agressive biting

[viper456]

This is my first question for the forum. Good reading by the way, thanks.
My question is how to deal with a aprox. 11 week old puppy who agressively bit me today.

Some background information... We have had puppies before, a rottie cross, my large mutt and a rescued German Shepherd that was 2 when we got her. I grew up with 2 or more dogs in my household my entire life. The puppy "Zoe" has seemed a little agressive with my daughter (13) but I have not seen this side of her before. My aunt gave our 5 yr old mutt "Bear" a bone a few days ago. Zoe has since claimed it as her own. My daughter, son and husband have all been able to take this away from her (and give it back) today I tried the same so I could get her back in the house. I am concerned because she seems to have already decided that my husband is the only person she needs to pay any attention to. We have not signed up for puppy classes, as I was waiting for soccer and baseball season to be over first. Now that the kids are going back to school, I believe it is time. The recommendation from the vet when correcting poor behaviour (her nipping at my daughter) was to hold her by the scruff of her neck (like her mother would) and hold her mouth closed while saying NO! This doesn't seem to be working. Zoe just seems to become more upset. Should I be concerned?

[AngelBunny]

Please don't consult your vet for training suggestions. Just as you can't expect your dentist to fix a broken leg, let's say, you cann't expect your vet--who was trained to heal sick animals--to provide useful training and behavioral suggestions.

As you're finding out, using coersive methods isn't the correct approach. Rather than punishing your puppy, try positive reinforcement.

If your puppy has something the puppy deems to be of high value, offer the puppy something even better--a piece of chicken, cheese, or roast beef for that tissue, shoe, sock, or whatever the puppy has. Then when the puppy brings the item to you (no likely) or leaves the item (more likely), you have something wonderful for the puppy to eat. And you enrich the food goody with verbal praise and pets.

To answer your question--yes, you need to be concerned. Puppies don't grow out of bad manners. They need to get trained out of them. If they aren't, they grow up into dogs with bad manners. And these dogs aren't pretty.

Please start looking for a class where the trainer has experience training working dogs and uses positive reinforcement.

[Zumie05]

Very rarely is a puppy truly aggressive. Most puppies are just testing the ropes and figuring out What works and what doesn't, basically figuring out how to use their doggy puppy bodies and communicate with the world.

True aggression in puppies will be genetic and pretty much impossible to cure, only manage. Your puppy sounds like it is displaying pretty typical behavior. Classes are a must at this point!

I remember when my guy was about 12 - 14 weeks old (I don't remember exactly) when we had his first aggressive out break and it freaked me out. He was playing with our friend's dog and they got too emotional and when I took him away he attacked me! It was something I had never seen or heard him do before and I was very concerned about this. After talking about that incident with the members on this board I was pretty much told that my dog is a puppy and he threw a temper tantrum.

My dog is not aggressive what so ever (1 year now!) and I am pretty sure he was just testing to see if that little bout of bad behavior would cause me to let him go back and play with the other puppy, basically give him what he wants. It did not get him what he wanted, and shortly after we started him in his puppy class to work more on socialization.

Again, training classes are a must!

[FilosFolks]

In addition I would add that your entire family begin practicing NILIF. You can search and find many links about how to implement it.

It is extremely important for you and more importantly (safety wise) your children have this puppy's respect because very soon you will have a large dog to deal with.