I hope someone can help me. We have a 7 month old male chocolate lab. At least two or three times a day he starts jumping, growling and biting at me. He hasn’t broken the skin, but it hurts, and I now have bruises. He also gets like this with the zoomies, which are far more intense than with our past dogs. He is rarely alone, as my husband is retired. He gets at least two walks a day,loads of attention, time to rest and lots of love. I cannot find any triggers for this behavior, and have been actively looking for them. It is really out of the blue. Nothing snaps him out of it. I have tried ignoring him (still bites and jumps), turning away ( behavior continues, and my clothes get ripped), leaving the room (then he destroys something), treats (ignores them), redirection to a toy or learned command (ignores them). We also can no longer have him outside off leash because he just tears around and refuses to come to us. He’s successfully passed puppy kindergarten and the first training class. We continue to work with him too. I’m at my wits end. I love my dog but he now scares me. I am afraid to let him near anyone-especially kids or elderly people. I am hoping someone who has experienced this can give me some suggestions.
Did this suddenly start? If so, vitamin B12 deficiency can sometime create aggression in dogs. My black lab was B12 deficient and showed some aggressive behavior until he was three weeks into the supplement. That being said, it was never towards me. Does he lay and stay? I often have my dogs do that when they get wound up and it settles them down. I have an 18 month old and an 8 month old lab so chill out, lay and stay are used frequently and great tools!!
I had similar issues with my dog. He does appear to have grown out of it but it was a long journey. What would concern me about your situation is not being able to let him off the lead as I don't see how you can give a big energetic dog enough exercise if they're always on lead and you'll get into a vicious cycle of underexercised/bored dog understandably going crazy when given a bit of freedom. A training line and extremely high value treats worked for us for recall. Making the kitchen dog safe and consistently stepping out everytime he got out of hand did work in the end for the biting. Working out triggers was really difficult when his stress and frustration levels were high all the time but as things improved it did become clearer. Hope things start to get better for you soon, I'm sure they will.
I feel your pain. I can't really offer advice but I am very interested in this post as I have a 7 month old black lab Rosie, who for lack of a better word can be an absolute terror. She has always been bitey since we got her at 8 weeks. She also does not show any submissiveness and is quite bossy at times. I am really struggling with her jumping and biting me. It is very tiring and frustrating and sometimes heartbreaking - I've spent a lot of time crying the last few months so I hope you (we ) get some good responses to this thread. We can only hope that time, maturity and training will eventually calm them down.
Hi Dizzy Daisy. Im with you on this one. We have a 9 month old male. He at the moment is being very challenging. He Barks aggressively at visitors has started gaurding balls to the point he growled at my daughter ( I have 3 girls 11.7.7) and is being very dominant. It's now the school holidays and it's the first day and I've already cried once. I feel totally out of my depth and feel like I'm failing. We have started puppy training classes as he was doing so well then has gone totally backwards. They think he's wonderful! My confidence with him has hit rock bottom
You need to see a reputable and qualified force-free behaviourist. Puppy classes are great for preventative work and for general training, but if you have specific problem behaviours that you need to address, you need specialist 1-2-1 help on the issues concerned. Barking at visitors - take him out the house before the visitor has gone in there (ask the visitor to wait in their car and go in when they see you come out). Ask the visitor to sit down inside, then come in with him on leash. Many dogs will accept it if they come into the area and the stranger is already there, whereas they find it hard if the scary stranger is coming into their own space. Resource guarding - you need to be trading treats for items and not taking stuff off the dog repeatedly, or you will create this problem. You need to do this preventatively from the time of getting the dog home. See a behaviourist. Being dominant? No, he's not being dominant. Dogs are not 'dominant' and they don't behave due to 'dominance'. Please forget this concept, it is outdated and debunked/disproven as a way to think about dog behaviour: https://drsophiayin.com/philosophy/dominance/ https://petprofessionalguild.com/DominanceTheoryPositionStatement
Hello dog mom Skell . I have had the same experience as many many others seem to have and understand how hard it is to work through it. We sometimes seem to make progress and then not and it is upsetting and our Gwenni has been still biting at certain times at 6 months. Over the weekend we have however sat down using Pippa's article How to deal with puppy biting as a framework to help us. We have read this and other advice streams many times and it takes us a while to work out what to do when. So we sat down and worked out for us what helps to reduce her biting and therefore what to do more of and then what doesn't help and so what not to do. We bullet pointed our actions and have been as consistent as we can. It has made us realise what 'calm' means for us and our Gwenni and what perhaps was maintaining or triggering her and she has been much improved -so far. We looked at what we say to her and what not to say, when we interact with her and how to respond to her early escalation. We were probably giving her reinforcement for biting inconsistently but also trigger stacking by interacting at the wrong times- it is soooo difficult not react in some way to when it hurts I know. So what seems to be working for us over the past few days we are going to continue with as consistently as we can and see how it goes over the next few weeks. I look at other people with gorgeous calm adult Labs and can not for one minute see them as having special powers or skills we do not possess but we certainly have to work out what works for us and Gwenni. Hope that helps in some ways - its tough and can take a some time- All the best
My lab is ripping my clothes too. We thought biting was improving some and suddenly it is worse. I’m afraid because at his worst he breaks skin badly and rips clothes...about one incident a week. I know my terrified trying to get away is not helping. When he gets like this nothing seems to stop him. Tho usually we can settle and redirect him- when he goes out of his head, we can’t.
I know that when 8 month old Sam gets crazy and bites my arm, that it's a hyper play. He doesn't act meanly. No growl or aggressive looks. Just, will not stop or listen. I am hoping that having him neutered will change his behavior, or am I wishful thinking?
This is not a behaviour which is likely to be changed through neutering, but can be successfully managed with training. When does he do it? If it's at predictable times, do some calm training with him, then pop him to bed with a nice chew. When he's calmer, work on his self control.
Sam has crazy biting episodes when we are on a walk and I take him where he can be off lead and run like mad. He plays in a creek, jumping and having a grand time. Then, he suddenly turns on me and begins biting me. Today I couldn't stop him. I finally got free of him and tied him to a tree so I could get away. My arms look like I'm a junkie. He broke the skin through my heavy winter coat, and there are deep blue bruised and lumps all up my arms. He is fine in the house...but it's hard to work on calming when you are trying not to get torn to shreds.
