Are you wondering why your 4-month-old puppy is biting everything in your house? Are you worried that this biting behavior of a four-month-old puppy is a sign of sickness?
Additionally, are you looking for ways to prevent this biting behavior of your 4-month-old puppy?
4 month old puppy biting:
Your 4-month-old puppies can definitely show biting behavior. This is because of the teething phase that they go through in their puppyhood. And to stop this behavior, you can adopt different training methods, schooling techniques, and socialization processes.
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When your 4-month-old puppy bites you, it can be due to affection, excitement, frustration, and so on.
However, the most important reason why your 4-month-old puppies show biting behaviors is due to their teething or mouthing phases which they go through in their development.
You also need to remember that it is nothing uncommon for your puppy to show biting behavior but it is also needed to regulate this behavior with proper measures so that this biting behavior cannot result in any accidents.
Reasons of 4 month old puppy biting:
There is a myriad of reasons why your 4-month-old puppy is showing too much or moderate biting behavior.
Therefore, being knowledgeable about the proper reasoning for puppies’ biting attitude can help you to remove your confusion.
Experiencing the Surrounding:
Your 4-month-old puppy wants to be familiar with the surroundings therefore, it will bite everything as an act of exploring things around it.
In addition, puppies like to bite everything to get sensory information regarding those elements and thus it registers in their mind what the environment is like around them.
So, this is basically a way of learning for them which is why it is really normal for them to bite clothing, remote controls, windows, furniture, pillows, carpet, and so on just for their exploration.
Overexcitement:
One of the common reasons why your 4-month-old puppy shows biting behavior is related to overexcitement.
Young puppies generally tend to be energetic and excited in nature. Accordingly, in such situations, they do not yet know how to calm their high arousal of excitement, and therefore, when they become very excited, they start losing control and start biting everything in sight.
Sometimes, when your 4-month-old puppies start to bite you out of excitement, they can get more excited especially when you try to remove your hand as an instinct to a dog bite.
However, your 4-month-old puppy will perceive this behavior as you being playful and will start biting more.
Nevertheless, the good news is that 4-month-old puppies’ biting behavior due to overexcitement will go away eventually if you teach them the proper bite inhibition process and so on.
Frustration:
Your 4-month-old puppy can also show biting behaviors especially if your 4-month-old puppy is frustrated or angry. Accordingly, as an act of showing anger or frustration, a 4-month-old puppy will start biting anything.
In addition, another reason for frustration in your 4-month-old puppies is due to the feeling of tiredness or fussiness.
Is it normal for 4 month old puppies to bite?
It is important to know whether or not your 4-month-old puppy’s biting behavior is normal or not so that you can act according to that information.
Biting and growling or barking:
It is not that uncommon for 4-month-old puppies to bite along with growling or barking. This is because barking, growling, and biting are just their way of communicating with their surrounding.
However, there is a fine line between growling or biting for fun and growling or biting to show aggression. This is where you have to be aware of the defining distinctions for aggression in your puppy.
Biting clothes:
When your 4-month-old puppy starts biting clothes, it’s just a normal stage of its development. Additionally, it also means that it is looking for your cuddle and attention when it is biting your clothes.
Biting everything:
When puppies are four months old, they are in their teething phase. In this phase, they like to bite everything and this is where their biting behavior develops.
In addition, they try to explore the world or surrounding environment with their teeth by biting them and this is why you will see them bite everything.
Biting when excited:
Your 4-month-old puppy can definitely start biting when it is excited and this is because overexcitement in young puppies causes them to be very playful or in need of attention which gets reflected in biting.
Biting me:
Your 4-month-old puppy will definitely bite you in a very playful way. This is because they like to grab your attention or they like to play with you.
In addition, this type of biting or mouthing is very common and normal for all puppies. This is how your four-month-old puppy shows that it cares for you.
Biting child:
Puppies that are 4 months old can start biting children especially if they see them running which will only excite your 4-month-old puppies more.
However, there can be another reason why 4-month-old puppies can bite children and this is due to the territorial nature of puppies.
Biting face and hands:
It is common for 4-month-old puppies to bite faces and hands, not in a malicious way but rather in a very playful way.
However, you need to make sure to train your 4-month-old puppy not to bite your face and hand aggressively to make sure nothing bad happens.
5 tips to stop 4 month old puppy biting:
Several reasons contribute to making your 4-month-old puppies start biting therefore, being knowledgeable about the proper ways to stop your 4-month-old puppies from biting can help you to avoid unwanted situations.
Provide Puppy Toys:
It is really common for 4-month-old puppies to bite everything in sight whether to explore things or to be playful. This is why if you want to discourage them from biting, you need to provide them with appropriate toys which they can bite.
Accordingly, you can give them toys such as rubber toys, rope toys, stuffed toys, rubber balls, and so on which they can bite easily without getting their teeth hurt.
In addition, to make sure that your puppies start biting the appropriate things, you need to give a lot of verbal praise when they start biting these soft toys.
This process is referred to as redirecting your puppies’ biting behavior to appropriate objects which will help in managing their teething phase appropriately.
React to Puppy Bites:
One of the effective ways of making sure that your 4-month-old puppy does not bite you is related to saying no to your puppy every time it starts to bite you or any hard objects.
Accordingly, yelping when your 4-month-old puppy bites you and putting your 4-month-old puppy on timeouts can help in reducing the biting attitude.
Socialization:
Socialization can be a great way to stop your 4-month-old puppy’s need to bite everything in sight.
To do that, you need to admit your 4-month-old puppy to a doggy daycare where your puppy’s socialization skills will be enhanced and it will learn some good dog manners from other dogs around the daycare.
These puppy kindergarten for socialization can not only provide better biting inhibition training programs but will also assist in making puppies bite less in their puppyhood.
Inhibit Biting:
A 4-month-old puppy can bite anything that it can get its mouth on and to stop this behavior, you need to play along with your puppy first.
In addition, when your puppy starts to bite you, you have to remember not to pull your hand away too quickly because this will activate your 4-month-old puppy’s chase instinct which will motivate your puppy to bite even more harshly.
Accordingly, you have to make sure to make a yelping sound especially when your 4-month-old puppy starts biting, and then you need to ignore your puppy for at least a couple of seconds to make your puppy understand that this is not okay to bite everything.
Use Deterrence:
Another effective way to make sure your 4-month-old puppy doesn’t bite everything is related to the usage of some kind of deterrence such as bitter cherry, deterrence spray, bitter apple, and so on.
Accordingly, all you have to do is to make sure to put these sprays on the surfaces where your 4-month-old puppy seems to bite the most.
After that, when your puppy will start biting these places or different surfaces, it will taste the bitter flavor and will be negatively reinforced to not to repeat this behavior.
In addition, by doing this, your 4-month-old puppy will immediately make an association with the unfavorable taste with biting that particular surface and will stop the biting behavior altogether.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, puppies that are four months old start their biting behavior in their puppyhood but this behavior can progress to be more aggressive in nature if it is not controlled with proper training, socialization, redirection, appropriate toys, and so on.