Me and my wife got our baby, Nakhota back in August this year. He's a stunning Alaskan Malamute and a large one at that.

He's now 5 months old and his behaviour has dramatically changed in the last month.

He's started to answer back a lot, steel food and clothing and now started biting us. I understand he's teething but there have been occasions (becoming more frequent) he's going for our faces, when we withdraw our hands and arms. My wife has been pushed down there stairs, even if she stays to one side of the stairs he will always try to push between her legs or spread himself across the full width and push by. He is urinating now in defiance at times. I know it's deliberate as he was house trained within a few days. Always asking to be let out or holding it in until he's let out, for about 2 months. He seems overly excited for a puppy and sometimes this can turn to aggression with nipping and hard biting.



He has been to formal training from the age of 12 weeks which lasted 6 weeks. He was generally very good and mixed well with other pups. OK he wasn't the best in his class but after all he is a malamute and we all know they are a stubborn breed. I have read that formal training is basically wasted before 6 months but we thought it couldn't do any harm. He is set for more training either next month or the start of the New Year.



We would be grateful of any help in ways to calm our over excited boy down.

Pleas email me immediately ..I have 3 Alaskan Malamutes and I can put you in touch with people who can help

In the meantime, begin the NILIF programme..Nothing Im Life Is Free. Make him wait before food, make him wait before opening the door to let him out, in other words, quietly make him earn all privilidges

Malamutes need to go to training classes throughout their lives , as a reinforcement rather than anything else and as a socialization aid as well.

Put a baby gate at the bottom of your stairs and do not allow him up them.

Malamutes need to know that you are the boss, quietly and surely. No shouting or smacking :) If you don't conquer this now you will have MAJOR problems when he hits 12-18 months old and gets to teenage *Kevinhood*

He is trying it on, testing to see if you are worthy of being leader ...and you must stop it :)

I had similair problems at this age with my GSD. Just a phase that they go through but very tiring. Mostly over exuberance and perfectly normal. We have a baby gate accross the hall so that she can't go upstairs, this we had right from the start. Very useful and now at 2 years of age, even if we leave the gate open, she will not go upstairs unless invited to do so. This also meant that she could not rush the front door when anyone visited. Time outs also help with misbehaviour. You need to be very firm and not stand for any messing. Things will get better albeit a long road. The next stage, being good for a while, little angel ,and then the Kevin stage. Gabi has just passed this stage and is now a joy to own. My thoughts are with you at this trying time.   

Hi, I'm not sure who told you that formal training is wasted before 6 months old - nothing could be further from the truth.  The more training you do with your pup from the day you get it, to the end of the first year, the better.  You can't do too much.  Of course this should also be reward based training using treats and toys, and not punishment based training using prong or choke chains. 

If you tell us where you are based (US?) we can maybe suggest some trainers in your area.

I'd also suggest you get hold of a book called The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson and have a read.  It will tell you why your dog is doing a lot of these things and will help a great deal.  It is available from Amazon in the US and UK.

What do you mean by he is "answering back" - can you explain in more detail what happens and what you do when this happens?

For stealing food - all dogs are opportunists and will steal food if it is within their reach.  The only thing to do is either to keep him permanently out of the kitchen (maybe by using baby gates) or to keep all food securely locked away.

When he steals clothing, what does he do with it?

For biting, please read this link:
http://www.jersey.net/~mountaindog/berner1/bitestop.htm

Dogs don't urinate "in defiance" or "deliberately", they urinate to mark.  He is 5 months old and from what you describe is beginning to go through adolescence.  Adolescent dogs have about twice the amount of testosterone in them than adult male dogs have - the levels drop once they pass adolescence.  You are going to have to go back to basics with toilet training.  Take him outside often and reward toileting outside.  When he goes inside, ignore it and clean it with washing machine soap, to remove the smell of the enzymes, so that he doesn't go there again.  Don't punish him.

When he gets too excited, give him time out and put him in another room or crate him.  He will soon learn that every time he nips or bites, he gets put out of the room.

Please think in terms of cause and effect.  Make your dog sit before you put down his dinner.  Reward him immediately when he does what you tell him to.  Give him time out if he gets too excited or aggressive in play. 

The formal training bit I was told by a US breeder. I was given a link detailing why, but the gist of it was "that for Mal's formal training with other dogs is to much for them, they are easily distracted" etc etc. "Basic one on one training is best for them up to 6 months when they have developed and matured enough to understand the need for training". It went something like that anyway.
I am from the UK and we deal with a remarkable trainer who has 1 mal and two huskies so knows the score, and he's only ever had reward training. His training is not a problem. He knows and 99% of the time obeys all commands, including call back. He is extremely bright and completes lots of these "reward toys", the ones with treats in. He loves a mental challenge!

He doesn't steel food at all, he always waits before eating, is more than happy to be touched and food added/removed from his bowl without even a whimper. Generally he is very well behaved. Its just when he's hyper he changes, he wont take "no more" as an answer. He talks back, not a bark or a whine as such but you know what I mean. Then if you say it again he may run off and prance about like a thing possessed then come back for some more. You say no again or ignore him he's up on the sofa, nipping at your hip or under your arm, where he knows it hurts I'm sure. Due to the nature of our ground floor he can't be put in another room for time out as we have open plan. So he's put in his bed and restrained with two old leads joined together round a table leg. He is free to move about 8' and has access to both food and water. We have tried the settle command which works but only when he is calm to start with. When he gets in this mood there seems little we can do other than wait it out.  He is only left in time out until he has calmed down and isn't barking whining for attention. Most of the time this works and we have no problems until he gets in the same mood again. This can be anything from 10 mins until the next evening. There seems to be no pattern to this mood. Sometimes if it's within ten 10 mins is usually when he with urinate in defiance. He will either walk over to in front of you and pee on the floor just like that or other times will let himself upstairs and urinate on the landing (as all other doors are always kept shut). It's very rarely in the same spot, but it's to make a point as he will look at you after as if to say there, that showed you! This is the only time he does urinate in the house and it's always after time out or refusal to continue to play.

As for the cloths he steels these, tend to be small items. Clean, dirty, it makes no odds to him! Sometimes we don't even know he's taken anything! Today he passed two socks and one yellow duster. We have no idea where or when he got them. He always tries to eat anything he takes.

You need to make sure that he can't reach anything to steal ...a friend of mine lost her dog not too long ago after it ate something it shouldn't have done.

What action do you take when he pees in front of you? What do you do when he gets hyper? What does your breeder say about it all?

We do try to get everything  but as i said we dont always know when or even how he gets things.
Everything is now kept well out of reach. short of him opening draws and cloing them, we now know when he has something.
It really tends to be just socks more than anything.

When he pees we say no and naughty. then take him out side and give him the que word for him to go outside. sometimes he goes again, outside as we ask but other times he doesn;t. If he does he's praised but still given time out, or just given time out if he doesn;t go again.

As for the breeder we got him from, she seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. other than me travelling to see her i can't get hold of her. Phone is disconnected, and never had replies to countless emails. This was even as soon as three weeks after we got him. :(

His hyper mood can be when he takes play to far and starts biting and being agressive. Or it can simply be him coming in from outside and jumping all over us on the sofa and nipping again.
Yet again, just this min he has just let himself upstairs and pee'd on the floor because i had finished playing with him. He then went outside and played for about 5 mins before coming back in to see me on the computer, i stroked him and said good boy he them clawed at my leg and said no more and stroked him once more. He then walked away for about another min and then let himself upstairs. I called him and no answer, called him once more and at the same time heard the trickle of pee on the landing.

Have emailed you :)

I'd say - forget about what you were told by the US breeder.  The reason why dogs in traditional training aren't trained until they are past 6 months is because the methods used involve compulsion and punishment, and puppies are not considered ready for those methods before 6 months old.  If you're using reward based methods then you can begin at any age and the earlier the better.  Even more reason for them to get used to other dogs being around from a young age, if they find them distracting - the earlier they are introduced to these distractions, the easier they will find it to ignore them, because the less novelty they will have.

It sounds to me like you need to rethink your strategy of excluding him when he has done wrong.  The idea of the leads and the table is a start, but it must be a pain to have to rig him up to that and he is also not kept away from you by any kind of physical barrier, just a lead.

I think that a crate would be ideal for you in the long run - have you used one with him?  The reason why I think it would be great is - it would eliminate the marking/weeing behaviour because dogs don't like to mess in their own beds, it would act as a time-out space (eventually - not at first), he couldn't take any clothes when he's in there and he would be forced to calm down because there's nothing to interact with.  You could withdraw all attention from him when he's in the crate and he would not be able to "demand" your attention back again, by performing attention-seeking behaviours (weeing, stealing things, trying to play fight you) - you would be in control of the situation fully.

However, I do think the crate needs to be introduced carefully when you first get it if you want to try this.  Because you can't use it as a time-out space at first - the dog has to like the crate and think of it as his den first.  When you have a dog which is very secure with a crate and likes it a lot and has no hang-ups about it, then you can use it as a time-out space sometimes, as long as you also use it at other random times too, so the dog doesn't only associate the crate with punishment.  If you start using the crate as punishment from the beginning, the dog will hate it and resist it.  It won't just be a removal-of-something-good (your attention), it will become a punishment (the administration of something bad).  You need to keep an eye that the dog sees it as the former and not the latter - there is a subtle but important difference.  But I still feel that a crate is your best option.