat, 3 steps - treat


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