Hello all, this is my first post and wondered if anyone had any advice for me. Apologies if this has already been covered!! We brought home our 8 week old yellow lab last Saturday after having the most wonderful black lab who we lost suddenly in March aged only 6. We are struggling at the minute as he is being a nightmare with mouthing and puppy biting and it has got to the point where we can't even sit and watch tv in an evening as he is constantly jumping up at the sofa puppy biting it and any part of us he can get hold of. We push him down and tell him calmly NO, but that just seems to make him do it more and he then lunges again. We replace our body parts with one of his toys but he often just drops that and comes back for more. We have ended up just going to bed recently as we can take no more!! When we then put him in his crate he flops and goes straight to sleep so perhaps he is overtired but I don't want him to go to bed too early as he is up at 6am on the dot everyday anyway (we also take him out in the night for the toilet) The children (age 12) are that scared of being round him they now avoid him!! He has someone with him all day and is played with so i'm hoping it is not boredom. He seems so hyperactive and you literally cant do anything without him following you trying to bite feet / jumping up at you trying to bite whatever you are carrying. I think I just need to know if this is normal or not or if there is something more we should be doing to try and help him get through this stage - and save our sanity!! Our black lab was so calm from day one so it's just a bit of a culture shock. He is from Drakeshead blood lines from the same Dad as our last one so I guess I presumed he may have a similar character. Any advice welcome, thank you in advance
I don't have any experience of puppies as both my dogs were adolescent when I got them. I do have a lot of experience of a bitey dog though. I think pushing them down with your hands is a really bad idea - dogs don't interact with each other that way and it seems to be interpreted as an invitation to play or fight more. Saying 'No' is meaningless and might just as well mean 'bring it on - bite me harder' unless the dog is trained to understand what 'no' means and I don't know how you do that without using aversive physical punishment. Young dogs need masses of sleep, 20 hours of downtime I think I've heard. Mine struggled to rest with activity going on around him so I found just stepping out of the room when he got hyper very effective. I would watch him through a gap in the door and return when he calmed. Using all his food for training also helped, rewarding paws on the floor and calm behaviour constantly.
Hello and welcome, yes your pup is totally normal. They are little crocodiles at this stage. Have a search of old threads on here, there are many about biting. It’s a phase that passes. Distraction worked for us...lots of frozen carrots, stuffed kongs and endless cardboard boxes chewed. Meg too has Drakeshead lines, she is a delightful, sweet, biddable, clever family pet after her crocodile phase
It shouldn't be possible for him to follow you everywhere. There should be a designated puppy area which is stair-gated in. Puppies should not have free-range of the house. Anyone who isn't up for interacting with the puppy can then choose to stay out of the area. Well, you've essentially trained him to do this. He is jumping and biting you for attention, and you are responding by saying no and pushing on him in an invitation to play harder (in his eyes). So of course he is going to do it more and more. Get a 2.5m puppy house line and clip it to his collar. If he is bitey take hold of the line - not the puppy - and gently lead him away and play some tug using an object. If it gets too much, put him in his crate. Make sure you are taking him out daily to experience new things - carrying him, if he can't go on the ground yet. A major cause of over-excitable puppies, is that they are way under-stimulated and not getting taken out. Not only is this a waste of the socialisation period, but it also results in all these problem behaviours at home. You need to be taking him to the pub, to a cafe, to B&Q, to the bank, to pet stores, to friends' houses, to meet well socialised friendly adult dogs... and so on - targeting a new experience every day.
Hi and welcome,we were in the same position as you,we too had a lovely black lab who was calm, submissive even,loved to please,never chewed anything,ever! She also wasn't very bitey. We lost her suddenly,although at a good age,and after much deliberation decided to get another lab. Wow, we were new owners of the most bitey,barking,highly excitable lab! It was such a shock. She also chewed everything. But this is perfectly normal. Now to the helpful and encouraging bit, everytime Isla bit one of us,which was frequently,we gently but firmly put her over the safety gates,away from us telling her"no bites" for a few minutes,eventually she realised that all the fun stopped if her mouth connected to any part of us. She also had a crate,which when she became over excited we put her in for some time out and she would fall asleep, not for too long so that she still slept at night. Have you tried frozen Kong's,these kept Isla busy and helped to stop her chewing us! Also yak milk chews worked. Isla is now 16 months and all the biting and most of the chewing stopped months ago. She is still a work in progress,but is so much better and calmer than she was,ago hang on in there, it will get easier
Do you use a crate? Makes all the difference in the world. Potential add a simple playpen around it and the puppy is controlled without consent “control”. Gives you a break and helps the puppy to learn to settle. Puppy calm you calm puppy calm... give him something to chew on and he learns not to tackle the house Good luck...
