I'm sure you've all heard this before, and I'm hoping for some advice. My half lab Oliver, is driving me crazy. We have had 7 dogs, (including another pure Lab) and they were never like this. He's 4 months now, almost 5. He is constantly biting (in play), putting holes in my clothing, barking at us, not listening. He doesn't seem to grasp our tone when we say "Bad" or "No". We understand he won't know the words yet, but even an angry tone means nothing. When it's time to come in out of the yard he runs around us in circles and our only recourse to getting him inside is to go inside, close the door and leave him alone, which we don't like to do because he plays with rocks and we're scared he may choke. We're trying to house train him away from the puppy pads we have in the house, but it's like he holds it until he's back in the house. For instance, I took him outside 4 times this evening because he was circling, looking like he had to pee or poop. Put the leash on him (only way to control him is to be able to step on the leash so he doesn't bolt away), and took him out. He did nothing but play with his leash and grab rocks and try to get me to chase him. For 10 minutes. I bring him back inside, and he goes to where the pads would normally be and start to circle. Back outside again, back to playing with the leash and rocks for another 10 minutes. I swear, he's the stupidest smart dog I have ever seen. Is this insanity normal, or have I been blessed with an extra special kind of sweet stupid pup?
Hi there, lively puppies can be a bit overwhelming at times, and when one thing goes wrong it can seem as though everything else goes wrong too. Most problems with puppies this age arise because they are not getting enough supervision and structured play. So the first step is to plan out a structured training program for your puppy. Try to have three to four short training sessions each day when you work on something very simple such as self control, and focusing on you. Try the Watch Me game in this video. Or the hand touch game in this one Focus on one of your problems - the potty training one is probably the most important at this point - and fix that next, very often, once you start training in a structured way you find the problems seem to solve themselves. That's because you become more skilled at managing your puppy's behavior.
Unfortunately, I work during the day and can't do this until around 3 pm when I get home. It was all agreed that the pup would be played with, and now both my parents have decided they don't have time. They are both retired and home all day. When I am home the pup is with me, with walks and runs in our dog park, but until, nothing. It's also very difficult that Oliver doesn't seem to understand tone. I'm guessing this is normal for a 5 month old, but our other pups all caught on much faster and didn't cause the problems Oliver is. One example is eating his poop (he has been checked by a vet and is fine e), but if you try to get him to stop he will literally grab a mouthful and run around in a "chase me!" gallop. We try everything, including outright ignoring him (which is so difficult because he has poop in his mouth!), but he just keeps running, unaware of our serious tone . Our other lab wasn't like this. Please just give me hope it will all turn out ok! Lol
