How do I stop my puppy from biting?
Mouthing is normal, and stopping it is not the first goal. The first goal is bite inhibition: teaching him how much pressure is too much while his teeth are tiny and the damage is nothing. The mechanism is the one the litter uses — when the pressure is too high, the game ends immediately, and he gets something he is allowed to bite instead. Our opinion: a dog keeps that lesson for life, which is why it is worth doing properly in the few months you have.
In short
The whole chapter in a few lines. Read further only where you want to know why.
A breed summary is only a prejudice about the breed.
You can use prejudices — but get to know your own dog.
It depends on the breeding, the environment, and the dog’s own character. He may have all of the breed’s traits, some of them, or none. Every dog is his own.
1 Mouthing is normal. The lesson is the point
Puppies explore with their mouths and play with their teeth. That is not a fault to be corrected; it is how a young dog investigates the world and how he plays with everyone in it.
So the first goal is not to stop the mouthing. The first goal is to teach how much pressure is acceptable, while the teeth are still small and the damage is nil. The end goal comes later: that he stops mouthing people altogether (ASPCA).
That skill has a name: bite inhibition. And the reason it matters is in the next sentence.
Our opinion: a dog keeps it for life. It is the difference between an adult dog whose warning leaves a mark you can wash off, and one whose warning is a hospital visit — in the same dog, on the same bad day, with the same intention.
2 How the litter teaches it
Puppies mouth and bite each other constantly, and the feedback is immediate and unmistakable.
- A bite that is too hard → the bitten puppy yelps and stops playing.
- The biter learns one rule: too hard, and the game ends.
- This happens dozens of times a day. By 7 or 8 weeks a puppy has had hundreds of repetitions.
Which is why the eight-week rule is not bureaucratic. Puppies taken from the litter before 7 to 8 weeks often show impaired bite inhibition, because they left in the middle of the lesson — and in a study of 140 adult dogs (Pierantoni et al., 2011), owners reported problem behaviors significantly more often in those separated at 30 to 40 days than in those separated at two months. The whole window is in the socialization chapter.
3 Needle teeth exist for a reason
Every Frenchie owner knows them: milk teeth come in at around 3 to 4 weeks, and they are needle-pointed.
That sharpness is not an accident. The teeth are sharp because the jaw is weak, and the pain they cause is the feedback: littermates yelp, the mother gets up and walks away, and the puppy learns how hard is too hard while his jaw is still weak. Even then, those teeth can break skin.
The rough timeline:
| Age | What is happening |
|---|---|
| 3–4 weeks | Milk teeth erupt — the needles |
| ~3–4 months | Adult incisors come in |
| ~5–6 months | Adult canines come in |
| ~6–7 months | Baby teeth should all be gone by now |
And here is the flat-faced part, which is worth a calendar reminder. Retained baby teeth — a baby tooth that does not fall out while the adult tooth grows in beside it — are more common in small breeds and in flat-faced breeds; bulldogs, pugs, and Boston terriers are named. It happens most often with the upper canines, then the lower ones, and a retained lower canine can push the adult canine inward toward the roof of the mouth, which hurts and can cause damage.
So: check his mouth every week until about 7 to 8 months (VCA). Two teeth in one spot is a question for your vet, and vets advise dealing with it early rather than waiting. More on the crowded Frenchie jaw in dental care.
4 What to do about it
The protocol is the litter’s, run by a human.
1. End the game. The moment the pressure is too much, the fun stops. Stand up, disengage, and step away for 20 to 30 seconds. Come back calmly and carry on. Repeat, for weeks.
On the famous yelp: the usual advice is to imitate a littermate and yelp. We did not find a primary study on whether it helps. The mechanism behind the advice is right, but many puppies get more excited by a high-pitched squeal, not less; so treat it this way: the withdrawal is the lesson, the noise is optional. If you do make a sound, keep it low and flat.
2. Redirect, every single time. He needs something he is allowed to bite, in your hand, before the teeth land on you. What that something should be is the chewing chapter. And the other half of redirecting is the room itself: a puppy does not learn to resist what is lying around, so you decide what is lying around.
3. Teach the levels. First the hardest bites stop the game, and when those are gone, lower the threshold. You are not aiming for “no teeth ever” in one step; you are turning the volume down.
4. Take him to puppy classes. Supervised play with other puppies is the litter lesson continued, with someone watching who knows what too much looks like.
5. Protect his sleep. An overtired puppy bites harder and listens less, and puppies need a great deal of sleep. If the mouthing gets wild at the same times every day, look at the nap schedule before looking at the puppy.
5 Two things that do not work
Hands as the toy. If your hands are what he wrestles, chases, and grabs during play, the rule “teeth off the hands” has no chance: you spent the morning teaching the opposite. Hands move things and hold toys; toys are what teeth go into.
Waiting for him to grow out of it. He will grow out of the mouthing. He will not automatically grow into knowing how hard his jaw is, and the window in which that is learned easily does not stay open. Adult teeth in the same mouth, with the same habits, is a different situation entirely.
6 Why this matters even for a friendly dog
The reason to do this properly is not the puppy. It is the adult.
Any dog, however good-natured, may one day be hurt, startled, cornered, or handled while in pain. Our opinion: that day is not decided by how friendly he is. It is decided by how much pressure he uses when he reacts — and that is set years earlier, in the months covered by this page.
It is also why “he never puts his teeth on anyone” is not the same achievement as bite inhibition. A dog can be perfectly polite with his mouth and still have no idea how hard his jaw is, because he never got to find out when it was safe to find out.
What a bite actually means, and what sits behind it, is its own chapter.
7 If you have an adult dog who missed it
You cannot re-run the litter, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What you can do is change the odds around him.
- Manage the situations that produce a reaction: pain, being cornered, being startled awake, hands arriving from above, strangers reaching for his face.
- Build handling on consent, so that hands are predictable and he has a way to say no that works — touch and consent.
- Treat pain as a first question, not a last one. A dog who suddenly uses his mouth more often goes to the vet before he goes to a trainer.
- Get professional help if he has ever made contact with a person: your vet first, then a board-certified veterinary behaviorist or another certified professional. That is not a website’s job.
8 Spike: our experience
Our stories and opinions on this page are our personal experience with one dog, Spike. One dog is not the measure for every dog — for your dog, your vet decides.
“Every Frenchie owner meets the needles. Ours felt like they stayed a long time.”
The one thing we would tell any new Frenchie owner is that the needle teeth are real. Our opinion: they seem to last longer in this breed.
What we found when we went looking for the reason is more useful than the impression: the documented part is not that the teeth stay sharp, but that baby teeth are more likely to be retained in small and flat-faced breeds — and that is worth a weekly look in the mouth until seven or eight months, not a shrug.
So the practical thing we would pass on is a date rather than a technique. Put a reminder at six months and look at the canines. If there are two teeth where there should be one, that is a vet question, and early is better than later.
Owners Also Ask
How do I stop my puppy from biting?
Mouthing is normal, and stopping it is not the first goal. The first goal is bite inhibition: teaching him how much pressure is too much while his teeth are tiny and the damage is nothing. The mechanism is the one the litter uses — when the pressure is too high, the game ends immediately, and he gets something he is allowed to bite instead. Our opinion: a dog keeps that lesson for life, which is why it is worth doing properly in the few months you have.
Why are puppy teeth so sharp?
Because the jaw is weak. The sharpness is what makes the feedback work: it hurts enough that littermates yelp and the mother walks away, while his jaw is still weak. Even then, those teeth can break skin.
Should I yelp when my puppy bites me?
The mechanism behind that advice is right, but many puppies get more excited by a high-pitched sound rather than less, and we did not find a primary study settling it. Treat the withdrawal as the lesson and the noise as optional: stop the game, step away for 20 to 30 seconds, come back calmly. If you do make a sound, keep it low and flat.
When do puppies stop biting?
The mouthing fades as the adult teeth come in, roughly between three and six months, and baby teeth should be gone by six or seven months. But the lesson underneath it, how much pressure is too much, is what you are actually teaching in that time. Our opinion: that lesson lasts for life.
What should I check in my Frenchie’s mouth at six months?
Whether any baby teeth are still there, especially the canines. Retained baby teeth are more common in small and flat-faced breeds, and a retained lower canine can push the adult tooth inward toward the roof of the mouth, which hurts and can cause damage. Two teeth in one spot is a question for your vet, and vets advise handling it early.
References
- ASPCA — Mouthing, Nipping and Biting in Puppies. aspca.org
- Seattle Humane — Mouthy pups: it’s normal, let’s teach them bite inhibition. seattlehumane.org
- SPCA of Northern Nevada — Puppy mouthing: bite inhibition 101. spcanevada.org
- VCA Animal Hospitals — Teeth, teething and chewing in puppies. vcahospitals.com
- VCA Animal Hospitals — Retained deciduous teeth (baby teeth) in dogs. vcahospitals.com
- Pierantoni L, Albertini M, Pirrone F (2011). Prevalence of owner-reported behaviours in dogs separated from the litter at two different ages. Veterinary Record 169(18):468. doi.org
