February 6, 2024 • 16 mins
When it rains it pours, and this week it’s pouring puppies who bite fingers when taking treats. We got FOUR posts on this topic this week!
The questions came from both puppy owners and breeders, and in this episode, I give you a fresh perspective on this “problem”:
- Why puppies take treats roughly from hand
- What you should do about it
- Tips for working with puppies or dogs in groups
Visit our website, madcapradio.com for further reading.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist,
and this is a Puppy Culturepotluck podcast.
You bring the topics,we bring the conversation.
Well, when it rains, it pours.
(00:21):
And this week it's raining puppies
who take treats like piranhas.
We got this questionfour times on our different groups
this week from both breedersand puppy owners.
So I'm going to read you a samplethat's representative
of all the posts that we got.
(00:43):
I have a litter of seven week old puppiesand they're doing great with Puppy
Culture, manding, free stack, self-controland so on.
Really great puppies,but they get really excited
the second I'm giving a treat and snaplike piranhas
at my fingers and the food.
Well, it'ssomething we have to teach puppies.
(01:06):
Okay?
We we have to teach puppieshow to take food from our fingers.
It's a tutorial issue.
It's not something that
we have to stop them from biting usor teach them somehow.
That biting is bad.
It's more just a questionof physically teaching them
(01:27):
the mechanical skill of taking a treat
from a human being's fingers.
So let me put this into perspectivefor you.
From from the puppies perspective.
Puppies do not have the fine motor skills,nor do
they have the learned behaviorof taking treats from a human's fingers.
(01:50):
When you first take a treatand bring it down to your puppy
to feed the puppy, first of all, the puppy
just gets this hugescent cloud right there, just like,
wow, there's all this excitementcoming down, like there's a scent cloud.
The puppy doesn'thave a lot of useful vision.
And even if they did, puppiesdo not rely on vision at this point.
(02:14):
Okay?
So they just, they, their,
they know there's food,there's excitement about the food.
They're not really sure where it is.
So they're just going to kind ofstart grabbing.
And then if you snap awayyour finger quickly
or are not very careful to actually placethe food in the puppy's mouth,
you get this action of the puppykind of getting desperate, excited,
(02:36):
aroused, unable to find the food, unableto locate the food, and they start
snapping at and grabbing whatever's there,which is your fingers and the food.
Okay.
I have never encountered a puppy
that took treats roughly from handthat this was not the case.
Okay.
WhereI could not in a very short period of time
(02:59):
and I'm going to tell you how I do it.
Show that puppy how to take treats gently
from hand and completely eliminate,
you know, any problem.
But the problem is if you don't,if you haven't addressed this
when they're puppies,it becomes a learned behavior.
(03:19):
Okay.
And that's where you get adultsthat draw blood
when when you go to give themtreats and can have hard mouths.
Because if they never learn the skillof taking treats from hand,
you know,now you're into a different territory.
And I'm not going to address that todaybecause it's on a different level.
I mean, you might have to wear gloves.
It could be a longer process,but I am going to address
(03:42):
exactly how you deal with this in puppies.
Okay. So
let's go back to our puppysitting there in the scent
cloud with all that exciting food smell.
And they're really unableto locate that food.
And if you don't believe meabout how little puppies
use their eyesight to locate food ...
(04:04):
if you are part of our Newborn to New Homebreeder course,
we have a video up there of a puppydoing scent work.
And it's a it's a piece of food
on a plate in plainsight in front of the puppy.
And you put the puppy five inches from itand the puppy actually sniffs.
(04:25):
You can see him sniffing along
the ground on to the plate,moving away from the food,
even though it's rightin front of his eyes and locating it just
with his sense of smell.
Now, if you're not in that breeder course
and you don't have access to that video,make your own.
Set up your phone
(04:46):
camera video on a little tripod,
put a plate on the groundwith a piece of food on it,
and put your puppy about six inches awayand watch.
You're going to see that that puppyuses his nose to find that food.
When you look back at that filmand slow it down,
you're going to seewhat I'm talking about.
(05:08):
So really, you think you bring thistreat down, it's so obvious.
It's right in front of their face.They're not seeing it. Okay?
They're working blind and they have to,you have to give them a chance
to narrow down that scent cloudand figure out where that food is.
Number one, you're going to do this
(05:30):
without any other dog or puppy around,because that definitely can add
to the excitementand franticness of the puppy because they,
they're competing with the other puppiesor the other dogs
or they're afraid one of the other animalsis going to get it.
So it slows down the learning processand they just start grabbing.
So number one,you're always going to do this alone.
(05:52):
That's your first tip.
Number two, you are going to hold that
treat a fairly large size for your puppy.
Okay?
You're going to hold it between your thumband your index finger
and you are going to slowlybring it right down in front of your puppy
and almost push it into your puppy's moutha little bit.
(06:14):
Okay.
And you are going to hold your fingerstill until that puppy
takes that food outfrom between your fingers
and you're going to allow themto take it out of your fingers
and keep your fingers therefor just a second afterwards.
Okay.
So the puppy can slowly understandwhat has to be done.
(06:37):
Now, you might have to use
a pretty big treatto start out with to avoid being bitten.
But most puppies, if they're,
if you're working one on one with themand you bring your hand down
slowly to their level,push it in toward their muzzle
and hold your hand still, they will justgently take that treat out of your finger.
(06:59):
They're going, they're going tofigure it out pretty soon.
If you cannot have success with that,
I would say this is, you know, a two B,you could use a meatball.
Okay. A rawI use a raw hamburger meatball.
You can hold the puppy in one, one arm,
hold the meatball in the other,and just bring it into their face.
(07:22):
Okay, so you're holding the puppy
so the puppy can't wiggle awayand get too far away and get confused.
And you're going to bring that meatballright in
and let them take a bite of that meatballand then take your hand away.
It's just a way to have something
bigger that
you can break off into piecesand not get bitten.
Okay.
So now you've slowly takenthat nice sized treat.
(07:46):
You've brought it right downto the puppy's level
and almost pushed the treatinto the puppy's mouth.
You're going to do that a few times, okay?
You're going to have sessionsof just doing that until that you see that
that puppy, when you hold that treatjust about an inch from that puppy's nose,
that the puppy can sort of locate
(08:07):
that treat,find it and pluck it from your fingers.
This is what we call ourtake a treat protocol.
And it you know, it'ssomething that I never really realized
that breeders didn't know that they had todo, shall I say.
And so I added, added it after
Puppy Culture.
But we do do this nowand I do recommend it
(08:30):
if you're a puppy owner to just work,it seems like a fluff protocol,
but just work on the skill of the puppytaking the treat from your fingers.
Now I'm going to put in hereat this juncture,
what do people often recommend
for puppies with rough mouthswhen they take treats?
Put it on a fork, And, you know,I think it's a little bit misleading
(08:55):
because you think, oh, yeah, well,they're going to put it on a fork
and then they'll get pokedif they bite hard
and they're going to learn,you know, that it hurts
and thereforethey won't bite hard anymore.
But that's not what's going on.
What's going on is you can hold the fork
still and you'renot afraid of getting your fingers bitten.
(09:16):
So you can hold it thereand allow the puppy the latitude
to learn how to navigate that scent cloudand get to that
treat and take it off the fork.
I mean, they really don't have any desireto bite hard.
I mean, it's it's extra expended energy.
They don't, it's not a defaultthat they're going to bite hard.
(09:39):
But when they're panicked, excited,want to grab the food and don't
have the tutorial skills to get the food,this is what they're going to do.
So by all means,if you're just really worried
about getting bitten,you can start with this treat on a fork.
But again, the fork should be stuckstill and right at the level of the puppy.
(10:03):
And because all you're doing is teachingthe puppy how to navigate to that treat.
Okay, next tip,
common mistake that, we all do it.
Okay. Puppy owners, breeders.
I find myself,I always have to remind myself about this.
(10:24):
When you are working with a puppy
and you are clicktreating them for a behavior,
allow them the time to finish
chewing before you move off.
So if, for instance,you're teaching heeling, you click,
you treat for the puppybeing in the magic circle and then wait.
(10:47):
Watch the puppy.
Slowlybring your hand down, put your fingers
right in front of his muzzle.
Allow him to get the treat and watch himand allow him
to finish chewing and swallowingand then move on.
Okay, that quick
dart of here,take the food and then run it.
(11:08):
So it createsa little bit of panic in the puppy, okay,
because they're grabbing,they're trying to swallow quickly.
They can't they really can't walk and chewgum at the same time yet.
So slow everything down.
Give the puppy a chance to finish chewing,then move off.
If you're teaching a stationary,even behavior
like down or sitor you're luring or whatever you're doing
(11:32):
before you initiate the next repetition,allow the puppy to finish chewing.
Again, with young puppies, and I would say
under 16 weeks old,I have never yet encountered one
that did not respond well in immediatelyto what I just described.
(11:54):
Now, there's a slightly different issue
when you are working in a group, becausesometimes you are working in a group,
sometimes you're working in a groupfor instance, if you are a puppy owner
and you're teaching dogs to waittheir turn
to get treats, which againwe cover in our puppy owner course.
So I'm not going to goover these protocols, but
(12:15):
they you willsometimes be working in groups.
Okay.
Number one, I recommend that
you work on this separatelyand the puppy has a soft mouth
and good treat taking before you proceedto working in a group.
Okay, same thing for breeders.
There are group exercisesthat we do teaching puppies
(12:38):
to work,you know, display behaviors in a group.
However, I do recommend that you have donetake a treat and done
all this soft mouth work beforehandbefore you proceed to working in a group.
And if you do have one that's working,taking treats hard
when you're working in a group, Irecommend, you know, you cut your engines,
(13:01):
take that puppy out of the group,work with that puppy a little again,
and then try a little bit later againin the group.
Okay.
But that all having been said,the excitement of being in a group
can make puppies and dogs grab food hard.
In fact,that's one of your best indicators
(13:21):
of your animal's internal stateis how how rough their mouth is.
Okay.
They get they tend to get more roughand tighter in the jaw
and rake your fingersmore as they're more aroused.
And being in a group often will arousethem for all the reasons we talked about.
Now, what do you do?
What I recommend is a tactile marker.
(13:45):
If you are in our Newborn to New Homebreeder group,
we do cover tactile markers, but for youthat are not, I will briefly describe it,
which is instead of a click,
you power up a touch on the head.
Okay?
Or it could be a touch on the shoulder.
It could be, but it's a tactile marker.
(14:06):
So you tap the puppyinstead of clicking the puppy.
I find that for me,
doing a tap just on the cheekon the side of the face works better.
Sometimes I'll do the top of the head,but the top of the head can be trickier
to get to.
It just seems to be easier to tapjust sort of on the cheek on the side
(14:27):
and I power it upjust like I power up the clicker.
I do that feed, do thatfeed, do that feed.
Then when you're in a group,you can tap the puppy
that's going to get the treatand feed that puppy.
And you will be shocked
at how calm the entire group becomes.
(14:48):
Well, I hope that helped you guys.
It seems like it's an epidemic this week.
I imagine, you know, it's
the middle of winterand probably that doesn't help either.
So possibly
if you are seeing this spring up suddenlyand the weather's been bad
and maybe your puppy's around a little bittight, one final thing I might throw out
(15:11):
there is perhaps doing some scent workor some kind of game.
You know,if you can't get outside and take a walk,
if you can get outside and take a walk,that's great.
But you know, anything you can doto sort of bring down the temperature
a little bit on those puppiesis also going to make this go easier.
If you liked this
(15:32):
podcast, you'll love our PuppyOwner Course
available at madcapuniversity.com.
If you're a breeder,check out our breeder course
also available at madcapuniversity.com.
Well that's it for this time.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist,
and this is a Puppy Culturepotluck podcast.
You bring the topics,we bring the conversation.
Well, when it rains, it pours.
(00:21):
And this week it's raining puppies
who take treats like piranhas.
We got this questionfour times on our different groups
this week from both breedersand puppy owners.
So I'm going to read you a samplethat's representative
of all the posts that we got.
(00:43):
I have a litter of seven week old puppiesand they're doing great with Puppy
Culture, manding, free stack, self-controland so on.
Really great puppies,but they get really excited
the second I'm giving a treat and snaplike piranhas
at my fingers and the food.
Well, it'ssomething we have to teach puppies.
(01:06):
Okay?
We we have to teach puppieshow to take food from our fingers.
It's a tutorial issue.
It's not something that
we have to stop them from biting usor teach them somehow.
That biting is bad.
It's more just a questionof physically teaching them
(01:27):
the mechanical skill of taking a treat
from a human being's fingers.
So let me put this into perspectivefor you.
From from the puppies perspective.
Puppies do not have the fine motor skills,nor do
they have the learned behaviorof taking treats from a human's fingers.
(01:50):
When you first take a treatand bring it down to your puppy
to feed the puppy, first of all, the puppy
just gets this hugescent cloud right there, just like,
wow, there's all this excitementcoming down, like there's a scent cloud.
The puppy doesn'thave a lot of useful vision.
And even if they did, puppiesdo not rely on vision at this point.
(02:14):
Okay?
So they just, they, their,
they know there's food,there's excitement about the food.
They're not really sure where it is.
So they're just going to kind ofstart grabbing.
And then if you snap awayyour finger quickly
or are not very careful to actually placethe food in the puppy's mouth,
you get this action of the puppykind of getting desperate, excited,
(02:36):
aroused, unable to find the food, unableto locate the food, and they start
snapping at and grabbing whatever's there,which is your fingers and the food.
Okay.
I have never encountered a puppy
that took treats roughly from handthat this was not the case.
Okay.
WhereI could not in a very short period of time
(02:59):
and I'm going to tell you how I do it.
Show that puppy how to take treats gently
from hand and completely eliminate,
you know, any problem.
But the problem is if you don't,if you haven't addressed this
when they're puppies,it becomes a learned behavior.
(03:19):
Okay.
And that's where you get adultsthat draw blood
when when you go to give themtreats and can have hard mouths.
Because if they never learn the skillof taking treats from hand,
you know,now you're into a different territory.
And I'm not going to address that todaybecause it's on a different level.
I mean, you might have to wear gloves.
It could be a longer process,but I am going to address
(03:42):
exactly how you deal with this in puppies.
Okay. So
let's go back to our puppysitting there in the scent
cloud with all that exciting food smell.
And they're really unableto locate that food.
And if you don't believe meabout how little puppies
use their eyesight to locate food ...
(04:04):
if you are part of our Newborn to New Homebreeder course,
we have a video up there of a puppydoing scent work.
And it's a it's a piece of food
on a plate in plainsight in front of the puppy.
And you put the puppy five inches from itand the puppy actually sniffs.
(04:25):
You can see him sniffing along
the ground on to the plate,moving away from the food,
even though it's rightin front of his eyes and locating it just
with his sense of smell.
Now, if you're not in that breeder course
and you don't have access to that video,make your own.
Set up your phone
(04:46):
camera video on a little tripod,
put a plate on the groundwith a piece of food on it,
and put your puppy about six inches awayand watch.
You're going to see that that puppyuses his nose to find that food.
When you look back at that filmand slow it down,
you're going to seewhat I'm talking about.
(05:08):
So really, you think you bring thistreat down, it's so obvious.
It's right in front of their face.They're not seeing it. Okay?
They're working blind and they have to,you have to give them a chance
to narrow down that scent cloudand figure out where that food is.
Number one, you're going to do this
(05:30):
without any other dog or puppy around,because that definitely can add
to the excitementand franticness of the puppy because they,
they're competing with the other puppiesor the other dogs
or they're afraid one of the other animalsis going to get it.
So it slows down the learning processand they just start grabbing.
So number one,you're always going to do this alone.
(05:52):
That's your first tip.
Number two, you are going to hold that
treat a fairly large size for your puppy.
Okay?
You're going to hold it between your thumband your index finger
and you are going to slowlybring it right down in front of your puppy
and almost push it into your puppy's moutha little bit.
(06:14):
Okay.
And you are going to hold your fingerstill until that puppy
takes that food outfrom between your fingers
and you're going to allow themto take it out of your fingers
and keep your fingers therefor just a second afterwards.
Okay.
So the puppy can slowly understandwhat has to be done.
(06:37):
Now, you might have to use
a pretty big treatto start out with to avoid being bitten.
But most puppies, if they're,
if you're working one on one with themand you bring your hand down
slowly to their level,push it in toward their muzzle
and hold your hand still, they will justgently take that treat out of your finger.
(06:59):
They're going, they're going tofigure it out pretty soon.
If you cannot have success with that,
I would say this is, you know, a two B,you could use a meatball.
Okay. A rawI use a raw hamburger meatball.
You can hold the puppy in one, one arm,
hold the meatball in the other,and just bring it into their face.
(07:22):
Okay, so you're holding the puppy
so the puppy can't wiggle awayand get too far away and get confused.
And you're going to bring that meatballright in
and let them take a bite of that meatballand then take your hand away.
It's just a way to have something
bigger that
you can break off into piecesand not get bitten.
Okay.
So now you've slowly takenthat nice sized treat.
(07:46):
You've brought it right downto the puppy's level
and almost pushed the treatinto the puppy's mouth.
You're going to do that a few times, okay?
You're going to have sessionsof just doing that until that you see that
that puppy, when you hold that treatjust about an inch from that puppy's nose,
that the puppy can sort of locate
(08:07):
that treat,find it and pluck it from your fingers.
This is what we call ourtake a treat protocol.
And it you know, it'ssomething that I never really realized
that breeders didn't know that they had todo, shall I say.
And so I added, added it after
Puppy Culture.
But we do do this nowand I do recommend it
(08:30):
if you're a puppy owner to just work,it seems like a fluff protocol,
but just work on the skill of the puppytaking the treat from your fingers.
Now I'm going to put in hereat this juncture,
what do people often recommend
for puppies with rough mouthswhen they take treats?
Put it on a fork, And, you know,I think it's a little bit misleading
(08:55):
because you think, oh, yeah, well,they're going to put it on a fork
and then they'll get pokedif they bite hard
and they're going to learn,you know, that it hurts
and thereforethey won't bite hard anymore.
But that's not what's going on.
What's going on is you can hold the fork
still and you'renot afraid of getting your fingers bitten.
(09:16):
So you can hold it thereand allow the puppy the latitude
to learn how to navigate that scent cloudand get to that
treat and take it off the fork.
I mean, they really don't have any desireto bite hard.
I mean, it's it's extra expended energy.
They don't, it's not a defaultthat they're going to bite hard.
(09:39):
But when they're panicked, excited,want to grab the food and don't
have the tutorial skills to get the food,this is what they're going to do.
So by all means,if you're just really worried
about getting bitten,you can start with this treat on a fork.
But again, the fork should be stuckstill and right at the level of the puppy.
(10:03):
And because all you're doing is teachingthe puppy how to navigate to that treat.
Okay, next tip,
common mistake that, we all do it.
Okay. Puppy owners, breeders.
I find myself,I always have to remind myself about this.
(10:24):
When you are working with a puppy
and you are clicktreating them for a behavior,
allow them the time to finish
chewing before you move off.
So if, for instance,you're teaching heeling, you click,
you treat for the puppybeing in the magic circle and then wait.
(10:47):
Watch the puppy.
Slowlybring your hand down, put your fingers
right in front of his muzzle.
Allow him to get the treat and watch himand allow him
to finish chewing and swallowingand then move on.
Okay, that quick
dart of here,take the food and then run it.
(11:08):
So it createsa little bit of panic in the puppy, okay,
because they're grabbing,they're trying to swallow quickly.
They can't they really can't walk and chewgum at the same time yet.
So slow everything down.
Give the puppy a chance to finish chewing,then move off.
If you're teaching a stationary,even behavior
like down or sitor you're luring or whatever you're doing
(11:32):
before you initiate the next repetition,allow the puppy to finish chewing.
Again, with young puppies, and I would say
under 16 weeks old,I have never yet encountered one
that did not respond well in immediatelyto what I just described.
(11:54):
Now, there's a slightly different issue
when you are working in a group, becausesometimes you are working in a group,
sometimes you're working in a groupfor instance, if you are a puppy owner
and you're teaching dogs to waittheir turn
to get treats, which againwe cover in our puppy owner course.
So I'm not going to goover these protocols, but
(12:15):
they you willsometimes be working in groups.
Okay.
Number one, I recommend that
you work on this separatelyand the puppy has a soft mouth
and good treat taking before you proceedto working in a group.
Okay, same thing for breeders.
There are group exercisesthat we do teaching puppies
(12:38):
to work,you know, display behaviors in a group.
However, I do recommend that you have donetake a treat and done
all this soft mouth work beforehandbefore you proceed to working in a group.
And if you do have one that's working,taking treats hard
when you're working in a group, Irecommend, you know, you cut your engines,
(13:01):
take that puppy out of the group,work with that puppy a little again,
and then try a little bit later againin the group.
Okay.
But that all having been said,the excitement of being in a group
can make puppies and dogs grab food hard.
In fact,that's one of your best indicators
(13:21):
of your animal's internal stateis how how rough their mouth is.
Okay.
They get they tend to get more roughand tighter in the jaw
and rake your fingersmore as they're more aroused.
And being in a group often will arousethem for all the reasons we talked about.
Now, what do you do?
What I recommend is a tactile marker.
(13:45):
If you are in our Newborn to New Homebreeder group,
we do cover tactile markers, but for youthat are not, I will briefly describe it,
which is instead of a click,
you power up a touch on the head.
Okay?
Or it could be a touch on the shoulder.
It could be, but it's a tactile marker.
(14:06):
So you tap the puppyinstead of clicking the puppy.
I find that for me,
doing a tap just on the cheekon the side of the face works better.
Sometimes I'll do the top of the head,but the top of the head can be trickier
to get to.
It just seems to be easier to tapjust sort of on the cheek on the side
(14:27):
and I power it upjust like I power up the clicker.
I do that feed, do thatfeed, do that feed.
Then when you're in a group,you can tap the puppy
that's going to get the treatand feed that puppy.
And you will be shocked
at how calm the entire group becomes.
(14:48):
Well, I hope that helped you guys.
It seems like it's an epidemic this week.
I imagine, you know, it's
the middle of winterand probably that doesn't help either.
So possibly
if you are seeing this spring up suddenlyand the weather's been bad
and maybe your puppy's around a little bittight, one final thing I might throw out
(15:11):
there is perhaps doing some scent workor some kind of game.
You know,if you can't get outside and take a walk,
if you can get outside and take a walk,that's great.
But you know, anything you can doto sort of bring down the temperature
a little bit on those puppiesis also going to make this go easier.
If you liked this
(15:32):
podcast, you'll love our PuppyOwner Course
available at madcapuniversity.com.
If you're a breeder,check out our breeder course
also available at madcapuniversity.com.
Well that's it for this time.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
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