Puppy Advice (merged)

BigMummaF

We are brand spanking new to all things doggie,[& to posting!] so need all the info we can get! I've read through the other posts on this forum & found out so much already-thank you for that.

'A' is a 15week old white Staff/English bull terrier who is developing a somewhat psychotic side to his otherwise friendly nature. For most of his waking hours, he is inquistive, comical, loving & content. Then,with no prior warning,he will lock on to whoever he is sitting next to-hand, sleeve, back, leg-while growling 'with intent'.

At the moment, it is usually the 'victim' who will restrain 'A' by restricting his bite area....how can I explain it? It is an adult [predominantly male] household so we use the space between thumb & forefinger to make a hoop rather like in croquet, to keep 'A' jaws away from anything that will hurt! Because he is still little we do not make actual contact with his neck or throat, & if need be have a spare hand to settle his hind quarters as he scratches to get free. He makes terrible gutteral growls, almost as if he is cursing like some drunken yob. We try not to talk or make eye contact with the pup until he settles, when we will gently stroke him as you would a sleeping baby.

He has 600g of tinned Winalot Puppy with either Pedigree Small Mixer or raw fruit & veg three times a day. We also have a four year old green iguana so they share things like plum, nectarine, beans, pepper, parsnip, celery-I did wonder if it was the grated carrot that started him off, but he hasn't had any for a couple of days & there's no change. I hasten to add they don't eat all of that every day, but I thought it may help if I listed the sort of things we give 'A'.

He also seems to sleep quite a bit, two or three hours after breakfast, maybe another two after lunch, so he is only having one walk a day & that's not far. Usually my son & he will spend an evening visiting with a friend who has two staffies but by all accounts 'A' will grab a quick 40 winks there too!

We have an indoor kennel[crate] but are loathe to use it for punishment & will invest in puppy training when the classes begin again in Sept, but anything we can do before then would be a big help.

Justie

it's part of the terrier make up to lock onto things they're biting. And it's a puppy thing to explore the world with their teeth. I'm not sure how much of what you're describing is play though as it depends on what's going on before it happens. It may well be that he'd practising and has turned it into a game with the person interactign with him by adding to the game by pushing him away so giving him something to test his strength against. In a litter pups the other pup will yelp if the pup has gone too far in the play so it may be worth trying a high pitched 'yikes' or 'ouch' as soon as he does it (with no other contact) to see if he'll then let go. If that works then it's a matter of teaching him what he's allowed to lock onto and what he isn't - maybe buy a kong or other strong toy for him to lock his teeth into.

Personally I wouldn't feed Pedigree but there are others who can give better advice on diet.

As for sleeping - it's perfectly normal and it's what dogs are basically designed to do and puppies will do it even more.

Debt_Free_Chick

Get the pup - or more importantly yourself - into a puppy training school pronto. They will show you a number of techniques to control this - and control it, you must, before the pup learns that it might be acceptable. Locking on with puppy teeth and a puppy's weight is one thing - but the fully grown dog, with huge gnashers locking on to a child in five years time, really doesn't bear thinking about.

Off to school

Unusual (around here, anyway) for puppy school to take holidays. Would you consider paying for one-to-one sessions with a trainer before September? I paid £30 for 1.5 hours and it was absolutely invaluable - worth every penny as the trainer focuses on YOU and YOUR pup.

HTH

Raksha

Puppies do bite - it's what they are designed to do - they certainly don't need needle sharp teeth to suckle....
Here is an excellent article on puppy biting - they whys, and how to stop it http://www.jersey.net/~mountaindog/berner1/bitestop.htm

I too would consider changing his diet - The four I hihgly recommend are 'complete dry' foods - I notice at the moment you are feeding him a mix of tinned and mixer so he may need a little more time to adjust to a dry complete (he'd probably appreciate it moistened a little). The following are probably the better end of the market - Arden Grange, Nutro, James Wellbeloved and Burns. If you want to keep to moist food, try Nature Diet or Natures Menu - these too are complete foods, so don't need any added mixer.

Whilst we're talking about moistening food - he's probably teething, so he may have connected the discomfort of teething with having his mouth restricted - if you had tooth ache you wouldn't want anyone near your mouth would you? Cooling things are often appreciated by teething puppies - so stuff that Kong with moist food or even low fat yoghurt, and freeze it. Alternatively, he may be experiencing a reaction to something in his food - if there's a pattern to the behaviour and it's happening X min/hours after being fed.

I would also be careful about the type of play he's indluging in with his doggie friends - he may be getting encouragement to play seriously rough there - and a good puppy class will help to teach him to play nicely as he can be exposed to a variety of puppies, large and small.

tiamai_d

Another good free tip for teething is to slightly moisten a flannel, tie it in a knot and freeze. The texture of the cold flannel is great for teeth and gums.

This is my 8month old pups fave toy and always has been! Or even an old towel washed and ripped up then tied into interesting knots. Make sure it is tied so he knows the difference between toys and your towels though!

But dont play 'tug' with him for another few months, you could pull baby teeth and newly grown adult teeth out.

Eels100

What Raksha said .

Seriously, biting's probably the easiest thing to sort out when it comes to puppy behaviour - and also one of the worst things to screw up on, so well done for addressing the issue. The growling and gripping are very probably down to breed and age, but definitely need to be dealt with promptly. I had a quick scan through Raksha's link and it looks really good.

Provided everyone in the home follows the same procedure I'd say 90% of these cases are sorted in a couple of days. Puppy bites = it hurts = victim yells 'ouch', and leaves the room. It's important not to make any other interaction with the puppy at this stage - withdraw all eye contact/no shouting/no talking/don't use the word 'no'/don't 'wrestle' with the puppy. Just walk away - 15-30 seconds out of the room is probably enough. Puppy learns extremely quickly that biting results in withdrawal of the attention-giving, squeaky-noise-making, generally-fun-to-be-around human being. Puppy stops biting.

Good luck!

BigMummaF

Thank you for the swift replies! I had read before about the kongs & freezing them, but wasn't sure if the little angel was old enough for things like dairy.
The towelling is something else we will try-I've some old nappies in the airing cupboard that should do the trick[if the moths haven't had them first!].

There does not seem to be any pattern to why A should start this behaviour, & it can last from 5 to 25mins. We've yelped; turned our backs; tried giving him a chew toy or rawhide bone-so leaving the room will be next on the agenda.

From my point of things, I'm really enjoying learning alongside the pup & watching his character develop. Even though we are very new to this ourselves, the whole family have always agreed that you don't get dangerous dogs-just pathetically moronic owners.

rescuedogs

Can I recommend a book? The perfect Puppy by Gwen Bailey might help.

POSSETTE

just a thought...does it look like an epileptic fit??

BigMummaF

I don't think it's anything medical. I guess I'm just looking for some guidance as to how wee young things try to assert their authority.

Being a mum to three sons, I've seen plenty of stroppy testosterone thrown around & kinda thought it may transverse the species!

Raksha

Puppies are really unlucky - they get teething AND hormones at the same time