Your dog is 10 months old and plays beautifully for the first minute. Then the game gets faster, and teeth start landing on your hands.
Nothing has gone wrong with your dog. Play got louder than they can currently think through, and the mouth is where the excitement goes.
Find the tipping point
Every dog gives you a run-up. It shows in the seconds before the first grab, and it tends to look the same every time.
Play tomorrow with a clock running, and note the second the first grab arrives. Do that twice, and you have your dog's number.
Learn the signals that come before it. The play bows stop, the body stiffens between bursts, the mouth opens wider, the breathing gets loud.
Write the number down. From now on you are working 10 seconds short of it.
Pause before the tip, not after it
A pause after the teeth land is a correction. The same pause 10 seconds early is a skill your dog can actually learn.
Play for less than your number, then stop and stand still with your hands low and quiet.
Wait. When your dog's mouth comes off you and their feet settle, feed 3 treats on the floor.
Restart the game yourself, on one word, once they have taken the food. You start play, so you can stop it.
Run 5 short cycles like that instead of one long game.
Build the off switch inside the game
An off switch your dog only ever meets at the end of play is not an off switch. It has to happen while the game is still good.
Mid-tug, go still and hold the toy against your leg. Say nothing and wait for your dog to let go.
The moment they release, say your word and start the tug again. Letting go buys more game, not less.
Do 6 releases in a session, then finish with a chew so the body has somewhere to land.
Relaxation is trained as a behaviour in its own right, in short repeatable sets below your dog's threshold. It is not a by-product of a bigger game.
Staying below the point where your dog can still take food from your hand is the condition for learning. In fast play that point arrives quickly.
What makes the tip arrive sooner
Hands as the toy. Use a tug or a ball on a rope, so the target sits 2 feet from your arm.
A day with no sniffing and no chewing in it. A revved dog starts the game already halfway up.
Two people playing at once, or a game in a doorway. Add space and take away the audience.
Reward-based methods are what the veterinary behaviour guidance recommends for training and behaviour change. That does not change because there are teeth involved.
Safety note
Get help now if the mouth is used with a stiff, still body, a hard stare, a growl or a lifted lip. The same applies to any bite that broke skin, and to a dog trying to make you go away. Mouthing that arrived suddenly in a dog who did not do it warrants a veterinary examination, because pain often presents as a change in behaviour.
Today's version, in one line: time the first grab, then play 10 seconds short of it, 5 times.