Buying or adopting a puppy and bringing it home for the first time is one of the happiest things you can experience. However, the mischief and poor behavior that's soon to follow is just the opposite. No matter where you get your puppy, its breed, or its personality, nipping, biting, and jumping on humans are typical of all pups.
However, while this behavior might seem cute and cuddly at first, it will become a huge problem as your pup ages and develops. If you don't want a full-grown dog nipping at your heels and jumping on top of you, it's important to train these behaviors out of them when they're young. Otherwise, your dog might accidentally end up hurting you or someone else when they get older.
Why Do Puppies Bite and Jump on People?- 10 Tips to Get Your Dog to Stop Nipping, Biting, and Jumping on Humans
- Tips to Keep Your Dog From Jumping on People
- What to do When All Else Fails?
Why Do Puppies Bite and Jump on People?
Most puppies are not aggressive by nature. As a result, biting and jumping are rarely done out of aggression or anger. Instead, puppies will bite and jump on people out of playfulness or curiosity. As with babies, puppies also go through a teething stage where their teeth are highly sensitive, and biting helps ease the pain and discomfort.
Unfortunately, if you never train your puppy not to do these things, they will never stop. Eventually, biting, nipping, and jumping can turn into aggressive behavior that your dog uses when they don't get their way or for self-defense purposes. Therefore, it's important to nip this behavior in the bud while your dog is still a puppy and listens to you.
10 Tips to Get Your Dog to Stop Nipping, Biting, and Jumping on Humans
For most puppies, the teething stage lasts for several months. However, if you don't teach them that biting and nipping aren't ok, they will continue to do it as long as they live.
Give Your Puppy Teething Toys
In the same way that babies need something to chew on when their teething, so do puppies. While it might seem cute at first, when your puppy wants to nip at your hands and fingers, your joy will turn to pain as they start developing teeth. By giving your pup several teething toys designed to soothe their gums, they're less likely to bite other things for relief.
As an additional tip, take your teething toy and put it in the freezer before giving it to your pup. This will provide extra comfort.
Don't Play With Your Hands
It's also tempting as a dog owner to use your hands when you play with your dog. When you do this, however, it's teaching your dog to subconsciously view your hands as toys, which means they're allowed to chew them. By not using your hands to rough house or push your dog around during playtime, they're less likely to nip at them.
Use Treats as an Incentive
While it might be tempting to lash out and punish your dog for misbehaving, you should instead use a carrot instead of a stick while you're training them. Treats are a much better incentive for dogs than the threat of punishment, and you should use them when your dog listens to you and refrains from biting or jumping on someone.
Don't Encourage Your Puppy When They're Nipping or Biting
Let's face it. Puppies are adorable when they're playfully nipping or biting your hands. However, while it might be tempting to encourage them and keep the playfulness going, you should instead ignore them. Soon, they'll stop nipping and biting and turn their attention to something else.
Distract Your Puppy When They Start Biting You
If ignoring your puppy during bad behavior isn't working, you should instead redirect their attention to a chew toy to distract them. Puppies have notoriously bad ADD, which makes them very easy to distract during bad behavior.
Turn Misbehavior Into Training
As a dog owner, it's important to view every moment of misbehavior as a potential training opportunity. No matter how tired or overwhelmed you are, rather than letting your puppy go or punishing them, turn every instance of biting, nipping, jumping, and aggressive behavior into a training opportunity.
Tips to Keep Your Dog From Jumping on People
While you can use many of the same tips and tricks while teaching your dog not to jump on people, here are a few additional ideas.
Push Your Dog Down When They Jump on You
Anytime your dog tries to jump on you, gently push them back down on their feet and tell them to sit. If they continue jumping after several attempts, resort to using treats or a form of punishment to reinforce your instructions.
Put Your Knee in Front of You
No, we're not recommending that you intentionally knee your dog as it's jumping on you. Instead, here's what you should do.
- As your dog is running towards you to jump on you, put your knee out in front of you.
- Make sure to place your knee out, so your dog has plenty of time to slow down.
- You only want your dog to bump into your knee rather than run into it.
This knee trick is perfectly safe and won't hurt your dog as long as they don't run into you. It will reinforce the idea that there's a barrier between you and your dog so that they can't jump up on you.
Ignore and Step Away
As with biting and nipping, sometimes, ignoring your dog is the best way to teach them that jumping on you is unacceptable. After all, the most likely reason your dog is jumping on you is that they're happy to see you. If you ignore them when they misbehave by jumping, they'll quickly learn that the best way to get your attention is to greet you in less aggressive ways.
What to Do When All Else Fails
If you've tried everything and your puppy still nips, bites, and jumps on people, you should hire a professional. Professional dog trainers have years of training and experience when it comes to training bad behaviors out of dogs. Several sessions with a pro should be all it takes to put an end to your puppy's destructive behavior.
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