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He will intentionally drop the toy to bite at my hand or arm. And the reason why this is happening, very common in puppies, is that before we dive in, a warning. The content of this podcast may not be appropriate for some young listeners. This is real life and that means that sometimes it can be a little bit graphic. So listen on at your own peril. As a veterinarian, dog behaviorist, best selling author and trainer over the past decade, I've had an obsession with transforming the behavior of dogs, understanding their brains, and creating practical strategies that you can implement easily at home. I know all too well when the dream you imagined when you first got your dog is far from your daily reality. In fact, out of the blue, a few months ago, my little dog, Gorse, was bitten by a dog 20 times her size. And suddenly our life of stress free walks, a calm and cuddly household, and being teammates was replaced with reactivity, anxiety, and worrying about what's around the next corner. I'm Dr. Tom. This is the Help My Dog podcast. And this is me documenting that journey of transformation, sharing my knowledge and experience with you, and having a few laughs along the way. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Help My Dog podcast. And today we're going to be doing a listener's question because you guys are loving these and actually I'm loving them, so let's do more of them. So this is from a listener who says, any tips for a 15 week old miniature poodle puppy that seems to only want to bite my hand or arm when playing? Or shoes or pants when outside for potty? I'm guessing this is a US listener, hence the pants. He will intentionally drop the toy to bite at my hand or arm with. When outside, he will constantly bite at my shoes or pants. Pants again, does not matter if the pants. Pants again are loose or tight at the ankle. Okay, we're definitely talking trousers. That's cool. He will try to grab and tug every time. Okay, so, so, so, so I guess the first thing that we have to do is think about why this is happening. And the reason why this is happening. Very common in puppies is that they come into the world and they've got to develop their. This sounds fancy. It's not internal arousal regulation system. In other words, they've got to be able to fine tune their arousal systems in their brain so that they can experience a variety of different arousal levels from level 10 to level 20 to level 30 to level 40. And unfortunately, until they get that fine tuning, what tends to happen is they have a bit More of a light switch Type effect of 0 or 100. On, off, or on. Right. Whereas what we want them to develop is a dimmer switch, where we can have levels of up and down and slight increases and slight decreases. And so this is a symptom that your puppy currently has a bit of a light switch. Yeah. And that light switch is causing them to go to level 100. And when they go to level 100, their behavior of choice, let's say, is to grab, you know, mouth and snapper and bite your arms and your legs and whatever else. Yeah. So first things first, that we need to consider here is the way to. Rather than thinking, and I'll give you some tips for in the moment, but rather than thinking solely about what to do in response to your puppy doing that, what I instead want you to think about is what skill could we teach them that would mean that they would never do that Because. Because they're so skilled at a dimmer switch that actually they're just never gonna go to level 100 and bite you. Yeah. And so we absolutely do need to be building a dimmer switch in this puppy. Now, this is where it gets a little bit interesting, because the way to build a dimmer switch in puppies is to try and get them to practice going slightly up an arousal and then back down in arousal and slightly up an arousal and then back down in arous. And so an example of what that might look like might be, for example, we might give them a little stroke on the side, but then we might stroke them a little bit faster. Yeah. So that they're like. It's a little bit more exciting. But what we want to do is we don't want to make them too excited. We want to just make them a tiny bit excited and then see that they can come back down as you slow your stroking back down. Right. So that would be one example is it's effectively like a massage method of teaching a dimmer switch. And you'll know when you get it wrong. Yeah. And you push their arousal level higher than they can cope with. Why? Well, because it could be biting your pants. Yeah. And so we're going to know that that was too much, and we just need to do it in a much more subtle way the next time. And the more your puppy flexes that muscle of going up and down in arousal ever so slightly, the better they will get at it, and the more challenge you can apply to them in that situation. The second way that we can build that is by animating their food using their Food. So effectively playing games with their food. But what you want to do is you want to think about how we deliver that food to them. So for example, if I, if I gradually and slowly deliver the food to their mouth or to the floor and let them gently go and get the food, that's very low arousal, isn't it? That, that's maybe a level 10. Whereas if I pop the piece of food on the floor and flick it with my finger so they get to chase it, that's maybe like a level 70. Yeah. And what we want to play around with is little tiny fluctuations in arousal level up and down, up and down in the way that we deliver that food so that they can practice going, okay, I'm going to go slightly up in arousal to get that piece of food, but now I'm going to go slightly down in arousal to get the next piece of food so that we again getting them flexing that muscle and getting better at that internal dimmer switch. Now of course, same applies as the massage method, whereby if you ask too much of them in terms of an increase in arousal and what might happen is you might flick the piece of food, your puppy might chase the piece of food, get the piece of food and then you try and calmly deliver a piece of food to their mouth the next time or to the ground. And, and if they're just biting at your clothes and mouthing your arm, we know that that was too much of a challenge for them and instead maybe next time we just need to gently roll the piece of food and that might create an arousal level that they can come back down from. Does this make sense? So effectively what we're getting them to do is practice the skills that would get them to make the right choice in the situation you're struggling in. But, but we're getting them to practice the skills outside of that situation so that they've got a bit of a head start. Right. And so those would be just two methods. There are a number of methods and I would recommend if you've got a 15 week old miniature poodle puppy and they're struggling with a dimmer switch and they're probably struggling with lots of other skills as well, I'd recommend you get into the Help My Dog Hub, which is like the members area of Help My Dog, where all the video lessons are and live teaching and everything, and I can practically show you with a dog there. Yeah. So definitely check out the Help My Dog Hub and get involved in that. Because there's a whole dimmer switch section of 30 plus games and strategies that will teach your miniature poodle to have literally the best dimmer switch in the world so that even a knock at the door and a visitor come into the house, they're still horizontal, right? Which would be the dream. So definitely check that out. But they're two methods to be playing around with in the meantime. Now second thing that we've then got to think about is hey guys, I just want to take a moment to answer a question that has been coming in literally 10 emails today and that is how can we help you with your dog's behavior struggle? Whether that be reactivity, separation anxiety, resource guarding, Maybe you've got a multi dog household struggle right now. Maybe your dog's just so over aroused on a walk that they just can't listen to you and they're chasing everything in sight. Like can I get Tom's help? And the answer is that actually you can. And you can do that by booking a Behavet behavior consultation. That's where literally my team give you the plan on how to transform your struggle and get you to that dream that made you get a dog in the first place. Right? Your world's got smaller and smaller and smaller and actually it doesn't need to be that way. You just need to reach out for help. Now a couple of things to say on that. First of all, if you're insured, if your dog's insured with Pet Plan, Kennel Club, Agria or many pets, we actually do direct claims with them, which means that that's covered by your insurance. So you don't, you don't out of your pocket, your insurance covers that. And the second thing to say is that we have loads of options. If you're insured with another provider or if your dog's not insured at all, that's also totally fine. We have loads of options that we've developed to make this so accessible for you because we're aware that you've already invested a load of time and a load of money in getting your dog, looking after your dog, caring for your dog. But the last thing we want is for you to have done all that and still not be living the life that you deserve with your dog. And we know we can get you there. So all you need to do is go to the Behavet website and the way to do that is go B E H a dot V E T that's beh and it will take you there or just Google behave vet, right? And you can get scheduled in and we can literally get you Booked in for a consultation as soon as possible. We normally can accommodate it within a week. Right. So that you can be getting to your dream asap. So now, second thing that we've then got to think about is why are they way more interested in biting your arms and your pants and your shoes than the toy? Yeah. Because really, they're just substrates. Hate to refer to you as a substrate. Okay. But they're just objects. I imagine there'll be difference in those objects, though, in how they are being animated in that situation. Yeah. So, for example, when we're mouthing arms and hands, we're probably moving arms and hands and going, ow, that really hurts. And puppy teeth are so sharp. And I've had some painful little puppy bites. Especially when a puppy tooth gets in your fingernail on a cold day, it's like the worst pain ever. And so instead, what we need to do is we need to be really intentional about how we're responding to your puppy doing that in those moments. Right. So if they're dropping the toy and biting you instead. Well, I'd be thinking in those situations, I'd potentially have a harness on them, and if they're biting my hands or my arms or shoes or pants or whatever, then I would just gently pop a finger through their harness. Okay. Just to kind of manage their movement, rather than me trying to move myself out the way, which is probably going to be more stimulating. I. I'm just going to pop a finger through their harness and just try and anchor them that little bit. Just very gently and very calmly. And what I might do instead is I might try and use this as a dimmer switch, growing opportunity. And I might have some food in my pocket, and I might gently start to play around with that food in front of them and see if they will, you know, start to engage with the food. And initially, I might have to roll that food and animate that food and flick that food a little bit. But then what I'm looking to do is actually transition them into a calmer arousal level by then gently, maybe placing the food on the floor for them to sniff it out. And at this point, once they've got to that level of arousal, I've probably removed my fingers from their harness. Yeah. And I'm placing food and delivering it to their mouth. And then what I might do is I might direct them onto something more appropriate to interact with, like a toy and. And get them re engaging with the toy. Okay. But the key is that whenever you get those instances of your puppy mouthing and biting at you. Aside from the fact that they might be teething and that might be comforting to them, it'd probably be more comforting. I don't think human flesh is especially comforting. I think all objects are probably just as comforted. Right. But you've got to think what's happened is they've gone into light switch rather than dimmer switch. And so what we need to do is, is guide them and help them to experience a dimmer switch in that situation. Medium level arousal levels going down into lower level of arousal. And so actually those are, those are skill building opportunities when they do happen. Yeah. Now, third thing that I would say is what happens prior to the light switch switching on and then biting your arms. Yeah. And what I want you to think about is it could be something in the moment. For example, it could be the way you're moving. It could be that they're very, very stimulated by your movement and therefore you might want to support them more when you're moving by, I don't know, dropping bits of food on the ground or in the grass to give them something to engage with, to allow them to better disengage from your movement. And so it could be something in the moment, but equally it could be something that happened, you know, in the 24 hours prior to that moment. This could be a sign that your poodle's little stress bucket that fills with exciting things and scary things throughout the day is filling and filling and filling. And this is an overflow of the bucket moment. Right. And it's not something that you do in that moment, but rather all the craziness that happened in the 24, 48 hours prior. And this might be a sign that actually your poodle puppy needs more downtime and maybe needs more time with less stimulation. And the worst thing that we could do for this little puppy right now is see this as a symptom of them having too much energy and try and exercise them more and stimulate them more. Because what's that going to do? It's probably going to create more of a light switch and it's going to fill their stress bucket more. So the problem is going to get worse and worse. And guess what? As it's getting worse and worse, they're getting fitter and fitter and because you're exercising them so much. Right. So they get better at biting and they get quicker at biting. Yeah. And so instead, see this as a sign of, actually, oh, I hear you might need a bit more downtime in the next 24 hours. Right. See it, see it like that, especially if there's like witching hours going on where this, where this happens. Maybe towards the end of the day when the bucket is really, really full, maybe they need more time away from you in the day or just, you know, time with you, but you're, you're sat reading a book and they're, you know, having a long lasting chew or spending time in a puppy pen or a crate. And those three things combined, those three focuses combined will not only fix this struggle, but they're actually exactly what you need to be doing to prepare it, to prepare your dog for the, your puppy for the, you know, the big wide world and them being a really enjoyable addition to your life and teammate. Rather than feeling like your world is shrinking because you're having to, you know, say no to more and more experiences because they don't have the dimmer switch that is needed for this world that this world really, really requires. Now, I'm aware that I was Talking about a 15 week old miniature poodle puppy from a listener who has, who has messaged in. The reality is, is everything that I've just talked about, there's probably takeaways for each and every dog owner, regardless of that dog's age, regardless of that dog's breed, regardless of what struggle that dog has right now. Right? And so this might be a great opportunity for all of us just to reflect on how good is our dog's dimmer switch right now? Is this an area that we could be growing and putting a bit of, you know, just maybe a session a day into growing their dimmer switch? How well managed is their stress bucket right now? Are they getting enough downtime? Would they benefit from more downtime? You can never really have too much downtime, right? Has anybody realized that? Yeah, you actually never have enough. And so take this moment, regardless of whether you're this listener or another listener, just to reflect on those two things because they are incredibly powerful and influential on how your dog behaves just day to day, week by week, in their interactions with people, visitors to the house, you, other dogs. And ultimately it's how our dogs interact with and engage with those that influence how much freedom they get. And we all want our dogs to have loads and loads of freedom. So with that, guys, that was this episode of and we will see you next week.