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My 13-week-old puppy is aggressive and bites. How do I stop it?
Updated on September 23rd, 2025
Pet's info: Dog | Mixed Breed | Female | unspayed | 3 months and 4 days old | 22 lbs
My puppy has an attitude problem. She won’t stop biting me. She is 13 weeks old. And she goes into attack mode and wants to bite me. She gets very aggressive and won’t stop. And if I tell her no she gets mad and barks at me and continues to attack. I tried giving her her toys instead but it doesn’t work. How do I stop this behavior? She is a husky/German shepherd mix and I want to curve this behavior before she gets big and hurts me or someone else
1 Answer
Most Helpful Answer
Answered By Daniel Fonza, DVM
Veterinarian
Published on May 18th, 2018
Hi there and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to address your question. Below are techniques that I recommend to try and stop this behavior. Puppies can have aggressive play behavior which can be corrected. These are the techniques I find the most helpful. If these do not help, then I would recommend seeking a behaviorist to discuss training Indie. I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further.
1. When Indie bites your hand, insert your thumb into her mouth and grip under the jaw with the remaining fingers and pinch your thumb lightly against the fingers under the jaw in the soft spot of the underside of the tongue. Hold this so that she cannot get away and do this until she finds it annoying and stops biting. She will likely start licking you. Keep up with this technique and it should help.
2. Use a spray bottle filled with water and lightly spray Indie in the face while saying "off!" when she does this behavior
3. Keep a leash on her at all times and when she acts up, grab the leash and give a firm tug downward and say "off!".
4. It is important that you also reward the good behavior and give her a treat for when she stops the behavior.
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further. Please take the time to mark this question as helpful or not as it helps us to improve on the quality of our answers to other pet owners. Thank you kindly!
1. When Indie bites your hand, insert your thumb into her mouth and grip under the jaw with the remaining fingers and pinch your thumb lightly against the fingers under the jaw in the soft spot of the underside of the tongue. Hold this so that she cannot get away and do this until she finds it annoying and stops biting. She will likely start licking you. Keep up with this technique and it should help.
2. Use a spray bottle filled with water and lightly spray Indie in the face while saying "off!" when she does this behavior
3. Keep a leash on her at all times and when she acts up, grab the leash and give a firm tug downward and say "off!".
4. It is important that you also reward the good behavior and give her a treat for when she stops the behavior.
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further. Please take the time to mark this question as helpful or not as it helps us to improve on the quality of our answers to other pet owners. Thank you kindly!
1Pet Parents found this answer helpful