[vkschoch]

Our beagle, Squeegee, is 4 months old and a biter!! I realize that he is teething and that this is natural but I want to try to break this habit early on. Usually he is very sweet and seems to be learning quickly what he should and shouldn't do but when he starts getting rowdy he bites like crazy! We have tried tapping him under the chin while saying no bite, spankings with hand/newspaper, squirt bottles, etc. He just doesn't seem to care! Even if we are able to startle him enough to let go of you or whatever else he is biting he will go for it again immediately. Sometimes he gets so rowdy with the biting that we have had to simply hold him down dog whisperer style until he is still and then once he gets up he is usually calmer but sometimes he'll just go right back to biting!! Any advice from you experienced Beagle owners?

 

[Java]

I think you can try saying OWW or Ouch fairly loudly and then walking away. Even as puppies, they crave our attention and affection. Squeegee may soon realize that biting--even play biting, will lead to you being unhappy (as evidence by the startling display of pain) and you walking away from playing.

Meaning: Bite = no play with with mom or dad.

Java's puppy teeth used to scrape me dearly and this method seemed to work best for me. The key is complete consistency by all parties.
Good luck!

 

[beagletails]

My only advice is to have patience and be consistent. We do not allow mouthing from day one around here. Every time they try to nibble on us we hold our hands around their snouts (holding their mouths closed) and firmly so No Biting! It does take a while with some to learn this, but they will eventually.

We do not allow dog kisses either (licking) and we have one female that it seemed to take forever to teach her not to lick, but she does real well now. It's nice to have 4 dogs and not have to worry about them constantly licking us when we give them attention.

Our little male has a weird fetish though and we don't stop him from it, but we may have to eventually. He doesn't lick, but he always wants to smell your breath when he first comes up to you. Weird I know and some of our visitors are a little shocked by his behavior, but once he smells your breath he doesn't do it again so we just don't bother trying to stop his behavior.

 

[Murphys Dad]

He's not biting, he's mouthing. It's a typical puppy behavior. He's playing with you the same way he played with his litter mates. Our puppy trainer suggested yelping like a puppy would when they play too rough and to turn away like we were upset and hurt. That never worked for us. Jersey would only get more excited when we yelped. We tried a water bottle and the soda can thing, but that didn't work either. Finally, Mike came up with this idea and it worked wonderfully.

First, we taught her to fetch. Then, whenever we were playing with her and she got too rowdy and started to bite, we would tell her to go fetch. She'd go get a toy and in turn, her biting was redirected onto the toy instead of us! Eventually Jersey learned that when she got excited she should go and get a toy to play with. Even now, after three years, she still goes and gets one of her toys whenever she gets excited.

 

[Java]

Originally Posted By: beagletails He doesn't lick, but he always wants to smell your breath when he first comes up to you. Weird I know and some of our visitors are a little shocked by his behavior, but once he smells your breath he doesn't do it again so we just don't bother trying to stop his behavior.

Not to hijack the thread, but this is a pretty interesting behavior, Donna. Perhaps he's just curious about the health of the human he's sniffing? I wouldn't be surprised if our beagles had the ability to smell a number of human illnesses or conditions based on specific odors. I could be way off base and he may just like the smell and warm air =)

 

[Brien]

We do more or the less do what's noted above. When he bites we say Ouch loudly, get up and walk away. You can tell he knows it was wrong when we do this. After a minute or two we'll resume play. Our play with Bodie is centered around his toys. He use the toys to play with him and don't roughhouse with him. He has one tug toy he can be aggressive with outside. But inside he has to play nicely. When he starts mouthing, not biting, we grab the closest toy and stick it in his mouth. This is usually all it takes. When he does start playing with a toy we pet him which he likes and calms him down.

From what I've heard this is going to continue for quite some time. So be patient and diligent at sticking to your guns.

P.S. Personally I'd refrain from hitting him or using any sort of physical correction. He'll only learn to be afraid of you and it will feed in to the aggressive behavior.