Dog Trainers / Dog Trainers Illinois / Dog Training / Dog Training Tips

STOP puppy BITING clothes

- by MarkW2002 - 38 Comments.

This training game teaches puppies not to bite at your clothes, accessories, shoes, shoelaces and hair. This is one of the first games to play with your new puppy. My puppy in the video is 8 weeks old and I had just gotten him a few days prior to the filming. The first few days I had my puppy I first worked on teaching him how to take treats nicely as well as how to do a calm settle around food.
Here are two video tutorials on those topics:
Calm settle – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wesm2OpE_2c
Take treats nicely – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXDWbtx44b8

It's important to use management and prevention between training sessions so your puppy doesn't rehearse the behavior. And if a mistake happens and the puppy starts to bite at something or someone quickly redirect the puppy to doing another behavior, such as playing with his toys or going to his bed. Here is a video on interrupting undesirable behaviors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLr3ame9Ptk

In the video I demonstrate how to work with a dangling sweater, shoes and shoe laces but you can use this same method to work with your puppy on anything that your puppy shows interest in moving toward and biting… for example if you have long hair and the puppy wants to bite at it, bracelets, dresses, skirts, long jackets, or kids playing with their own toys you don't want the puppy to play with.

Here is a list of the steps:
Step 1 Mark as the distraction happens
Step 2 Mark after the distraction begins
Step 3 Add more time before you mark
Step 4 Add difficulty and variety to the training

Check out my dogs’ daily antics on INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/kikopup/

FOLLOW ON FACEBOOK: https://www.instagram.com/kikopup/

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE FOR FREE TRAINING ARTICLES, VIDEOS AND PRODUCTS: https://dogmantics.com/

The online store where you can find Professional Dog Training memberships, Self-study courses and video on demand for purchase: https://dogmantics.com/shop/

If you would like to support my work to create more educational videos like this one on how to train dogs without the use of physical or psychological intimidation, consider clicking the join button and becoming a member of channel Kikopup! It's kind of like the youtube version of patreon with perks. 🙂 Click this link here if a join button does not show up on your device such as a phone: https://www.youtube.com/user/kikopup/join

Happy Training!

– Emily Larlham (AKA Kikopup)

#puppytraining #puppytrainingbasics #puppybiting #puppytraining101

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38 Comments on “STOP puppy BITING clothes”

  1. I love watching how different trainers tackle this subject. Some popular trainers like to train in the moment for this, but I love how you tackle this before it becomes a habit. I see it everywhere puppy biting hands and clothes. Personally I trained my pup this same way, we never had a biting problem or chewing problem thank goodness! I got very lucky in that aspect.

    2. @Dog Training by Kikopup I say lucky because in every other aspect I feel as if I failed with him. Reactive (even though he was socialized) whines and barks constantly (although he gets plenty of exercise and training daily) and he has bad seperation anxiety, he even broke out of his crate and threw his body into my window and cracked it. (And that was when he was on anxiety medicine) But as for biting I got very lucky with that.

    4. Sorry to hear this. Honestly, when you have owned lots of dogs from a puppy you see that some dogs just have the genetics to be a certain way… Wish was always a very fearful reactive and anxious and guardy type of puppy and she still easily worried about things and anxious in new situations… But all my other dogs are amazing… but nothing bad happened to wish and sadly two of my other dogs were actually attacked by dogs… so… well.. sometimes its just genetics and the dogs personality. Sometimes even with friendly parents the puppy inherits the personality of the past relatives that might have been reactive or aggressive. The thing is one behavior issue can affect the others and things go in a downward spiral when things are going bad, but the good thing, is when you start to work on 1 behavior issue it can actually start to change things for the better with other behavioral issues and things start to go in an upward spiral. This is also another thing to keep in mind when training a dog like the one you have – https://dogmantics.com/too-much-of-a-good-thing-are-the-activities-your-dog-loves-doing-making-him-sick/

    1. This all looks great, a well-behaved puppy to work with makes it look easy. Does not show what one is to do when they do bite and not ignore the dangling clothes. When one gets up in the morning and cannot walk to make their breakfast. When they jump up at end tables, your socks, pants, sweaters and house coats. One does not always have a clicker in hand. Vet says treats are only suppose to be 10% of their diet. The puppies I see here are nothing like my beagle….lol.

    2. My lebrador is a female she is 1 year old and she. Continuously does it
      And it didn’t help me maybe she is 12 moths old
      Can u upload a video on it plzzzzz

    4. @Dog Training by Kikopup Dear Kikopup.Respect for what you’re doing.But in this case my biggest scare is about
      the puppy gets hurted,run on the street or gets stolen by others.Unbelieveable sweet,the australian shepheard puppy.
      Ah,i forgot.When the small puppy bites you,sweet and softly,easy to stand this small pain,then i showed the puppy to bite harder,then my girl-friends
      puppy recognized,that nothing is to reach by biting and did it never again.Try it out.Sweet pain,believe me and it works.

  5. Brings back memories of when My dog was a puppy. My mother was visiting me & my then puppy chewed through my mother’s new & very expensive shoes. I can laugh about it now. (Just not in front of her!!!)
    Thanks for yet another fantastic tutorial & thank you Ted Jack for your support. Absolutely love what you do.

  6. What a great video! I had not found this information presented clearly in any other YT-video, this was just what we needed for our puppy right now. Thank you so much!

  7. You pay so much attention to these basics.
    I think that’s great. It will give many puppies a headstart.
    So many views in only a view days.
    I like all your vids, but this one is special to me. Thanks.

  11. I learned this technique from you years ago and it works beautifully. The same idea can be applied in so many scenarios (clicking for not doing something).

    1. Yeah! It’s scientifically called Differential Reinforcement of an Incompatible behavior (Alternate or Other behavior) DRI DRA DRO I always just say DRI for trainers.

  12. What do you do if your puppy already has an aggressive hold on your clothes and won’t let go? I’m a first time dog owner. I have been watching training videos but didn’t find anything like this.

  13. Thank you for this!! Your handling drills for when we’re playing or I’m touching his collar have helped a ton. How would I do this while I’m walking him? He’s an 11 week old GSD and he’s taken to biting my legs while we walk. While he’s walking by me and he doesn’t bit my legs, should I mark and reward that? Then slowly increase the length he doesn’t bite at my legs before rewarding him? Thanks!!

  14. I have a 9 week old hound mix. He is 9 weeks old today and I got him Oct 31 so I’ve had him a little over a week. He has been doing really well with a lot of his training. He will make good eye contact when I say his name. He is going pretty good with potty training and crate training. He is good with sit, lay out, touch, we are working on leave it and drop it. So all in all he has done very well for his first week. The main problem he has is he will get over stimulated when we play and he will start aggressively biting at our feet/pant legs. I’ve worked on trying to desensitize him. When he is in training mode he listens very well and I can rub my feet all over him or hope around him and he just sits there making eye contact and being calm. And we will play well and then all the sudden it’s like a switch goes off and he decides to go for the feet and turns aggressive. I play with him calmly and try to keep his attention on the toys and not on me but the same cycle keeps happening everyday. He will wake up from a nap, I take him outside, maybe do some training outside/inside, we will play and then feet attack and I have to put him in his play pen. I also have different puzzles games for mental stimulation and he has like 3 kongs. I feel like I’m trying everything to make sure he is a well rounded dog but he keeps aggressive attacking our feet and I don’t know how to desensitize him cause like I said when he is in training mode he will listen. He is only 9 weeks old so maybe I’m expecting too much from him and hopefully he will grow out of this?… but it makes me sad cause I feel like I can’t play with my puppy and I have to keep putting him in his play pen. 🙁 any advice?…

  15. This technique is so helpful. My 11 week old puppy won’t stop chewing through my sweaters while I’m wearing them. This trick is like magic. Thank you very much

  16. I like how you show “this is a normal puppy” it reminds me of magicians saying “look this is just an ordinary box, these are ordinary cuffs and I have nothing up my sleeve!”

  18. Thank you for taking the time to make these videos for people new to raising puppies. They’re incredibly helpful and I appreciate how you always make the dog’s wellbeing your priority as you train. My chihuahua puppy loves tugging at my pants and isn’t interested when I attempt redirection to nearby toys so this video is just what I needed! I’ve also been working on his nipping using your technique.

  19. Hiii 🙃 great video! I just discovered you thanks to Mary. My 4 month old border collie does this great but unfortunately sometimes when aroused when playing he just still loves nipping, he doesn’t do it as much as before but still does it and sometimes it’s difficult to deal with, so any advice for nipping more with their herding genes would be highly appreciated ☺️☺️☺️☺️ thank youuuuu 😊

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