Hello! We are new puppy owners and our sweet yellow lab has starting showing aggression outside of being playful. She bites and growls when we try to put on her harness or to move her from her favorite sleeping spot. She often growls when my children go to pick her up. This seems to not be playful behavior but aggression when she does not want to do something. She will let us put in her harness when we distract her with a treat. But she has bitten me and my husband very hard when a treat is not involved. Has anyone experienced this behavior? What has been the best way to deal with this? Should I be concerned about future behavior?Thank you!
It does sound as if she's growling to tell you she doesn't like something. I would stop the children picking her up straight away. Teach them how to play gently with her - supervised of course, but definitely no picking up. The same goes for moving her from her sleeping spot. Her sleeping spot is her place of safety & comfort and should be respected. The harness thing - I think you're doing the right thing here, distracting her with treats. Keep on practicing it. Is she happy with her harness once it's on? I don't think your puppy is aggressive, that would be highly unusual, more that she is telling you what she doesn't like. It is best to listen, or she may escalate to a bite if you are ignoring her growls. What is she called?
Situations like this arise when people try to force the puppy physically to do something which they find uncomfortable or dislike - whether physically making them move legs to put the harness on; get picked up by kids; get physically moved off furniture and so on. Over and over the dog's signs of not being comfortable (lip licking, turning away, trying to avoid etc) are ignored and so the dog has no option but to escalate this to growling - and eventually biting. It is quite extreme for a 15 week old puppy to have reached this position already and to be growling and even biting. I would be extremely worried. The fact that her behaviour is this extreme would suggest you really are not teaching her how to WANT to co-operate with you, but instead are forcing yourselves on her. The more you force yourselves on her, the more she will have to escalate what she is doing - until you end up with a dangerous dog. Puppies are not large teddy bears. Kids should not be picking them up. Full stop. If you want to move the puppy off furniture, you go and get a treat and you lure the puppy off the furniture. (Eventually you can move this to a hand target if you prefer.) The harness is a little harder but these videos should help: I would really recommend finding a good FORCE FREE behaviourist in your area, who can help you achieve what you need to achieve in terms of moving the dog around etc, without creating these situations of conflict. I'm not sure where you live, but if you let us know roughly where, I can recommend some online registries to look through.
PS I forgot to add: Get a 2.5m Clix Puppy Houseline and clip it to her collar all the time you are around the house (don't leave it on when you are out or she is unsupervised). If you DO need to get her, you can then grab the line, instead of the puppy. This greatly reduces the risk of puppies becoming hand-shy or fear aggressive about handling - because their bodies are not constantly being grabbed for by human hands...
We also use a lead in the house when our 12 week old Daisy gets out of hand jumping on us and biting.
