I say Jesssie come in a slightly higher voice than normal! I've also just started to train her to come to a whistle. I also second the suggestion of a clicker. I've been a bit lax with mine lately, but plan to reintroduce it to train some new things.
I haven't been here forever...but I came here when I got my yellow lab Cornelia and all she wanted to do was bite and chew on me. We dubbed her Evil Cornelia for awhile. I want to say there is hope for all of you worried about your pups. Cornelia is still an active and rambunctious girl, now 17 months old. She was with me 24/7 and I began realizing that she thought I was her real mommy. So in March we brought home 3 1/2 month old black lab, L.D. who is now 6 months old to keep her company. I never dreamed after all of the trials and tribulations and tears and laughter Cornelia gave me that I would get another puppy, but it was the best thing we did. We got very lucky as L.D. is a very mellow young man and completely the opposite of Cornelia. They compliment each other perfectly and it was the best thing we ever did. Hang in there...your pups will settle down eventually and you will be able to enjoy them much more. I haven't done all that much training on either one of them, Cornelia out grew most of her problems, and L.D. has just been darn near perfect. And the only biting they do is on each other when they play
It's kind of a funny story, Snowbunny. I was looking for an older male dog that had some training, and let Cornelia's breeders know in case they were retiring one. Well, there was a black male puppy that was born on the same day that my Maggie, that I lost a year and a half ago. Cornelia was born on the same day that Maggie died, so I took this as a sign that maybe I should get that puppy. My husband was dead against it, as Cornelia's puppyhood was horrible - we were her favorite chew toy no matter what we tried. I kept an eye on the breeder's Facebook posts and the puppy wasn't sold until he was almost 3 months old. A family with 3 boys, one with special needs took him. They kept him for 2 days then returned him, the mother realizing she had never had a puppy and couldn't handle that and the boys. That's when I let the breeder know I wanted that pup. But it took me almost a month to work on my husband. I enlisted Cornelia and all of my Facebook friends to help me convince him. We put this picture on my FB page and my husband's....along with his story and his birth date and why we had to have that pup. [/URL][/IMG] It took almost a month to convince him then one night he just gave up and said ok. He was home between his full time job and a teaching job, and said yes. As soon as he left I went on FB and let the breeder know. It was almost 8:00 at night and the breeder offered to bring him to me that night. It was an hour and an hour half drive for her, and she got a late start. AT 10 p.m. my husband got home from school and I met him in the driveway and told him to prepare himself, the puppy was coming any minute, and we wouldn't have to wait until the weekend to drive to get him ourselves. Five minutes later L.D. arrived! While I was in the dining room at the table signing the paperwork and writing the check, my husband was bonding with him in the family room. When we went back in to where husband and L.D. were he said, "This puppy is a nice one." and I knew we had done the right thing...LOL We then introduced L.D. to Cornelia and our family was complete!
I always thought one of our trainers had a nice and good way to describe how to call your dog. She said, make it sound as if you are asking a group of five year olds, "Who wants ice cream?" Upbeat, happy, promising of good things to come, from coming.
I start by calling 'puppy puppy puppy' as that's how they were called when being fed with the litter. Then it's 'puppy puppy Kara'. Then just 'Kara' (or whatever the latest pup's name is lol) ...
Hi, Jess is my first Labrador only had a miniature yorkie before! Jess is 14 weeks smart as paint will respond to 5 commands but she gets periods of utter madness my hands and the backs of my legs are all holes and there is no stopping her when she gets like this ? she has access to a 4 acre field and plenty of toys Jess is very affectionate if I could stop her biting my hands would it be ok to put a muzzle on her for short periods
I would never muzzle my puppy. Biting is normal puppy behavior, as he learns and discovers the world with his mouth. We have a 4 month old lab so I know about the biting. What works for us is, each time he tries to bite, give him a small toy to bite/chew instead. We also teach him that biting your skin results in whatever game we are playing to stop. When he calms down,usually just a few seconds later, we resume play. This has to be done every single time. Consistency is the key. Thankfully this stage doesn't last forever,though it feels that it might. I'm sure other forum people, with much more experience than me, will come along soon to give their suggestions. All that I've written above I learned on this forum. Good Luck.
Look through the Puppies archives - you'll see posts about biting coming up over and over again. My puppy is younger than yours, but reading through the old posts will give you heaps of reassurance and lots of advice.
Hi there Daisyrosie, welcome to the forum! Jess is a completely normal labrador puppy, and while this is a difficult time with the constant biting, putting a muzzle on her would be a very bad idea. She needs to learn, through interaction with you and others, that biting and nipping will not get her anywhere - all she is doing is trying to play with you, and as yet she doesn't quite understand that it hurts you! Just saying 'ouch!', getting up and turning your back on her for a moment, is a much better way of dealing with it. If she gets very wound up and bitey, you can pop her in her crate for a minute or two (but don't treat it as a punishment, just rather as an opportunity to calm down). This phase is difficult for new puppy owners, but luckily it doesn't last long. Hang in there - and you will get lots of support and understanding on this forum.
Hi @daisyrosie and welcome. It's a completely normal, although very unpleasant, stage they all go through. I agree with Karen that muzzling her is a very bad idea, because she has to learn bite inhibition. Simply stopping her from biting may have serious consequences in later life if she feels threatened enough and doesn't know how to inhibit her bite. Here's a very good article all about puppy biting: http://www.thelabradorsite.com/labrador-puppies-biting/ And, specifically, on bite inhibition and why it's important: http://www.thelabradorsite.com/teaching-bite-inhibition-to-your-labrador-puppy/
A warm welcome, @daisyrosie - much sympathy with the sentiment, but agree with others that a muzzle would be a bad idea. My new pup is a horror, much, much worse than my first pup was. She bites furiously and really hard, and rips hands, arms, clothes to bits. Last week I put my wellies on to feed her just because I couldn't stand one more bite on my ankle! Picking her up so her jaws are in reach of your neck or throat seriously feels like a foolhardy thing to do right now! Things that have helped and seem to be speeding up her getting through this stage have been: training a nose touch where she has to keep her mouth closed to play the clicker training game; proofing the hell out of her sit and then release; and training every impulse control game I know. She is getting better, and I'm hoping it wears off soon.
Many thanks to you all for all the advice glad to hear I don't have a pup with behaviour proplems I will be trying all what you advice and I also wont muzzle her.Im sure Jess will get much better as she doesn't do all the biting and madness with others in fact she is timid with them.I will be following the forum and let you know how we are getting on.
Thanks for sharing all the information, we have some fun times ahead of us lol. He is almost 11 weeks now and thinks he is all big and bad sometimes. We have a puppy playpen for him to keep him safe and out of trouble. We using a 2nd one as gate to keep him with us in the living room. It helps with his potty training and letting him have the run of the house. He is so sweet at times and then he turns in to a little monster. He loves mud puddles and digging in the back yard.
Glad I paused to read (some of) this thread (19 pages is lot for my tired eyes!) as I was about to ask about the nipping, biting etc. We've been very lucky so far, the odd toilet accident, sleeps most of the night most of the time and is growing nicely. Despite him being able to clear a sports arena when he farts, the biggest sole destroying issue we have, at the mo, is the biting, nipping and general desire to rip you to shreds that leads to seemingly very aggressive behaviour that exacerbates us and Blue alike! Whilst I always knew it was a phase it's difficult to keep it in perspective. We remove ourselves, replace ourselves with toys and use time outs lasting a couple of minutes, and simply ignoring him which is probably the most effective eventually but none of which seem to work fully at the mo. Great thread, and some fantastic article links. Thanks
Jesse turned 3 month yesterday and he had to worst night since we brought him home. It took a lot of patience last night and I was so glad when he finally settled down around 11:30pm. He just walked into his playpen and laid down on his blanket and went to sleep until 7 am this morning. When I let him out he was his old sweet self again. He chewed up his bed last night, stole his leash and wouldn't drop it even for his favorite treat lol. My Husband falls for him every time, and figures he would just lay on the couch, but he doesn't at the first change he gets he jumps on his recliner from the couch and steals things of his end table. He is a handful but I wouldn't trade him for anything. We are starting puppy training on August 5.
Hi there, Yoshi is 14 weeks old and still has all his baby teeth because I can't talk the vet into pulling them (just kidding!). He's a typical lab puppy by day (biting, chewing, playing, sleeping, driving the cats crazy, etc.) but at night, he turns into a TERRIFYING MONSTER. When the clock strikes 8pm, he becomes a RAVING LUNATIC. I'm not kidding. Imagine a two-year-old human baby given a bottle filled with Mountain Dew and turned loose in the house; that's how it is with Yoshi. He gets at least 2 good walks during the day including creek time, eats Taste of the Wild puppy food, loves to be brushed, wanders around the garden, has a fenced in back yard, has plenty of chewable toys (but he especially loves to chew big organic carrots), is mostly off leash and is great about sticking tight...but it's like a tantrum switch turns on in his head at night and he becomes SCARY and IMPOSSIBLE. Anyone else have a "Sundowner" puppy? I really hope not for your sake but, for my sake, please tell me I'm not alone. Thanks, Lynn AKA Yoshi's Mom
