Puppies are adorable creatures. But occasionally, owing to their genetic make-up, or out of fear they become aggressive towards humans and bite them. Understanding how they act and behave, as well as what makes them angry or anxious, is essential.
Also, you’ve to patiently handle and train them for their behavioral development.
3 month old puppy biting:
Typically there can be so many reasons why a 3 month old puppy bite. It can be because of their excitement or nervousness or just their natural defensive process. Socializing, redirecting to other things, if they can be kept busy learning some thoughtful behaviors, they’ll stop biting soon.
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As dogs have the same genetic makeup as their offspring, biting is a natural part of their behavior, which is the reason that biting in 3-month-old puppies is a hereditary issue. The little babies try to explore everything with their teeth that they just got.
However, the majority of the time, they bite because of the inappropriate human conduct. Puppy aggression towards humans can occur when their body language, cues, and conditions are not understood, which may be why they pounce on other people.
When children play with puppies in an abusive manner, the puppies may bite the children.
Reasons of 3 month old puppy biting:
Puppy biting can be caused by a variety of variables, so there isn’t one clear reason why a three-month-old puppy bites. Sometimes it may be due to people’s animal-aggressive natures. Other times, it may just be a puppy’s natural habit. The reasons are briefly discussing below:
A natural defensive process:
When pups are three months old and still developing, it is normal for them to bite people. By biting, they defend themselves.
When something threatens their comfort zone or they perceive it as detrimental to themselves, puppies defend themselves naturally by biting.
When youngsters tightly embrace or kiss them without knowing their mood or level of comfort, they may bite humans in defense.
The eruption of new teeth:
During the development of a puppy’s new teeth, which begin to erupt at the age of three or four months, the development of the puppy’s mouth may get irritated, which may lead to the puppy biting its human companions.
They act in this manner notwithstanding the circumstances.
Natural genetic phenomena:
As puppies learn from their ancestors, it’s possible that they acquire the habit of biting naturally at a genetic level. As a result, when an inappropriate action is taken against the pups, they bite.
So they adopt this biting nature as a genetic phenomenon.
Over excitement:
They are little puppies who still haven’t learned to control their excitement. They are so naïve, get tempted easily even with tiny matters and out of joy they can start biting you. They may also want treats or praise out of excitement and bite.
Out of fear and irritation:
Puppies have been known to bite humans out of fear and annoyance, especially when they are playing with children or humans who are acting erratically.
Children frequently provoke puppies unintentionally while they are around them, which can irritate the 3 month old puppies into biting.
Want your attention:
Puppies always want love, affection, attention and praise from their owner.
If they find you’re not focusing on them or doing other things for quite a long time, they may bite you because of some love, belly rub, or a physical touch like a hug or pat on the head.
Find any change in their routine:
Puppies are very much strict to follow their routine that they get by their ancestors or genes. They want the same thing you did for the last couple of days and any changes can make them confused.
They can’t stay, start biting you because of wanting your time.
Is it normal for 3 month old puppies to bite?
Puppy’s development into a biter at month 3 is a natural process. The primary cause of biting is related to the development of their teeth, which irritates them and causes them to adopt this process of tooth eruption development out of irritability.
In addition, their genetic composition predisposes them to bite when in danger or when they perceive a threat to their safety. It is also normal for them to bite someone who triggers them or pokes them.
When they are with their fellow puppies, it is normal for them to bite and growl as a common phenomenon of communication.
Aggressive biting:
A three-month-old puppy can, in fact, bite forcefully when forced to do anything against their will or when a person’s brutal nature irritates them.
Puppies will occasionally attempt to defend themselves by biting aggressively when they are terrified of other canines.
Biting a lot:
The tendency of three-month-old puppies to bite a lot is a regular occurrence. As their tooth eruption process is in full swing during this stage of growth, it is normal for them to bite a lot.
Biting and growling:
They get this quality from the moment of birth. Given that they use growling to interact with other dogs and express their feelings, three-month-old puppies would naturally do this.
Biting older dogs:
It’s normal for three-month-old puppies to bite older dogs when they play with other dogs and when they’re defending themselves in a dangerous scenario. However, they may end up getting hurt while defending themselves.
Biting me:
It is natural to get bitten by a three-month-old puppy. Some pups may bite their owners when their owners make an aggressive face hug or kiss attempt and fail to understand their body language.
It makes sense that the puppy would bite when this occurs.
What are the signs of an aggressive 3 month old puppy?
It’s actually really rare for a 3 month old little puppy to act as aggressive. Because normally, puppies can show aggressiveness from the end of the 4 month or 6 month old. In this little age, they may only learn to express their anger by nipping, snapping, mouthing or just by sniffing.
Growling, snarling, lip curling or angrily eye staring etc. they learn accordingly after 6-8 months old. They are the little puppies who are mostly seen with a joy in their face.
6 Tips to stop 3 month old puppy biting:
3 months old puppies are too little to adopt anything quickly. They’ll take time to understand and develop their behavior accordingly. With patience you can try these tricks to stop the little puppy biting:
Don’t try to react:
Puppies try to take attention from you, so if you react while they are biting you, they may think that it’s a play and keep chasing. By making yourself more enticing, you’ll be bitten by your pup.
That’s why, it’s better not to react while the puppy bites you and ignore that.
Redirect to another thing:
Try to take their focus on other things while they try to bite using the redirection method. For instance, give them a toy, try to make it move and make it more exciting to them than biting you.
It’ll really help to distract them and not to build up or continue this behavior. However, this takes a longer time and you have to patiently deal with it.
Give them the right kind of exercise:
Exercise can help keep puppies to develop behavior. You can consult with a vet and make an exercise plan for your puppy to develop their behaviors from the very early stage of life.
Some plays like tug, structured game like fetch or even jogging can be good exercise for a 3 month old puppy.
Socialization:
You can take them to the park for a walk and introduce them to new puppies. Socialization can help to stop your puppy biting because the puppy will let go of all his fear and will be able to adopt lots of good doggie manners in this process.
It’s one of the primary things to work on for them as it’ll solve many of their behavioral problems.
Teach the puppy ‘yes’ and ‘no’:
While their training or exercise, you can easily teach them ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to your puppy. While you give command ‘Yes’ and if they do so give them a treat.
And if they don’t listen and continue to walk around or jump, give them a ‘no’ then work to lure them into a seat. With time they will have a better understanding to distinguish between ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
Don’t become frustrated:
It needs much patience to deal with a 3 months old puppy. Try to not show any frustration to your little puppies as they may feel unsafe, become furious and won’t learn anything.
Final thoughts
Biting is one of the common, natural behaviors of little puppies. At this age, the little babies usually go through an uncomfortable teething process that makes them irritated and lead them biting. There are also many reasons why they bite but with a minimum training you can stop their biting.