Shepard mix puppy nipping

Edit: first time puppy owner, I had another dog but she was very low energy

Hi Reddit, this is about my families new dog Sadie who is a shepherd mix. She’s almost six months. She loves to nip and play tug of war with my pants and has ripped holes in quite a few already. I’m just wondering how you people curve biting with puppies. This is what she does:

  • when excited she’ll run up to me with a toy, drop it once or twice, then bite and grab my pant-leg with like NO time for me to react and pick up her toy to throw it. When I try to push her away from me (gently) she gets more excited and bites/pulls on me harder.
  • I will be playing tug-of-war with her, or holding her toy while she bites it and sometimes she’ll stop biting it and redirect on my pant-leg. She’s not trying to bite my skin but she still does cuz she’s got sharp little piranha teeth!
  • When I try to pet her she sometimes mouths my hand or my arm. I’m guessing she does this because she doesn’t want me to pet her but how do I specifically get her to not mouth me to show that?
  • If I try to kiss her face, or have my face close to hers she’ll lunge forward and half nip half lick my face. I DO NOT want her to make contact or cause facial injuries. Do I just not put my face near hers or is there anyway I can curve this behaviour, my family likes getting face licks lol.
  • Sometimes she’ll come up and grab my pant leg or shirt or coat and pull it while growling. I end up just grabbing the item right where it goes into her mouth and pulling/sternly telling her to stop until she lets go. I don’t want to encourage her to tug of war with my pants, and I worry that me just pulling my clothes out of her mouth is giving that engagement and encouragement to her.
  • she’ll mouth my hands while I put on her harness, or if I try and grab her collar to lead her somewhere. Idk if there’s anything I can do about this, it’s just a bit frustrating lol.

We sometimes crate her if she’s biting my leg too much or trying to get our dinner, but otherwise I don’t want to rely on crating as a punishment because that is her safe-place and where she sleeps.

So far I try to redirect her with toys(she has multiple teething toys, and bones and stuffies), loudly say “no”, say “ow”(tbh it gets her crazier), push her away, or just walk away and ignore her then re-engage in a minute. Sometimes walking away works but other times she’ll chase me and grab my pant-leg anyways. How do I stop her from continuing once I disengage?

I want to play with her, but I don’t want to encourage her biting me, playing tug of war with my clothes, or jumping up. I’m not sure how to play with her without encouraging that but also without ending play prematurely when she gets too excited.

My family has one of those horns that just makes a hissing air noise. I don’t really want to use that on Sadie but it got my cousins dog to stop some of his antics so idk. I don’t wanna scare her.

I also recognize that 99% if not all of this is normal puppy behaviour. I just really don’t want her doing this as an adult so I wanna curve it now when she’s young.

submitted by /u/Fun_Difficulty_2827
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