If your puppy is chewing everything in sight, welcome to teething — the phase where your table legs, shoe heels, and drywall corners suddenly become chew toys. Here’s what’s actually happening, when it happens, and how we handle it.
The Teething Timeline
Puppies are born toothless. Baby (deciduous) teeth start erupting around 3 to 5 weeks, and by 6 to 8 weeks most puppies have a full set of 28 razor-sharp little teeth. Those baby teeth start falling out around 3½ to 4 months as the adult set pushes in. Most dogs have their full 42 adult teeth by about 7 months.
The 4-to-6-month stretch is the peak — loose teeth, sore gums, and a puppy that wants to chew constantly. That’s normal. What’s not automatically normal: major behavioral changes, refusal to eat, heavy swelling, or persistent bleeding. Those get a vet call, not a “he’s just teething” shrug.
What You’ll See
Expect increased chewing, drool, irritability, and sometimes small spots of blood on a toy where a tooth came loose. You may find teeth on the floor (many get swallowed harmlessly — don’t panic). Your puppy’s gums are tender, and chewing relieves the pressure. That doesn’t mean your puppy is being bad. It means you need a plan.
Chew Outlets: Give Them Something Legal to Chew
The single biggest mistake owners make during teething is giving the puppy nothing and then getting angry about the furniture. We set puppies up to win:
- Keep a rotation of appropriately sized, flexible rubber chew toys. Chilled (not rock-hard frozen) rubber toys can soothe sore gums.
- Supervise every chew session. Remove any toy that breaks apart, develops loose pieces, or gets small enough to swallow.
- Skip bones, antlers, hooves, ice cubes, and rigid nylon chews. These crack teeth — deciduous and adult — and a fractured tooth is an expensive emergency.
- A frozen carrot or a knotted wet washcloth that’s been chilled can work, but supervise closely and toss it before pieces come off.
Management: Puppy-Proof Like You Mean It
Move the shoes. Gate off the nice furniture. Roll up the cords. Teething is not the time to test your puppy’s willpower — it’s the time to remove the temptations you’re not willing to correct. A puppy can’t make a mistake you prevented, and that’s a win for both of you.
Fair Corrections for Chewing the Wrong Things
Here’s where we part ways with the pure “just redirect” crowd. Redirection has its place — if the puppy is chewing the couch and you offer a legal chew, good. But a puppy who learns that chewing the couch simply gets a toy exchange has learned nothing about the couch being off-limits. Your home is not a vending machine where every bad choice pays out.
When you catch your puppy chewing something off-limits, we recommend a calm, clear correction — a firm “No” paired with a leash pop if the puppy is on lead, or a verbal correction and removal of the item — followed immediately by offering an appropriate chew and marking the right choice. “Good” for moving toward the right toy. “Yes” when the puppy takes it and settles.
That’s a correction, not cruelty. It’s information: this thing is off-limits, that thing is yours. Puppies that get clear, consistent information learn faster and relax sooner than puppies that get endless redirections with no feedback about the wrong choice.
Be fair about it, though. Don’t correct a puppy that had no access to a legal chew and nothing else to do. Set the puppy up to succeed first, then hold the standard. Consistency from every person in the house matters — if one family member allows couch-chewing and another corrects it, the puppy just gets confused.
Biting and Mouthiness
Teething puppies are mouthy puppies. If biting gets too hard, we pause the interaction — play stops, hands go away, the puppy loses access to us for a beat. When the puppy re-engages calmly, we reward that. Mouthing that keeps escalating gets a correction and a clear end to the fun. The puppy should learn that teeth on skin ends the game, full stop.
Keeping Training Going
On sore-mouth days, keep sessions short and use soft treats the puppy can eat comfortably. Familiar, easy behaviors are perfect — this isn’t the week to teach something brand new and complicated. If the puppy shows pain when taking food or repeatedly disengages, stop and check with your vet. Teething explains a lot, but it’s not a blanket excuse — don’t let real problems hide behind it.
Teething ends. The habits your puppy builds during it don’t. If you’d like help setting up a foundation that survives the chew phase, call us at 877-655-9229 — we’ll build a training plan for your puppy together.
Building Bite Inhibition That Lasts
Teething overlaps with the prime window for teaching bite inhibition — how hard is too hard. Littermates start this lesson with their reactions during play, but your job is finishing it. When teeth touch skin, the fun stops immediately: we calmly remove ourselves, the game ends, and the puppy gets a clear message. When the puppy mouths gently or redirects to a toy on their own, we mark it — “Good” for self-control, “Yes” for a great choice.
Don’t confuse this with roughhousing tolerance. Wrestling with your puppy while they chomp your hands teaches them that biting is part of play, and then the owner is shocked when the behavior continues past teething. Play with rules: teeth on skin, game over. Every time, no exceptions, from every person in the house.
Handling the Mouth
Use teething as an excuse to build handling tolerance. Gently lift lips, look at teeth, touch the gums — paired with calm praise and the occasional reward for cooperation. This pays off at the vet and groomer for the rest of the dog’s life. Keep it brief and positive; you’re not forcing the mouth open, you’re teaching the puppy that hands near the face are normal and boring.
When Teething Ends and Adult Habits Begin
By 7 months the teeth are in, but chewing doesn’t stop — it just changes. Adult dogs chew from boredom, anxiety, or habit. The puppy that learned clear rules about what’s chewable and what isn’t transitions smoothly. The puppy that got away with everything during teething becomes a two-year-old dog eating drywall. Use the teething phase to install the rules you’ll live with forever: legal chews are always available, off-limits items get corrected, and calm behavior in the house gets rewarded.
If you’d like help setting up a foundation that survives the chew phase, call us at 877-655-9229 — we’ll build a training plan for your puppy together.
