With play biting, you need to be really careful not to turn it into a game. It is a perfectly normal behaviour that should just diminish in time as long as you're not maintaining the behaviour by encouraging it in any way. Therefore, your job is to defuse that behaviour as quick as possible.
One of our clients had a puppy that would pick up the pebbles in her garden. She picked up all the pebbles in the garden and waited until the puppy was a bit older at which point she could put all the pebbles back down. They were then less of an interest to the puppy.
If your puppy becomes really silly and biting, pop them in the puppy pen if you have one with some hooves or other toys to play with to occupy them. Once the moment has passed, let them back out again.
When you're stroking them, if they make any contact with your hand at all, even if it's just mouthing, pop them down and stop what you are doing. Stop all attention when they are biting. Set your puppy up for sucess by when you are stroking them, do it quietly. If your actions and movements are quiet, so will his. Make yourself quietly, but clearly, that when they are biting that your don't like that behaviour. When they are young, by
saying 'out the way, I don't want anything to do with you', that should be enough and the behaviour over the next couple of weeks should begin to fizzle out.
I don't like 'Whack-a-mole' training where you come down hard on the puppy and suppress the behaviour as I find that the behaviour either comes back later or the puppy develops a new behaviour as they need an outlet for it.
Ignoring your dog was a big thing a few years back and then it was realised that the owners were not having a relationship with the puppy. It is important to let your dog know that you aren't happy with the behaviour but you need to give them plenty of opportunity to get it right.
Comments