Tamar Geller’s client list reads like a daily email blast from Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood blog, including names like Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Goldie Hawn, Natalie Portman, Owen Wilson, Larry King and Ben Affleck. But Geller is much more than a dog coach to the stars. Geller, a native of Israel and former intelligence officer who worked with the elite Israeli army special forces, is a best-selling author and founder of The Loved Dog method, a playful and nonaggressive approach to canine coaching.

Geller says she believes people have been fighting an uphill battle against old, misguided methods of dog training -- philosophies that encourage brusque submission training and the use of fear as the main tools to affect behavior changes. People using fear-based dog training methods, Geller said, simply are combating the symptoms of their dog’s issues, not the causes.

“When you try to shut down the symptom, it shuts it down for a little bit and then when it does erupt, it erupts worse,” Geller said.

As founder of several nonprofits including Operation Heroes & Hounds, which pairs injured U.S. military veterans with shelter dogs, and as the resident dog expert on NBC’s "The Today Show," Geller is finding many ways to convey her philosophy to pet owners. She shares with eHow.com her recommendations for stopping a common puppy problem: biting.

Slideshow

Puppies Like to Chew

Puppies Like to Chew

By Kendra Osburn, eHow

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Overview

A new puppy. For many, there's almost nothing better but unadulterated joy can be tempered if the puppy has a biting problem. When dogs are bored or experiencing stress, they turn to chewing and usually at the expense of your belongings. However, through positive training, destructive behavior can be corrected. Here are a few tips from canine training expert Tamar Geller.

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Chew the Right Thing

Puppies chew instinctively. It's actually a healthy part of their development process and there's nothing you can do to stop the behavior entirely. What you can do is make sure that when they chew, they go for their toys and not your new couch pillows. Make sure to provide your puppy with plenty of chew toys. Save his favorite for when you leave your dog at home alone. This will help your puppy learn to stick to the items he's allowed to chew.

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What is a Chew Toy?

Tamar Geller makes an important clarification between chew toys and other toys. Stuffed animals, squeaker toys and rope toys do not suffice as chew toys. Those are intended for play. To address biting issues, use raw bone marrow from the butcher or rawhide. Anything designated for chewing should be raw so it does not splinter. You can also use toys that hide a treat inside. The key is to keep your dog occupied. If he spends the afternoon working to get at his treat, that's time not spent chewing your rug out of boredom. Be sure the treat inside is healthy.

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Play

One of the best ways to address chewing is also the most fun. Play with your dog! Tug of war is a healthy and engaging activity for you and your dog. It relieves boredom and provides an outlet for your dog's energy. It helps even hyper dogs to calm down and feel less anxiety. A calm dog is far less likely to engage in destructive chewing. Help form a bond between you and your dog and curb chewing.

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Deterrents

Deterrents are another method of controlling chewing. If your dog loves to tear up your shoes, spray them with an anti-chew deterrent from a pet store. The key to this is placing a choice chew toy nearby. The puppy will associate your shoe with something that tastes awful and have the ability to instantly replace it something he is allowed to chew. Eventually, your puppy will learn what's pleasurable to chew and will bypass your shoes altogether.

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Stay Positive

Negative training methods based on submission and fear are not ways to effectively teach your puppy to stop bad chewing. They simply mask behaviors temporarily but do not give your dog the positive or playful environment in which to truly learn and start making better behavior choices. When it comes to any training, keep it positive and reward based.

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No More Chewing

With the right training, you can eradicate your puppy's bad chewing habits. Providing lots of assorted chew toys will help your puppy understand that it's not bad to chew, as long as he's sticking to his toys. Puppies that are well exercised and played with regularly are far less prone to problematic behavior. Keep your puppy happy, healthy and occupied and you will see an end to damaging chewing.

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Viewing 1 of 7

A new puppy. For many, there's almost nothing better but unadulterated joy can be tempered if the puppy has a biting problem. When dogs are bored or experiencing stress, they turn to chewing and usually at the expense of your belongings. However, through positive training, destructive behavior can be corrected. Here are a few tips from canine training expert Tamar Geller.

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eHow: With biting, is there a certain breed or class of dog that excessively bites, or is it simply a puppy thing?

Tamar Geller: See, the word biting is very confusing to me. Because to me, when I hear the word “bite” I hear injury.

eHow: Oh, OK. So the proper word should be “chewing.”

T.G.: Yes, chewing. I separate between “chewing” and also “nipping.” The word biting is like, “My God, how many stitches did you get. [Clients] will look at me [and ask], “What stitches?” [I reply], “Well your dog bit you.”

eHow: Gotcha.

T.G.: The funny thing -- to want a puppy not to chew is like wanting the sun not to rise. It’s like, “Really? Really?”

So you don’t fight the sun. And that’s kind of like the way we look at chewing. We’ve got to remember that dogs are hard-wired to be dogs, meaning to behave on the instincts that are built in, like factory built-in instincts. This is not a choice that they make. These are the instincts. You know, to pass the time they will not pick up a book. It’s what they do to pass the time, is to chew: when they are bored, when they’re stressed. That’s what they do. We have other ways: We can go and grab a beer; we can have a conversation. They don’t. They can either play, dig, chew, or bark or sleep.

Instead of looking at it as the enemy, we have to look at (chewing) as part of the healthy developmental stages that every dog has to go through. I can tell you a lot of parents would love to give their children something to chew on to keep them busy and get a break from them. Chewing is our friend.

What we do though, is we have to teach a dog how not to behave only based on their instincts, but also to learn how to make conscious choices. This is what dog coaching is about, or parenting, whether it is a kid, two-legged, or a dog. We coach them not to behave just on their instincts, but we find as parents of dog owners, different vehicles to meet that core, built-in natural instinct. So first we’ve got to get rid of (the idea) that it is wrong. It’s not wrong. It’s normal. It’s part of life.

One thing is, in order to stop chewing -- we can’t stop the chewing, we discussed that already -- we need to redirect it where we give the dog a lot of chew toys. I divide them into three categories: gold, silver and bronze (which indicates) chew toys that are OK, chew toys that are better and chew toys that are the best. Dogs will get those chew toys -- the best -- when you leave the house. So I’m not only going to get the dog focused on chewing the right things, I also want to help prevent separation anxiety.

We use chewing to help with separation anxiety. How do I do it?

I love to get from the butcher raw soup bone, marrow bone -- but it’s got to be raw -- and you leave it with the dog, but not to let the dog have it. If your dog knows how to stay, that’s great; if not, then you leave it on the floor right before you leave the house. If the dog does not leave the house, put the marrow bone not on the rug but in the kitchen floor or anyplace you have tile or outside. But you tell the dog to “stay,” and only as you're closing the door you let them have it. Or, put in the dog’s crate if they’re a puppy and they're still being housebroken, for them to chew on.