Puppies chew on everything. Their toys, your cushions, your shoes, your table and chair legs, your hands and feet… Living with a puppy often feels like living with a chaotic landshark intent on destroying everything for absolutely no reason at all. But there’s always a reason, there’s actually 5 different reasons puppies bite. And understanding why your puppy is biting is the key to reducing their biting and enjoying their puppyhood.

When people hear about enrichment for dogs their response is often ‘wait, I have to do MORE with my dog, but I don’t have enough time’. We all have busy lives and our dogs are supposed to reduce our stress, not add to it and make us feel guilty that we’re not doing enough. And if you look up how you’re supposed to give your dog enrichment you’ll probably find an honestly ridiculous number of, often expensive, products to buy.

No dog is perfect. We all have things we wish our dogs would stop doing. Your dog might be pulling on-lead, not coming back when you call or jumping up at visitors. Or maybe they’re stealing and destroying your stuff, digging at your carpet or eating things they shouldn’t. You could just punish your dog to try and stop the problem behaviour. But that’s going to affect your dog’s welfare and damage your relationship with them. And it’s not going to deal with the root cause of the behaviour so it’s unlikely to work long term.

So you picked up this adorable little puppy and you were full of excitement about your future together. You read up on toilet training and how to teach your puppy to sit and come back when called. But now your biggest issue is that your puppy is biting EVERYTHING. There are teeth marks on your furniture, your favourite pair of shoes are destroyed, all your clothes have holes in them but the worse victims are your poor hands and feet. You're probably starting to worry that you've brought home some demon puppy who'll grow up to be an aggressive beast.