Teaching Rosie to Stop Biting and Mouthing

The Puppy Problems

As most Golden Retrievers go, Rosie wasn’t much different. She was a sweet as a bug, except for when she was annoying as a bug. She came to us at 6 months old and was still struggling with potty training. In fact, she would still pee on the kitchen floor about twice a day! She also had a chewing problem. A big chewing problem! She was chewing on furniture legs, specifically those of their tables and desks. When she wasn’t chewing on the furniture, she was chewing and mouthing on her family.

Why Do Golden Retrievers Mouth/Bite?

Retrievers are bred to retrieve, most commonly birds, in their mouth by softly carrying them back to their owners. So it’s not shocking at all when retrievers have chewing and/or mouthing problems. Because they are bred to gently carry the bird back to the owners, when they mouth and chew on people it’s usually softly and not painfully. While it’s not painful, it is definitely annoying, gross, and wet.

How We Stopped The Biting

We quickly showed Rosie what to do with her mouth so she could stop using her family as her chew toys. Every time she would start to mouth or bite we would correct her. As soon as she stopped, we gave her a toy that was appropriate to chew. As soon as she began to chew on the toy we would reinforce that good behavior by immediately praising her…. rinse and repeat.

She learned that she was only allowed to chew on her dog toys, not anything else. Not furniture and not people. She doesn’t mouth on her family when she wants their attention and now knows how to ask them, politely, to play with her. She does this by sitting politely rather than her previous demanding behaviors. Now when they have guests, Rosie will chew on a toy instead of their arm or hand.

While she was with us we also started influencing her potty habits, teaching her she can hold her bladder for longer periods and how to tell us and her family when she needed to use the restroom outside. No more awkward accidents inside and no more angry family members because she couldn’t hold it. It’s a win, win.

We’re so proud of Rosie and her family!