Chewing is normal. Your setup still matters.

How long does teething actually last?

Baby teeth begin erupting around 3 weeks of age and are usually fully in by 6–8 weeks — before most puppies even go home. The part owners actually live through starts later: baby teeth typically begin falling out around 3.5 to 5 months, and most puppies have their full set of 42 adult teeth by about 6 to 7 months. VCA and PetMD both describe this same general window, with individual and breed variation at the edges.

It is normal to occasionally find a tiny baby tooth on the floor, and equally normal to never find any — most are swallowed harmlessly during eating or chewing.

Teething chewing vs social play biting

These two get blended together constantly, but they are different behaviors with different triggers. Teething discomfort mainly drives chewing and gnawing on objects — furniture, shoes, toys. Biting aimed at hands, ankles, sleeves, and hair during play is a social behavior, and it can happen at any age, not just during the teething window.

The two commonly overlap in timing, since a puppy can be teething and going through an intense social play-biting phase in the same weeks. If your puppy mostly targets moving hands and feet rather than objects, the puppy biting guide covers that side of it in more depth.

Signs your puppy is actively teething

• Increased chewing and gnawing on objects, more than usual
• Drooling more than normal
• Small spots of blood on toys (from a loose tooth, not an injury)
• Mild gum tenderness, occasional reluctance around a full meal
• Occasionally finding a tiny baby tooth on the floor

Any single sign here is unremarkable on its own. It is the combination, during the expected age window, that points to teething rather than something else.

What actually helps sore gums

Cold pressure is one of the more reliably soothing options — a chilled (not frozen solid) puppy-safe chew can numb tender gums the same way an ice pack helps a bruise. Offering a few different safe textures and rotating them keeps novelty up, which matters because a bored puppy chews more, not less.

Avoid anything hard enough that it could crack a tooth — real bone, antlers, and hard nylon chews are common culprits. If you can't dent an item with a fingernail, it's probably too hard for a teething mouth.

Setting up the environment

A teething puppy chewing on the "wrong" thing is usually a setup problem, not a defiance problem. Gates, pens, and a tidy floor mean your puppy can succeed most of the time without needing constant correction.

Keeping a few appropriate chews within reach in every room your puppy has access to reduces the odds that a shoe or cable becomes the only interesting option nearby.

Overtiredness makes it worse

A puppy who is short on sleep tends to mouth and chew more, independent of where they are in the teething timeline. If chewing intensity seems to spike late in the day or after a long stretch of activity, scheduling more downtime often helps more than another round of redirection.

When it's not just teething

Most of the teething window passes without incident, but a few signs are worth a veterinary check rather than waiting it out:

• A visibly broken or fractured tooth
• Marked gum swelling, or bleeding that doesn't stop quickly
• Refusing food, or clear facial pain
• Baby teeth still present well past the expected window, especially alongside adult teeth ("double teeth") — this can mean a retained deciduous tooth that needs removal