The past few days Cooper has snapped at me a few times and I'm concerned. If I move him away from something he shouldn't be doing..like getting on the couch.. when I go to get him off he snaps at me. He's also done it to my son. He still "play" bites all the time but this is different.
Corona is almost 4 months and does the same thing. If I try and redirect her away from something and she clearly doesn't want to, she will snap too, sometimes bark and jump at me, while snapping. She just recently started doing this. My daughter gets intimidated, but I've been around dogs my whole life, and I don't let it scare me. I just assumed that as she gets older, she has gained some confidence in the wrong areas. I just stand my ground, And say a firm "no bite", then get her to do a sit for a treat. This usually changes her mood and she often forgets what she was after at the same time. So far the distraction seems to be working! Give it a try.
That makes me feel a lot better that this is not abnormal behavior. I am the opposite I have never been around dogs and like your daughter I get intimidated. I will take your advice thanks!
If you can avoid it, don't touch a puppy to 'redirect' them - train 'here' or an attention getting noise instead of physically moving a dog off the couch/away from a plant it's chewing/the laundry basket or whatever. Plus spend a long time on hands grabbing collar is a great thing game (touch, treat, then grab collar, treat - work up to an action that is similar to how you might grab a collar in an emergency, then treat for the dog moving towards and not away pressure on a collar). Physically moving a puppy off things does seem to want to make them 'guard' what they have even if it's just like a game for them.
I've never thought of training for this but that is a great idea! Gonna start working on that today. It will come in handy to redirect her away from the Christmas tree when it goes up. Thanks Julie!
The pressure on the collar game is also useful for lead walking - train that gentle pressure on the collar means 'move this way'. Such an obvious thing to train, when you think about it really but it's not often mentioned.
