What? A chopping motion over a puppy's head? As if you are going to hit them? Or is the intention to startle with the movement? Either way, it sounds extremely dubious and you might want to rethink the quality of the advice from that trainer. A house line that prevents a dog accessing a reward is sensible, but pulling a dog away with a motion that is sharp, or jerky, is a punishment - there are easier ways to achieve a better result. Keep counters clear - absolutely clear. Train your dog to lie quietly on a mat in the kitchen when you are preparing food, and train 'leave it' by training a cue used before the dog jumps up on the counter, not after. In this article, the example is a sofa, but it could equally well be a counter: http://www.thelabradorsite.com/training-your-labrador-not-to-touch-or-climb-on-things/
It seems just absurd that I am jumping up on furniture or the truck bumper to keep out of harms way of my PUPPY! But it works and so far I haven't busted my butt doing so. Most of the suggestions I get are, "Just squeal when he nips and he will stop" or somehow it is bad parenting. If you haven't been though it you don't understand. I have had lots of dogs and puppies and never had a dog jump at my counters or bite me like this and I probably thought the same. The jumping up at the table or counters is hard to stop as it is relentless and fast. Up and up and up. Not as painful though. My puppy has new teeth coming in in the front. I am so ready for those sharp canines to fall out!
I am currently on my 4th puppy in 3 years and the crocapup stage is very, very normal. But I have never felt the need to escape by jumping out of their way! I just manage their behaviour by always having chews and small toys to hand to put in their mouths. I think, eventually, this will become a game to the pup - which is a really bad idea. Anything which is a game to the pup is extra exciting when they are adults. I disco2vered this because I used to play cute games with Tatze with the broom. It's not so cute with a 26Kg dog who can destroy a broom in seconds!
It is hard to go through this stage as many posts on the boards can attest. And having a puppy is just hard work, and a pretty thankless task at times. Persistence, patience and training is the answer. It's so hard when you have those needle teeth sinking in you and/or feel like you are being bullied by an over-exuberant dog, but try to think positively. Look at what the puppy is doing and try to think of what you want him to do instead, and then start working on training that. It is amazing how this mindset can shift your perspective, and when you start to see some results it is so satisfying. But, puppies are puppies, and it is often one step forward and two back. Try not to get discouraged, step by step and day by day you will arrive at the other side with a well-mannered dog that is a pleasure to be with.
don't forget to praise all the good stuff, its hard when you get annoyed of just worried about the over excited bitting and silliness. Rory went through a terrible time of pup biteyness, colitis pain and steriods he was truely horrible but I realised that all I ever did was tell him off or crate him to calm him so I had to develop another way of dealing with him. I praised him for every thing however minor never told him off just ignored him or left the room. His behaviour improved when His stomach improved he came of steriods and was not hungry all the time. Then he got through his toothy stage and he's great now. I forgave him for all the damage he caused me and loved him anyway, praised him for everything I liked that he did and we have moved on from that very difficult time and have a really trusting happy relationship. He was the best pup to toilet train but the worst ever for biting, but I know a lot of it was down to his colitis. It was horrible at the time and makes me love him all the more now as he did suffer terribly but still is an amazing cuddly sweet dog. like all my dogs the time I spend with them is an absolute joy. Lisas right changing the way you feel about this thing which will pass does help. Most of us have expericed this to some degree and are with you all the way. Best wishes and hugs to you both
My new puppy is a bit of a horror, certainly compared to my last puppy (or I've forgotten how bad it was). I have to have her wear a little harness inside the house now, with a light line attached. She gets hold of clothes, skin, etc and doesn't let go and even worse, backs up to play tug with the human body part clamped firmly between razor sharp teeth. If she doesn't have a harness on it's quite difficult to deal with. My first tactic was to reach down calmly, and put my hand in a fist round the clothes she was ripping and move my hand slowly towards her mouth while remaining very still so she eventually had nothing left in her mouth. Unfortunately, this just resulted in her grabbing my hand, which was unbelievably painful. If she has a harness on, I can just gently hold the back of the harness, which stops her backing away to play tug with the human skin or clothes, and this takes the fun out of it for her. It also allows me to step on the line when she is attacking my older dog/the tea towel/my friends/the sofa/whatever like somekind of crazed demon, and just stand there until she quits.
I've taught Kara to sit whenever she gets near my legs - it distracts her from grabbing my jeans/socks as she's ever hopeful of a treat. If she forgets I say her name and she sits. The only time this doesn't work too well is during the evening crazy half hour, then I go behind a baby gate and play with her from there lol (throwing toys, tug etc). I can't rely on Tatze to play with her at that time as all she wants to do is snooze in the evening - as do I haha! ...
Still at wits end Hugo still biting and scratching and humping my leg all the time he is 6 months now !
Molly, who is 20 weeks tomorrow, has jumped up and ripped 2 tops and a bag in the last 2 days. Was thinking the biting was getting better, guessing this is the 2nd stage.....
I feel for you @Hugo's mum! Duncan is almost 6 months now and although the biting has gotten a LOT better, when he does start biting because of teething or if he is uncomfortable or wound up or whatever it may be I feel so discouraged because I thought we were past the biting! It is really frustrating and hard to deal with for so long especially when a lot of people said their dogs stopped biting completely by 4-6 months of age. When Duncan does get wound up or start biting we are more strict now so that he really gets the point and doesn't turn into a problem when he has a full mouth of adult teeth -- we will pop him in his crate for a real time out and let him calm down until he is completely calm even if he just tries biting us a couple times or we will walk out of the room until he gets the point that that isn't an okay way to play with us and the play stops as soon as he bites. We did train the bite inhibition and let him "mouth" us lightly but stopped the play whenever it became too hard when he was younger, but now we want to train that putting your mouth on us or biting us at all is not okay whatsoever - I think he is getting the point, but he did give me one good bite over the long weekend that drew blood and he was put in his crate for a time out afterwards and was giving me the sad puppy eyes. He has also now started trying to scratch at me when he wants something, which is really annoying and I think was his replacement for the nipping at me when he wanted something so I am working on stopping that... the humping hasn't started yet thank God... but I will brace myself for if/when it does.... Are you popping your pup in his crate when he is wound up/overexcited and starts biting/scratching/humping? or leaving the room until he is calm and if you return to the room and he starts again leaving again for him to get the point? That is the only thing that has worked with Duncan - usually a crate time out really the only thing that calmed him down and got him to actually stop - most of the time when I returned to the room after leaving he just started up again
Duncan definitely got better and almost stopped biting altogether for a month or two and then recently it started up again ... much less than the puppy crocopup stage, but nonetheless starting trying to bite again... we just went back to old methods but more strict so we could nip it in the bud - crate time outs and leaving the room until he settled down and realized all play stops when he bites - but I definitely think you are right and there are 2 "stages" of the biting
When I read all of these posts... I feel so happy about Millie, she never jumped for legs/arms nor hands. She do like to "taste" me but she don't bite just want my arm in her mouth time to time. The only thing that gone wrong with her is that my daughter hid her chewing bones and we left her out of the crate when we went to the store, got back to see she had a taste of the living room table. She is still teething really bad, and I know it's on us because we couldn't find the bones before we left so I should have put her in the crate. I hope you all get through the crocopup phase with all body parts still remaining
I feel your pain. Literally, I feel your pain. We have less bad frenzied biting but he still nails me every day. My arms are just purple spots and bandaids. Calling it nipping makes it sound way less painful but it hurts. Lately when we are trying to have dinner he will stand up and put his paws on the arm of my chair. If I say down or try to move him he barks in my face and acts like he will bite. What a bully! We have been trying to give him his very favorite treat in his crate at dinner time so we can eat in peace but now he starts this high pitched howling as soon as he is in the crate and ignores his treat. He is wearing me down and it makes me sad that the time of his little life we looked forward to, now we are just trying to survive! We have to be out of town soon and have a house sitter/pet sitter but I am not sure she can handle this.
So sorry you are feeling discouraged. It's hard when all you want to do is enjoy your pup but you feel like you are in a losing battle. But try not to think of it that way, try to think of it as what you would like your pup to do instead of what he is presently doing. Pippa often states that it's hard to teach a pup what not to do, rather teach him what you want him to do instead of the annoying behaviour. So, in the case you have given of you eating dinner, try training "on your mat" while you eat. Do you use a clicker? You can click and treat every time your dog approaches the mat, over a period of time you keep upping the ante for what behaviour you want until your dog will lie down on the mat and get a treat. You can then combine that with a command "mat" or "on your bed" or whatever. Then you start to delay the treat by just a bit, so that they are staying on the mat longer and longer. This sounds like a long drawn out process but if you work on it every day it really isn't that bad. I would do this outside of dinner time to start, and then once you get a solid "mat" cue with some length of time associated with it you can try it while you eat. It might cause a bit of disruption with your dinner at first but your pup will soon get the hang of it. For awhile when I was doing this I would keep some kibble st hand so I could occasionally toss treats for my pup as he lay on the mat, but that didn't last long either. Soon he was happy to lie quietly on his bed while we ate, instead of being a nuisence. Anyhow hopefully you get the idea. Try not to think "don't do that" as much as "do this instead" when your dog is being annoying and you will find life a little easier. Good luck and keep us posted!!
Hi all still at my wits end! Hugo is 7 months now and still biting first thing on a morning when we see him also humps my leg at any given opportunity and meal times are still difficult we try to feed him at the same time or give him a favourite chew but he still just jumps up at our plates which results in him being crated and usual barking through our dinner. Vacuuming is difficult as he is constantly trying to bite the cable as is mowing the lawn. He still pulls when I walk him and has even pulled me completely over and my husband has really lost interest as have the girls - I feel like I'm on the set of 'Marley and me' ! I started dog training last week which I'm hoping will help it's an 8 week course Kennel club Good citizen course. I'm sure we will look back at these days like you do with babies and be glad we got through them but I never knew it would be this hard. We go on holiday in 10 days and Hugo is going to a kennel ( a nice one run by a lovely couple and they only take max 10 dogs) and to be honest I know it sounds awful but I will be glad of the rest ... Positive comments please?!?
It will get better! Work hard on the KC puppy course. All the exercises are really useful. A training session of half an hour at his age will really tire his brain and help him to settle. Do this three or four times a day, especially before you want to relax I'm on puppy number 4 in 3 years, with number five arriving in October ~ pity me lol! (not really, I'm puppy addicted hehe!) ...
Quinn is 7 months and I'm finding her more difficult at this age...today I have rope burn on my hands from her pulling the leash so much on last night's walk. She has started jumping at people and if she sees water she goes crazy trying to get to it - you are not alone!! I'm in the process of hiring a dog walker that will walk her 1-2 times a week and help me train her to walk nicely - is that an option for you? We are also going to enroll in more training in the Fall to help more with leash walking and recall. She loved the basic training which finished about 6 weeks ago - it really tired her out and she loved the clicker so hopefully your training helps with him being calmer at home. The class helped with teaching settle and "go to your bed" which we use a lot now. Quinn is 100% in teenager mode, but we have to laugh at her antics, which I think is important. For your dinner issue, we started early on putting Quinn's dinner in a kong wobbler type toy while we ate...she would be completely occupied until we were done. Have you tried something like that? We also use settle so she will lay by our feet (still have to give treat to keep her settled for long).
There is really only one solution to a dog pulling on lead and that is to stop as soon as there is any tension on the lead, and you only progress when attention is back to you and the lead is loose. This can mean either standing waiting for the attention to be focused on you before you move on or what some advise is to change direction to keep attention on you. If a dog pulls and is allowed to pull it is self-rewarding as it is getting where it wants to go. You could also consider using a Halti or Gentle Leader for a dog that pulls a lot while you train to walk on loose lead, some people don't like them, but at the end of the day they are a training aid that can help.
Oh boy, sounds like you all got your hands full. Millie is 5months old now so I'm scared of this teenager phase you all write about. So far she been so good, I just hope she won't turn around and be completely different when she gets into the teenager phase. She don't pull on the lead and don't bite us at all (not even when my 2 1/2 year old daughter gets Millie super excited). She only try to jump and lick visitors and our vet, which we are working on hard now. I don't feed Millie same time as we eat, I read something before about that the rank system (which is outdated I know) is that the "boss" eat first then the rest. I done that since we got Millie and now when we eat she lays near her bowl and wait for her turn. She's not perfect for sure as it might seem like I paint up. She usually try to pull when we are out walking when it's just Millie and I , when I got the stroller along she walks next to me without pulling at all which makes no sense to me but I am practicing more to walk alone with her due to this. I make her sit when she pull and when she looks at me I say lets go, if she pulls again I do same thing. Usually I only have to do this two times then she gives up and walk next to me. I don't give her treat when she sits in this situation since that might lead to that she pulls on purpose to get to sit and get a treat. I only mention that since I seen a neighbor treating his out of hand dog for anything. She also try to jump for the leash when she's tired/thirsty/need to poop. I learned that she have those super charged bursting run around all over when she's tired fast, so I try to get her to nap before she reach that stage and boy it got a lot calmer around here since.
