| 14 week female..need help
What do you guys think? Here is an email I sent to my breeder. It is in regards to our latest problem. Our 14 week old female is starting to lunge, growl and bite at our legs/feet/ankles. This agressive behavior is starting to concern me. The email details everything we are doing for the dog. Thanks
Hello *******,
I am concerned with Leia’s behavior. This morning I took her in the yard on her leash. We are getting a new furnace and air conditioner, so the installers were there putting it in. She greeted them and allowed them to pet her with no problems. I then took her around back to go to the bathroom and she started jumping up and down, running, then growling and lunging towards me. She was then biting at my feet and ankles while growling. Francine and I spend a great deal of our time with her. I train her every day. She knows sit, paw, down, over (yes she even rolls over already), watch (she keeps focus on me even while moving in a complete circle around her), and she is starting to learn drop (when she fetches and brings a ball back to me). She was even playing hide and go seek with us and as soon as we say where is…….Francine or John, she will start to search all over the house until she finds us. She is a very smart dog. We have not left her alone for more than 4 hours (in her crate of course) since we brought her home. If Francine and I both work during the day my Dad or my brother watch her. We take her on one or two walks daily depending on how hot it is. She meets people all over the neighborhood as well as other dogs and never once has she growled or shown any aggression towards anyone, including strange kids that come up to her to pet her. She has been to one puppy class already and did not show any aggression to the other dogs and owners. I think we are doing everything we can to make her a properly socialized and well rounded dog. I however am really concerned about the growling, lunging, and biting. We tried turning her over on her back like you said before and tapping her nose, but that didn’t seem to do much, you just put her back down and she’s right back at it. In fact any type of correction seems to make it worse. I often have to grab her by the collar and put her in her crate for a time out. She comes out of the crate and she’s right back at it. She is getting too big, to be doing this and if she continues doing it when she gets larger, I am afraid we are going to have to give her up for fear of her biting someone. I practice many things with her to show I am the alpha. I make her sit before we go out. I make sure I am the first one out. I make her go through several things before I feed her. I even pretend to eat from her bowl prior to giving it to her. She always sits, goes down and rolls over before she is allowed to eat. We picked up all of her toys and she is only allowed to play with one at a time after she earns it by performing several tricks. I read about this on the Internet. They call it NILF. Nothing In Life is Free. I am running out of things to try with her. I was hoping the puppy classes along with everything we are doing could change her behavior, but it only looks like it is getting worse.
She had worms when we first brought her home. We took her to the vet the day after we picked her up from you. They said this is common in puppies and they treated her. She then somehow infected herself again, this time she had round worm. They also said it was very easy for her to re infect herself. This was a week ago and they treated her for this. When she is sleeping, sometimes she will wake up yelping for no apparent reason (almost like she was dreaming). This doesn’t happen all of the time, but sometimes she will be moving her legs (kind of like twitching). I also noticed one time she was doing this when she was lying next to me on the floor and I could see her eyes moving back and forth rapidly. I know in humans when we are in the deepest part of sleep, our eyes move back and fourth rapidly so I am assuming she was in a deep sleep.
Any help would be appreciated because we really love this dog and want her to succeed. I think we are doing everything we can for her, but I am really concerned about the aggression.
Thanks,
John
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