She is a little monster. My ankles, arms, and hands are all cut up. Nothing my wife or I have looked up on the Internet is working. She gets downright mean. Any help is appreciated.
All you can do is ride it out unfortunately. Long trousers and long tops. Always have a small toy on hand to distract/stuff in the mouth. My pup was a right croc until 17-18 weeks. Others stop earlier. Some stop later. I remember doing lots of standing up and ignoring, or just removing myself from the room and counting to 20. It's awful, I wish there was a trick to it but you've just got to survive it.
If you crate train pop her in there for a reset and/or remove yourself. And stop any play as mentioned. Disengage.
We had a puppy pen that had removable panels so we could shape it to be as small or large as wanted, or just use them to gate-off an area where croco-pup could not damage to furniture/plants etc. It was a Godsend. When his biting was out of control (i.e. most of the time) we would just pick him up, pop him in and walk away for a few moments, leaving him with a chew toy or 10. It took about 8 weeks but he eventually stopped. It seems like forever but it really isn't. It will be worth it, I promise
I know they are crazy crocodiles at this age - All mine have been! It's 100% normal. She’s not being mean at all - she’s being a totally normal Lab puppy. Take heart, they quickly grow out of it. Wear tight sleeves and skinny jeans - wellies if necessary! Have a puppy toy on every shelf and in every pocket to put in her mouth. Here are some articles with the best articles - http://www.thelabradorsite.com/labrador-puppies-biting/ http://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-cope-with-an-overexcited-labrador-puppy/ http://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-play-safely-with-a-labrador/ http://www.thelabradorsite.com/labrador-training/ But there are no instant fixes, this is a stage they all go through. .
They do grow out of it. It's horrible while it lasts though. I've always found pups to be more bitey when they are tired so putting them in their sleep place with a few toys or a stuffed frozen kong seems to work.
Have you tried her with kongs etc when she gets bitey? It is so painful isn’t it? Maslow is 100% worse when he’s tired so if he starts now and doesn’t stop with the use of a toy I pop him in his crate with the blanket over it and he’s usually asleep in minutes!
Most dogs are still very bitey at 16 weeks, so I wouldn't worry yet. I was massively reassured by Mags @Boogie when she said that they all stop biting by 6 months (Mags has a lot of puppy experience). Some members on here have adult dogs who are still bitey, but these are the exception. Just keep on ignoring and/or having a toy on hand to pop in the pup's mouth. It's honestly just a matter of weathering the storm. I wasn't organised enough to always have a toy to hand, so I just ignored/stood up/removed myself from the room.
When is she biting? What is the situation? Often the biting is her telling you something - what does she want or need? It took us a few weeks to figure out but my puppy (now 4mo) bites when he wants us to stop petting him. Everything is lovely, he's laying there enjoying it, and he turns his head towards your arm and opens his mouth but doesnt bite. If you miss it, he does it again but actually closes his mouth around your hand. It's subtle and more like affection so sometimes you dont realky even think about it. Then a second later he dors it again and bites. I see it as my fault because he told me to stop and I ignored him. Mine also bites when he wants to go out to pee. Yesterday he was "telling" my 9yo son he needed to go out but being 9yo my son doesnt always see it. I came into the room and sat down and pup raced over to me and properly bit my foot, hard!! I let him outside and he had a huge pee and a #2. So yes, biting, but not without reason iyswim? Are you able to figure out why your pup is biting? If it's in play, the play syops immediately- stand up, turn your back and count to 10. Then resume, because he knows what he did wrong and can correct his behaviour. My husband has always, since 8wo, given his hand for the puppy to mouth. Let him hold his hand in his teeth, but as soon as he squeezed on it, taken his hand away and turned his back. So he learned what an acceptable level of skin contact is.
Rough night with biting here, I’ve distracted every time but the little rat bag has figured out how to jump. I turned my back on him and he jumped up and patches on with his teeth and just ‘hung’ there. Oh my god it hurt. I’ve got a proper bruise on my back. I am ridiculously proud of myself that I resisted the urge to screech at him and instead popped him in his crate. He’s absolutely exhausted as we have been to school all day so instead of napping he was watching people but that was proper proper painful. My arms look like I’ve got track marks on them. He’s 11 weeks on Friday and in my head it will be over by 16 weeks. I don’t want to wish his puppy hood away but those teeth are like razors!
Our 10 week old nips now and again, to be fair I saw her playing with her brother and they were both doing the same thing to each other.. 6 year old daughter's not to sure though!. My wife has just come up with an idea for us with Honey, let her mouth your hand but if it's too hard give a yelp just like another dog would, works a treat!.
Not with Maslow... a yelp is very exciting and it sends him into an absolute frenzy. The only thing that works with him is to distract or shove a toy in his mouth
My girl was a crocodile until about 4months old, it's very very normal haha, those razor sharp teeth are the worst! Now though, she only nibbles when we play rough (she only plays like this with me, I enjoy it!) But i taught her to nibble very gently, this was simply done by yelping when she'd bite a bit too hard, actually she's never bitten down with enough strength to actually hurt me, but I want her to have an extremely soft mouth in case some kid decides to stick their hand in there, she now knows when she feels human hands in her mouth to sort of 'lick-nibble-lick'. I can't explain it, sort of like she's exploring the texture and taste of your hand so it doesn't hurt one bit. As for the crocodile stage, like people have said, swap your body parts for toys, i used an old belt I had lying around, gave it to her to chew on, played gentle tug-o-war, this is next to all the chew toys she already had, and she loved the belt haha, just be careful because some dogs love to swallow things they chew up (Luckily mine doesn't) and then you have to pull it out the other end if it's a sting for example, or a sock.. or a piece of belt (my boyfriend's dog got a hold of it). Not to mention health dangers swallowed toys and pieces of clothes could create.
As @Leanne82 has said, yelping can actually wind the puppy up into more excitement. You are absolutely not fooling your puppy into thinking you're another dog - all that "do what his mother would", "do what other dogs would" is nonsense. Your dog knows you're not a dog and you can't pretend to be one. If the yelp works, it's down to one of a few very simple reasons. 1. It startles your puppy. Of course, no-one wants to do that and it can end up causing far-reaching problems with your puppy associating your hands as the source of something unpleasant. 2. It distracts your puppy in a "what was that noise?" sort of way. The problem with that is that it doesn't take long before puppies become habituated to what was originally an unusual noise and it becomes just background noise that doesn't interest them at all. In which case, to have the same effect again, you'd need to escalate, which will work for a while, until the puppy realises that that escalation isn't a predictor of anything good or bad, so it too falls into "background noise". Nope, that's not a long-term solution either. The puppy can also easily misinterpret your vocalisation as play - ever heard two puppies playing together? There's an awful lot of noise that comes from them. A growl in that context doesn't have the same meaning as a growl in a different context. It's all about body language and this is why we can't expect to be understood by copying a dog's actions or vocalisations. We just don't have the right shaped bodies to give the sometimes very subtle body language cues that completely change the meaning of a noise or action. We can sometimes make crude approximations, but it's generally best if we don't even try because we're really no good at it! So, if the yelp isn't startling your puppy, then it will likely classify as attention and attention is GREAT for a puppy! Woohoo, it's a game!! Of course, there are always people that say "it worked for my puppy" but most of the time that's because they either have a very sensitive puppy who is startled by the noise (which is bad, because using noise aversion with puppies is a really quick way to end up with a noise phobic dog - something I can tell you from experience that you want to avoid at all costs) or the puppy just happened to grow out of the biting as the owners continued yelping happily away. Here's the rub - puppies bite. Some more than others. Some get over it really quickly, others take months. There are things you can do to help hurry it up but it really is mostly down to how your puppy is put together. Ask @Boogie, who brings up Guide Dog puppies. If it were entirely down to the training method, then her puppies would have shorter and shorter periods of biting every time she got a new one, as she honed her technique. But it's just not the case. Nor is this biting behaviour indicative of any great problems, it's absolutely normal puppy development. Yes, it sucks for us, but as someone once said, we're not dealing with sabre-toothed tigers here. Yes, it's sore, it can draw blood and leave bruises. I get it, I've been there. I still have some little scars to prove it. But they're no more than "ouchies" that we can stick some ointment on before throwing ourselves back into the gaping maw. It lasts a few weeks at its worst and then it's over, hurrah! If you want to communicate with your puppy, pretending to be another puppy isn't the way forwards. Use your attention to do it - give him attention and praise when he plays nicely, remove that attention when he doesn't. Yelping, saying "don't bite", looking at him etc etc are all forms of attention. Stand up silently, turn your back and look away. But, more importantly than trying to communicate when he's getting it wrong, set yourself up so that he gets a huge amount of praise when he's doing it right. So often, we are simply reacting all the time to the things we don't like in a dog's behaviour. My mission is to get people thinking about rewarding the dogs when they are doing things we do like, even (actually, especially) if those things are unprompted. If your puppy is calm, praise him for that. If he is playing nicely with a toy, lavish attention on him. Whenever he makes a good decision about anything, let him know it didn't go unnoticed. It's far more effective shaping good behaviour for praising when they do something right rather than nagging when they do something wrong. Think about how you'd respond yourself to a situation where you didn't know the rules on how to behave and you had to learn by someone saying either "yes" or "no". I'm sure you'll agree that it's a far more pleasant scenario for everyone, teachers included, when using the "yes" approach.
It is very frustrating....It is not a playful thing, it is being mean. She growls, snarls, and really comes after us. My legs and ankles are so cut up right now. I am not sure what to do anymore. Do we have a mean puppy? She is 17 weeks and still doing it.
She's not being mean, a lot if puppy's are like this. She's a 17 week old puppy who is over tired and behaving like some dogs do. My last pup was incredibly bitey but with time and care he became a wonderful friendly adult.
Have you highlighted when she does it? Are there certain games? Does she stop when you are training her? Have you tried precious suggestions of only giving her food from your hand etc? As said previously this won’t ‘stop it’ but there are things you can do to reduce it
It could be just during a simple walk. All of a sudden she will attack my wife or I. It could also be when we are just walking around the yard.
Ok so both those examples are you walking... Maslow bites my trouser legs when I walk past him. I’m 99% sure he has no realisation that those trouser legs do in fact hide my legs and as such it’s a brilliant game.. he loves biting the back of them because that’s when I tend to jump and the trouser moves and it’s all so much fun (for him) Have you tried clicker training to heel? So that when you are walking on a lead they have a ‘job to do’ something to focus on. I think if you can find one area in which to be able to control their reactions (biting) then you might feel a lot better about it!
