Play biting

[calami]

I have a seven month old male Cairn. He is my first Cairn (after having Springer Spaniels for the past 20 years). He is very smart, playful and sweet when he wants to be. I have one problem however that I can't seem to solve and am hoping that one or more of you out there might be able to help. Duffy loves to bite at our hands and feet. He has done this since we got him (at 10 weeks of age)and at first we thought it was just teething. Well, all his adult teeth are in now and he still likes to bite. He does not bite hard and his tail is wagging a mile a minute the whole time. He does not do this with strangers, only with me and my partner. I assume that this is some sort of play on his part, but never having had a Cairn before I don't know if this type of behavior is normal to the breed. Any help anyone could give would be greatly appreciated.

Mike Cala

[Guest Keira & Indy's mom]

Hi Mike,

Our pup Keira, now 8 1/2 months old, used to do this aswell. Whenever she bit me in my hands or feet I would firmly tell her NO and give her one of her own toys. As soon as she started chewing on that instead of me I would tell her what a good girl she was . It worked really well for us. She only did this for a few weeks and it just got less and less. Now she doesn't go for hands or feet at all anymore .

Good luck!

Anouschka

[chubbypup]

Hi Mike

We have a 7 month old male too. And, yes, just as your little chap is doing ours has been doing the same. But the frequency has been reducing just by sternly saying no each time he does it and stop playing and ignore him for a few minutes, he soon gets the message.

[toomanypaws]

Our 8 mth old cairn does this to my dd. I have to get after both of them. My dd gets playing too rough and starts laughing at the play biting. I keep my rolled newspaper and smack the counter and Abbey (cairn) calms down. Giving dd time outs from Abbey taught her really fast to be more gentle. My almost 9 wk is quite the biter right now. She likes to bite my heels! I've just been real firm w/ her, grabbing her nose gently and saying "NO". I also make sure she has plenty of her own toys on hand to shove at her if she play bites me.