My Labrador puppy is almost six months old. He has been acting very aggressive lately. It is the worst when I walk him, he jumps on me and bites my hand very hard and will not stop no matter what I try and sometimes escapes from his harness. He also seems to be scared of his harness and puts up a very big fight to put it on and often will bite very hard when you try to put it on him. Also, when he excretes outside it is often very runny and strangely coloured with thin consistency. He has always been a bit naughty but recently he has gotten so much worse in the past few days. Please leave any suggestions, would be much appreciated, thank you.
Hi Bal, welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear you're having some trouble with your puppy, I hope you find the help you need here.
Welcome to the forum, it sounds like you have quite a few problems there Bal, which it really would be best to have someone helping you with in person - alongside advice on here. Whereabouts do you live?? This is occurring PROBABLY because he is extremely excited and worked up by being taken out for a walk, and all that excitement typically has to go somewhere. We often see this in dogs which are under-exercised or don't get off-leash exercise - all their youthful exuberance just goes into this sort of over-aroused behaviour. Can you say more about how much exercise he gets, of what type? Generally, when we are out with a dog, they would much rather be into sniffing interesting scents and exploring new locations and being a DOG in a great place, than in leaping on US. After all, we live with them and they see us all the time. The reason why they get into being excessively interested in us, in the way you describe, is frustration at not being able to reach stuff because they are on leash all the time, or too much energy which has to come out somewhere - so it gets redirected back at us. This shouldn't be possible, no matter what a dog may do or try - because it's a safety risk. What type of harness are you using? And how is your dog escaping from it? Is he backing up rapidly and reversing out of it? Well, this is a bit worrying. It is hard to tell from this much detail, but he could be biting out of just general puppy mouthiness (which would be less worrying) or he could be biting out of fear reactivity (which would be much more concerning). Either way, if he is afraid of the harness, stop what you are doing. Forcing him to put something on every day which he is scared of, is not going to solve the problem (as you can see) and you will only get more and more intense responses from him until he bites you properly. It is really important that you work at addressing his fear of the harness. Since he probably has a conditioned response to the harness you have at the moment (and since he can escape from it!) I would suggest you get a new harness for him so you can condition that to be positive from the start. If you let me know how he is escaping from his existing harness, I will be able to make some suggestions for another. (There are some which can't be backed up out of.) Once you have your new harness, then you will need to follow steps as outlined in these videos, to recondition him:
