A quick question for all you behavioral experts. I have a GR puppy who is 9.5 weeks. He is settling in well and we adore him. We have discovered his favourite toy is a stuffed toy of a life sized golden retriever. We only bring it out a couple of times a day to really tire him out, he absolutely loves it and is either trying to kill it or hump it. Sometimes we just leave him to play with on the floor othertimes we animate the toy a bit, make woof noises etc. We all love this game but I wonder if I am creating a monster, who will just want to bite or hump things! - We keep saying okay that toy's banned now but inevitably as soon as he is getting a bit too lively again it comes out as we now it will tire him out and put him to sleep. It is difficult to use up his energy at the moment as he is too little for retrieve games etc and he has to be on a lead in the garden as he keeps eating stuff and making himself poorly. I hope I am worried over nothing and we can continue to play with his favourite toy but I just wondered if we might be encouraging him to be agressive. He is still play biting and tugging my clothes though I think we are making a bit of progress with those.

Cheers Oz x

Hi Oz,

sounds like typical puppy play to me - pups explore everything with their mouths and what they start of licking inevitably end up chewing LOL.  As for the "humping" - again this is pretty much normal, even with bitch puppies and is not s#xually driven so need not be a concern.  As with chewing where we teach bite inhibition, we can put a stop to unwanted humping behaviours by simply re-directing the puppy onto something else of interest (that is distracting it, not encouraging it to hump something else :-D )

It will take some weeks to get on top of the bite inhibition - particularly when the new set of teeth start to change at around 4+ months and mouths/gums are sore so chewing and play biting sometimes increases. 

Nothing that you have mentioned is likely to make your puppy at all agressive - when you are able to take him out regularly it will be good for him to socialise with known sensible and sensitive dogs and preferrably also at some sort of puppy class too.  There is no better teacher IMO on appropriate canine communication than another canine :) 

HTH, Teri :)

I can't see the harm in this game, so long as he doesn't start humping you and biting you when you are playing, in which case i'd put the toy away straightaway.
Actually he isn't too young to learn to retrieve our lab/collie cross was learning retrieve with a mini dumbell in the kitchen, and it was (and still is) one of his favourite games, though now he likes to fetch the ball in the park more.

Hi Teri,

Thanks, phew I am glad we can keep playing with his favourite toy as he absolutely loves it, he sits next to the cupboard it is in asking us to get it out! We find his humping hilarious but know we shouldn't encourage it :)

Cheers Oz x

Thanks RReeve, Freddy is a bit behind I fear, we have managed sit and to get him to wear his collar so far but nothing more complicated, it is really difficult to get him to concentrate and stop chewing things for 5 seconds!

I keep saying tomorrow we'll start his training in earnest but we have enough on with his house training at the moment! (which he is making some progress on thankfully, only one accident yesterday and two today!) He is quite clever though I reckon, he has perfected the art of doing half poos. By this I mean he has caught on he will get a treat so he does half a poo runs up for a treat and another minute later does the other half and gets another treat! - My husband say's I should halve the treats :)