HI.
Our 10 week puppy (bitch) it driving us mad.

Some das, she can be really nice and friendly, others, she can growl and bite us so hard it bleeds. If we tell her off- she growls and snaps her teeth at us so hard we can hear them bashing together. She is really upsetting us by this behaviour, We do leave ger alone when she is bad, and sometimes it works for about 10 mins, others, she goes straightn back to hurting us. SHe is worse with the gcrowling when she is being told off.

Another problem is her toilet training. We thought we has it sussed, but if we leave her, she wees. We take her outside and she does nothering(if she does, we praise her)- then she comes inside and wees. Sometimes on the paper, but other times, she just wees where ever she wants, even if we are stood beside her.

Please help

My mum is getting so angry with her, and it is uspestting me. Mum looses her temper, even when she wees on the paper, and shouts at her. Then takes her out for another toilet and mollie will not come back inside. It is not surprising i know, but mum wont listen when i tell her that she is making it worse.

Please help us- i dont want her to grow up hating us.

thanks.

Heck!! what a predicament....
Follow that dog constantly(eyes in the back of your head job), put it out immediately after meals/sleep/play and every hour after that.
If it wees in the house catch it and put it out straight away, and wait with it (it should finish off it's wee).

With the biting, ours does it to some degree but not as bad, i shout no and point my finger and then ignore her (normally works) someone who knows better will advise on that. :)

Sarah

Thanks.

We do try really hard, but with it all, it is too much for my mum.
If we point as we say no, she bites our fingers!

dont point your finger at her.  that way she can't bite it.  I dont mean to to rude or anything but if you dont point your finger she cant bite it,

lol @ icequeen.

Point taken, but you have to admit, it is hard NOT to point.

DOes she sound like she is going to be an aggressive dog? i hope not.

ps- when i said that she makes us bleed- i didnt mean all the time- just when she is angry.

It is hard (very hard) but if you are consistent it will all come together in the end.
I'm really not sure on the biting, but can you lock her up in the kitchen say? for a time-out?
She won't like being parted from you so it may help.

Sarah

Most puppies use their teeth in play and some learn to use them in defence.  I don't recommend telling off puppies or any dogs for that matter.  Her survival instincts are to blame for the behaviour.

Don't wait for her to start biting and then get cross.  If it is predictable then encourage her to do something else instead like retrieve toys or scatter feed some of her daily food ration.

As for the housetraining if you praise Mollie when she goes outside or on the newspaper and shout at her when she goes indoors or on the newspaper then all she is learning is that sometimes you are pleased when she pees and sometimes you are angry.  The only thing she'll be sure about is that it's only safe to go when no one is looking.  That is why she won't go when you are watching her in the garden.  I bet you've turned your back on her when she comes back indoors and does it. 

I hope you can persuade your Mum that the shouting isn't helping.

Sally

hi saffy :)

we have a 5 month old pup who was a bitey MONSTER when we first had her. We're fairly on top of it now but the most important thing has been to 'out-think' her and work out why  she's biting. Our's first phase was that she nipped when she wanted to play or wanted our attention (cos that's what she'd done in her litter) - to teach her that was no way acceptable, we'd VERY exaggeratedly ignore her ie suddenly & immediately stand up, stick our noses in hte air, go auiet, avoid eye contact and COMPLETELY give her no attention for @ 20-30 seconds, then would start playing gently again. Over the course of about 3 or 4 days of constantly repeating this, she got the idea that nipping us got the EXACT opposite of what she wanted. The other thing that works quite well, esp if she's chewing things like furniture is to stomp off out of the room after you've said a firm 'No!' (obviously if she stops, stay - ours initially looked then carried on chewing so i went out. Now she stops on the 'No!')

Thing is you have to be consistent over a few days (even if it seems like its not working), as the whole thing works by her picking up an understanding of your reaction to her biting - so she has to see it quite a few times before she understands that it will always happen like that, so she'd be better not to do it.

Also - putting pup out of the room can be really powerful, especially if the whole family are having a nice time in one room, she'll hate that! But be careful - this caused the 2nd phase of our RUby's biting, ie to keep away those nasty hands that came to take her out of the room/put her off the sofa. I don't know how big or what breed your dog is which will impact the ease of this too - ours is a cavalier so quite little and not v aggressive so it took quite a while before she started to nip at us - i can imagine some other dogs would do so straight away.

ANyway what's really really helping me now is to leave a 'house-line' on her - this is just a light long lead that i leave on her all the time in the house at the mo (we're trying to break her habit of jumping up on all the furniture) - its about 1 or 1.5m long and is pretty light so it doesn't really bother her (although she does love to chew it - this means i have to supervise her really carefully with it on though so i can check she doesn't swallow any - don't let anyone ever tell you pups aren't hard work! but they are so worth it!)

Then when she goes somewhere she shouldn't or does something naughty, we have control of her without getting close enough that she can nip at our hands. (Eg if she jumps up, i'll first ask her to come off - which she's been taugh and knows what it means, she's just a minx - and if she doesn't do it in a few seconds then i pick up the line and use it to gently encourage her down. Is working a treat.....)

Maybe try this - it could help you all have control and take her out of te room with out getting close enough for her to nip at you. But do watch her so she doesn't catch it on things or chew it and swallow it.

Toilet training will come! I'm no expert, this is my first puppy so all i can say is that with ours we just spent the first few weeks almost constantly outside with her, but that's not much help in this weather is it? Just make sure she gets WELL treated when she does go outside. Ruby's having regression with toiletting at the mo - little Miss Precious Paws doesn't like going outside when its cold and wet. TOday i tried to take her out, she refused hten as soon as i shut the back door, she ran into her cage (where she sleeps at night) and peed where she does if she has to go in the night (she's only just going through the night in the past fortnight, which is apparently fairly normal for small dogs) - MINX! I took her straight out and got her cold and wet anyway after that i can tell you!

GOod luck - keep posting, i found this board so helpful in the first few weeks :)

PS i'm also living at home with my mum & dad and new pup. we had some interesting arguments in hte first month of pup coming home, i can tell you but it passes! Its all normal family life i think :)