Puppy Training Tips Help a 3 Month Old Border Collie Learn to Stop Nipping and Mouthing

Becca is a three-month-old Border Collie puppy who lives in Omaha. Her guardians set up a puppy training session with us to get her to stop nipping and other basic puppy problems.

Becca showed a good confidence and curiosity for her age. She was on the mellow side when I first arrived but certainly revved up her energy level once she fully woke up. It didnt take long for her to start mouthing and nipping me once she did so I went over some puppy training tips to stop puppy nipping.

You can get some free positive puppy training tips to stop a puppy’s nipping by watching the video below.

Since puppies sample things with their mouth, some mouthing and nipping is to be expected. Its important to remember that any time a puppy nips, it gives us an opportunity to work on their bite inhibition. This is one of the most important things you can teach a puppy. Sound crazy? I have seen many dogs who were poorly trained and socialized but because their guardians helped them develop a strong bite inhibition, when the dog was startled or put in a situation where a bite occurred, it was minor and did not break the skin.

Stopping immediately and yelping if a dog or puppy bites too hard is how dogs teach each other how to have a soft bite. Repeated yelps and pauses by humans are required to initially slow down then stop puppy nipping.

Bite inhibition is one of the more under developed skills for many dog guardians. There are a number of ways to help your puppy develop a strong bite inhibition. Playing tug of war with a rope, then periodically stopping or pausing when the dog starts to get excited is one that also helps the dog develop self control and also learn to settle down quickly.

A great place to help a puppy develop bite inhibition is in puppy socialization classes. It feels good to a puppy to bite and nip. But just like us, it can be a little painful to be on the receiving end. Because this will happen in any good puppy school during the socialization period, it was a very smart decision for her guardians to sign her up for Omaha’s best puppy classes.

When we were discussing toys and items for Becca to chew on, the subject turned towards puppy eating, food and treats. Many people are unaware that you can reduce the amount of poop that comes out of their puppy by selecting the right food. There are also a number of popular chew or ingestible items that can be harmful to your puppy.

I spent a few minutes going over some feeding tips and the best food, treats and chew toys to give a puppy. You can get these free puppy training food tips in the video below.

No puppy training session would be complete without teaching some basic commands so I showed the guardians how to train a puppy to sit. Becca figured out the sit within a few minutes, so we pushed further, training her to lay down, sit up and come and sit in front of whoever called her. This is one sharp pup, but its not surprising. One of the smartest dogs on the plant it a Border Collie.

Its going to be important for the guardians to practice the sit, down (crash), up and come commands a few times a day (10-20 repetitions each time) for the next week for her to get really good at them.

Once that is the case, I strongly recommend practicing each command separately and in a different order. If you train a dog to do the same series of commands in a row over and over, they will start to associate them. You ask the puppy to sit, they do, then immediately move into a down position, then sit up, etc.

So once the puppy has learned them all together, separating and practicing them independently will help her learn to do that command on command and not think its also tied to another. Since Becca is such a smart puppy, this shouldn’t be too challenging for her guardians.

By the time we were ready to wrap up the session, little Becca was wiped out. This was quite a lot for the little puppy to absorb in only a few hours. That said, we were successful in getting her to stop puppy nipping and stop puppy mouthing right away with a yelp. The puppy class will help reduce her nipping even more as well as help her develop better bite inhibition.

I also recommended that her guardians check out the Quest Ed section of our website which includes a ton of free puppy training and puppy behavior videos I shot while training my service dog Quest.

We wrapped up the session by filming a roadmap to success video. You can watch it for yourself and get a ton of puppy training tips by watching the video below.