I have a beautiful 16 week old yellow named Apollo. He is enrolled in puppy classes and I work with him at home. He gets plenty of exercise and play. When he hears the garage door go up he acts happy to see my husband...tail wags so fast his whole bum moves, and he stands with his nose to the door and waits for it to open. But twice recently he has "attacked"-barking, lunging and snapping. The first time it happened, my husband was scared he was going to have to harm him to get him to stop. The second time Apollo grabbed his ear and tore it. My husband is trying to attribute it to just being a puppy but I am not so sure. I would love to hear suggestions, comments, insights anyone else might have. Thank you!
Hi , rest assured that this is highly unlikely to be aggression , its very normal behaviour, annoying though it is Lab pups are amongst the worse for nipping , but it is play , just total overload of excitement . They do improve, honestly they do , it needs for your husband to try and ignore it, hard I know . I would work on the Sit , giving a treat whenever he gets it right . Then when he knows your husband is coming , show him the treat and, at the moment of the door open, Sit and treat . The penny will drop eventually, it just needs repetition and bags of patience
Ditto Kate but I will add, does your husband do any of the training? It probably would help if he did. And, how did a 4 month old puppy get close enough to bite your husband's ear? I suspect your husband bent over to pet or hug or reassure? He'd be better off, literally, to stand up tall and issue the SIT request and try to demonstrate leadership, something classes will teach him. Be prepared, you may find you are in the same boat as a lot of us are and husband needs training just as much as puppy does.
Nothing much to add to Kate's and Snowshoe's comments. One of our house rules is that Juno is not greeted until her bum hits the floor and she waits to be greeted. Have to say it was easier to train Juno than the OH though; he's still a work in progress
Husband rarely listens to my suggestions on how he should intercact with the pup. I am thinking of leaving a bag of treats on the outside of the door with a note kindly reminding him to greet the pup calmly and treat him if he responds appropriately. And he did attend one training class with me but the trainer corrected him so often he refused to go back. I get the impression that my dear husband doesn't appreciate not being right all the time
Yes, he's just being a puppy. Urgent husband training needed! Give him the Happy PuppyHandbook to read, he might 'listen' better when reading it for himself.
Oh heck,I've got one of those too He has got better as time has gone by,looking back he was really uncomfortable in the beginning as he was totally out of his comfort zone......like I wasn't he didn't like looking like he didn't know what he was doing ......like I did but we've fumbled through mostly as a team with a few bumps along the way.We had to have a few franks talks though....I had no problem doing the lion share of the training and caring as long as It was supported and not sabotaged! hmmmmmmmm loose lead walking...don't get me started ,fume fume!
My OH is quite fond of correcting the trainers , they are very patient with him. However today, when the trainer asked us if Ripple pulled on walks - I replied honestly saying 'yes'. OH said he didn't pull him, yet he spends most of every walk handing Ripple back to me saying he can't cope with all the pulling. Now the trainer thinks I need all the help with Ripple as he walks 'so well' with OH - grrr .
I'm pretty sure the trainers have heard it all before and, if they have any nonce about them, will be reading Captain Subtext in all your conversations
Yep most trainers have and we were discussing the other day how puppy training seems to fall to the females of the household usually. Most classes have more women than men and hydro sessions its usually the women who bring the dogs. Its not just a time verses work thing either its just seems women are mostly doing it. This is something i've observed over 30 years of training classes agility etc. Could be I'm a total sexist but it is from personal observation and that experience of other too.
