You should never dismiss something like that as a "trait" or "that's just how he is". All dogs can be trained. It just depends on how consistent you are.

Toa is 8 months. He mouths but never bites down on me. All dogs do it. I stopped Toa's puppy biting by ignoring him. If he wanted to bite then the game is over. No toy. No play. Then when he calmed down again we could go back to playing. Seems mean, but it works. You have to treat the dog the same way another dog would. They wouldn't stand for it. Sometimes the high pitched yelp worked, but sometimes the high pitch means high energy and gets them even more excited. You have to combine this with ignoring the pup for a bit to get the full effect.

Not sure why someone posted about odour eliminators, but I have to put my two cents in on that too... I tried everything (including nature's miracle) when we had a kitten that peed everywhere, and the only thing that truly got the smell out was OUT! brand. We even rented a carpet cleaner and bought special solution for it and that didn't even get the smell out. But OUT! worked the best for us.

Welcome to the world of crazy Berner babies!

My Finnegan and his Swissy Girlfriend did this to her Mom, and unfortunately I heard the same thing from other Swiss Dog owners. I suspect it has something to do with their hearding instincts, to nip and bite to get attention.

My best method of stopping this was to always carry around toys, and as soon as the biting started, I would first say NO BITE, and then re-direct the energy and say "YOUR TOY or FINNEGAN's TOY" and when he picked up or played with his toy, I would praise and praise.

To this day, when I get home, the first thing he does is he goes and grabs a toy to play with.

Some good avoidance ideas are carrying an empty can with 20 pennies in it, and when they bite, shaking the can and again saying NO BITE. Again, redirect energy to one of their toys.

Squirt bottles with water might work, but it didn't for Finnegan...he liked the water.

It is just play, but unless you have a lot of fur, it does hurt.

Good luck,
Gail

Originally Posted by Chris

Over the last week our Luke has started to become more aggressive when he is excited. He is 3 months old now. He will sometimes run up to you and start biting your shorts/jeans etc. and biting on your legs. We try to get him to stop by saying no or stop and pushing him down or lifting him up on two-legs, and also trying to distract him with a toy or something... but so far this seems like some behavior that we need to work on removing as we don't want a biting (to him im sure its just play) 100+ lb adult berner.

Thanks for the feedback. That is very useful.
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I also had a "huge" problem with Storm. I tried many ways, but the best I found with him was to "time out" away from me. He hated being away from me and this seems to help in everything.