Hi all, I am new to this site. We have a beautiful English Labrador puppy, 13 weeks, female. Beebe. I have read about our labs turning to the dark side @ times. (from the start, since we brought her home) When she is tired, we see her change from play biting, to true aggression. I'm not says biting and play growl and shake, I mean coming at us with aggression, when we correct her immediately, she is very defensive, snarls, attacks more and her growl is mad! Deep bloody punctures, steric strips on cuts. MEAN !!!! Puppy time out works best. ideas thoughts comments welcome! we have a son with multiple disabilities. Let alone I am concerned at her rage....and it is....she attacks him as well. HELP! and I have tried to find a similar video of a puppy acting like this....none like her! It really is rage aggression.
If you can tell when she is starting to get tired, do you put her in a crate or such to get her to fall asleep or do you just let her keep on going?
Oh dear, it sounds like you got a wild one. I doubt she is truly aggressive, that would be very rare in such a young puppy but I know it can seem that way. Can you video your own puppy? And I strongly, strongly, strongly suggest you work closely with your breeder. Surely your breeder tried to pick a mellow puppy for you, knowing your son's disabilities? Temperament should be part of your health guarantee, if this puppy is not right for your family the breeder should take her back. Or bring in an accredited behaviourist to observe and work with you. Lab puppies can be very mouthy and they can hurt. They do get tired and act out sometimes, just as overtired children do. You need to supervise all child/puppy interactions.
I do not crate at these moments, would that be a negative response? Vs puppy time out in her gated off area.
Temperament was part of breeders quality, will have to read contract again on this part. She is family I would not be able to part with her unless this continues into later age. And I feel it is behavior I think that can be corrected. I am just surprised how aggressive she gets! Personal trainer says she is a great dog and smart. She has not seen this behavior. Hard to video. only have my husbands smart phone in evening. I will work on getting it videoed then. She is supervised 24/7. I do not take my eyes off her, she has training qualities showing good results. Sit, stay, down, wait, in good Duration distance and distraction. She does this about 3x a day. Again when tired and then puppy time out in her designated area seems to work as she falls asleep with in 10 mins.
Welcome from Hattie 8 years and Charlie 5 years our rescue boy. Your puppy is only 13 weeks old and not aggressive, she is just being a puppy Do you do any short training sessions with Beebe? Maybe you could do some clicker training with her, there is a lot of information on the forum to get you started and it really is a great way to train your puppy/dog because it's fun and positive. You can play fetch, hide bits of her kibble in boxes for her to find etc. to get positive attention on you going, all of these things will tire her out and get her mind working too. You say your son has multiple disabilities but would he be able to interact with Beebe in some way? Hope this helps. x
I do put her in puppy time out that is a designated area. 4x4 gated. Alone, no response to her barking. show up with good behavior or falls asleep. sometimes if I let her out to soon it returns and back in time out.
We train 15 mins 3 times a day, we have a personal trainer. we go outside with fetch, ball retrieve new ideas to play, box crawl through. Use verbal and treat with good behaviors. see replays with other posts please, as not wanting to rethpe to much. THANKS for your good advice Just this am she came charging at me, corrected her with leave it and sit, she did. stood my stance. walked away and bit my leg, immediate bruise, bleed about size of nickel. Many of these bite marks. One, as I am a nurse, could have used a stitch but steri stripped it here at home. UGH
How are you correcting her, exactly? It is best not to do anything. It's best to just ignore her. Stand up, remove your hands and arms, and withdraw attention from her. If you can preempt her getting very excited, that would be ideal. Create a calm routine around her. Calm, not excitable play. Lots of settling down time with kongs, and so on.
Millie used to get very nippy when she was tired, I put her in her crate and after a while she fell asleep after a while. I read somewhere that puppies 12/13 weeks old sleep about 18-20h a day. Now just a weeks later she go and sleep before she gets to that over tired stage. But also if she gets mouthy I redirect the nipping to her toys. I'm not an expert since it's my first dog too and I read a lot before bringing her home, what we did start with as soon as she got home was that I let her nibble me but if she did it too hard I gave a high pitch ouch along with a face that said it hurts and if she backed off I rewarded her (otherwise I said nothing and just left the room for a minute and then came back), now I just have to say ouch once in a while.
Not our first puppy, our 5th! I have done the yip loudly, it works with the bite but not the attacks, nothing works but seclusion. I held her down like Ceaser for submission. not sure if that will work. she does sleep a lot. does not do this every time she is tired. I redirect with toys as well! new idea with antler per trainer. The attacks are different than rough biting.
We have stood up removed hands arms, she comes at our legs! my legs are a bruised beat up mess! Seclusion and is the only solution I have seen work. The 4x4 area with no interaction at all! If I see her coming at me, I command sit. She does and then jumps at me. I am working with a trainer now. I have read and tried so much to the point of inconsistency which is NOT good for her to understand. I need a solution, consistent and NOW.
Firstly step away from techniques proposed by Cesar Milan. He is a television personality NOT a competent dog trainer. Your puppy is very young and over excited. This can come across as aggression. I know some people who had to wear wellies and jeans in high summer to guard against the crocopup bites. It's really no fun. Calm interaction is important and lots of things for her to chew on. Redirection is your friend. I lost track of the amount of cardboard my pups went through. Kongs are just the best! Use them for meals and as something to redirect onto in general. There's nothing wrong with removing her if you need to while she calms down as long as she's not excluded for long periods otherwise she'll just get off the scale excited again when she comes back in. Good luck!!
If you are trying different techniques, doesn't the puppy get confused since it's so young too? I think what you done is right and you have to hang in there and don't forget to reward the pup when it do right. I can understand the frustration, don't forget that dogs sense the mood you are in and can react from that. I hope someone else here can give you the guidance you need.
Reading your post takes me back to the early weeks with Maisie! I felt like I was under attack and she did appear to be "aggressive". These episodes occurred when she was bored, tired or over stimulated. Redirection was my friend, I constantly had a toy at hand in case she "went for me", as was standing still and ignoring her or leaving the room (not always easy or painless). At about 14-16 weeks she grew out of this phase and I only saw this behaviour again at about 6 months when she was trying to push the boundaries again. Feeding her meals in a kong wobbler was great for wearing her out, plastic bottles filled with bits of kibble, kongs, rice bones, etc.
my puppy started this at 12 weeks and got really bad at 14 weeks. I still have scars all over my arms. He's 6 months now.. At 14 weeks we started puppy classes and that solved the crocodile puppy phase. I liked the puppy classes because it was teaching him to listen to me and behave in a room full of other people and dogs. Where as at home he only had to focus on a few people while training. It was great for socializing too. He would learn manners from the other puppies too by being able to play during play time. Some liked to play hard and others didn't and he learned from them a lot. Just like puppies do from their litter mates and mom. After that first puppy class he was a different puppy. Now flash forward to him at 6 months. His teenager years have started and we are going through another hurtle. He's not hurting me anymore just simply not listening! Lol. I don't have much advice just a lot of sympathy! I suggest puppy classes, dog park for socializing. As soon as puppy shows sign of becoming nippy maybe put a lead on to avoid the nipping and take her to her crate or time out area. Keep up the training for small intervals. It doesn't last for ever and she is not aggressive. I feared my Axel was and he is not. Good luck!
Just wear jeans and stout shoes - she is a tiny baby still, keep things calm and consistent around her. By all means use a crate appropriately, especially to create a calm routine around your puppy, but don't keep her isolated. I'd switch your training and activities that you mention above to include a lot more that is about frustration management and impulse control. Playing a little bit of fetch is fine but not too much with a 13 week old puppy - she is far too young and her joints have not yet formed.
Tiffany - This topic comes up a lot on the forum. Type in "biting" on the search bar on the Lab Puppies page and a lot of different pages will come up with people who are having problems with the biting and crocopup phase. Yes, it definitely seems aggressive a lot of times when they are lunging at you and biting hard, but it is them being overexcited or overtired and it does get better as many on this forum will tell you. We had to leave the room and let Duncan calm down for a couple minutes, pop him into his crate sometimes when he would not calm down and kept biting, redirect to other toys, provide him with a LOT of interesting chew toys, etc. now he has just turned 5 months and the biting has become less and less and DEFINITELY not as hard or seemingly aggressive anymore... things got better around 4 months and then each week after that better and better - still have periods of frenzied puppy zoomies and biting, but definitely not as hard and my arms are actually starting to heal... although I do have some scars forming from bites and need to get some scar cream Here is a page on "frenzied biting" there are many others on excessive biting and updates from people who have come out of the crocopup phase... you will get through it! It definitely seemed aggressive to me sometimes too when Duncan would lunge at me and seemingly lose his mind and try biting me as hard as he possibly could, but with training and time outs and redirecting his biting etc. it has gotten so much better! http://thelabradorforum.com/threads/frenzied-biting.14976/#post-229374
She sounds like an over-excited pup. Are you able to walk her yet for ten minutes to give her a new experience if she's had her vaccinations? I hope someone can offer some calming suggestions.
Walking occurs everyday. Not on a schedule yet, she is played outside with running, fetching and more. she is on training techniques, she has had both vaccines. She was a sick puppy after we got her home. UTI, BILATERAL. CONJUCTIVITIS, VAGINITIS AND INVERTED VULVA AND STILL. She is still on a X, going to treat for 6 weeks total. Talked to my vet about this. I pet her quietly for good behavior, as not to over stimulate her. She is calm and has energy I would say balanced, until these attacks.
