7 week old puppy with EXTREMELY bad temper... help please!!!

[iownazoo]

Hello all.

I have been fostering a puppy since 4 weeks of age, since he had to be bottle fed and all of that. We are fostering him, because his mother had a bad temper and tried to kill her puppies. She and her pups were dropped off at the local humane society and our vet asked us if we'd want to foster a puppy. I woke up with him every night, every 3-4 hours and bottle feed him.

Then of course we switched to his dry food, mixed in with his formula, put into a blender. Then we gradually switched him over to all dry food.

Now, he's Mr. Independent, exploring everything and not wanting any human assistance. Lately, his new thing is showing teeth, growling really loudly and BITING if you do something he does not like. Last night, I took away a piece of rawhide that was too small for him, so he wouldn't choke. At first he guarded the rawhide, then I told him to drop it, a term I use for all of my dogs, when I want what they've got. It works for the others, of course not the puppy yet. He wouldn't drop it, then I told him that that was NO in a very firm voice. That seemed to only anger him more. Instead of biting at my hands and wrists now, he bit my chest and put a hole in my shirt and made me bleed. I then told him that was no and put him in his crate.
This morning, he was on my bed and started to bite on my leg, I told him that was no, so he started growling at me when I removed him from my leg. He then bit me on my hand, drawing blood. He wouldn't stop growling, showing teeth and biting. This time I tried giving him a toy, which worked. But if I try to take the toy/rawhide away, all hell breaks loose.

I don't think the problem is that he doesn't have enough toys. He's got plenty, well over 40. He also has 4 other dogs to play with.

(I forgot to write it, but we decided to keep him. The day came when we had to give him back and we just couldn't do it. Also, he will be 8 weeks this Saturday.)

I don't know if this is a problem that will go away overtime or does he need thorough teaching? This could dangerous, later, when he becomes an adult and pulls this attitude on the Alpha dog here.

Also, just some random information... when we put him in his crate, he's got toys, rawhides, food and water, as well as fresh blankets and a "potty place." He's doing well with his potty training, as we take him outside everytime he wakes up. We have toys that make noises, rather than squeek, such as a squirrel making squirrel noises. He absolutely HATES these and will growl at them and attack them. I don't know if that will be a problem, turning into something bigger, later in life.

Anyway, I'll stop writing now. I'll thank everyone ahead of time for your responses.

Attached is a picture of him. He's my cute little boy.

[iownazoo]

I guess it would help if I attached it, lol.

[Cheshirekatt]

Um, it kind of sounds like he inherited his mom's bad temper.

I'd be very worried about this behavior and I think now is the time to contact a certified dog behaviorist and get on it.

IMHO it's only going to get worse and yes, I do think you'll have an alpha dog later on.

What type of dog is he?

Oh and welcome to Pet Talk!

[iownazoo]

The humane society was unsure of what kind of dog he is, but everyone thinks part Yellow Lab.

One of my other dogs lets him know that she's the Alpha dog, some days he seems passive towards her, other times he bites her in a playful way.

And TY for the welcome.

Chesire, LOL, I like your signature.

[lv4dogs]

Welcome! I agree w/ cheshire, it sounds as if his problem is not the typical puppy *testing* stage, he seems too agressive. I would seek the help of a certified behavorist, or at the very least get him into a puppy socialization/obedience class ASAP.

Since he respects your alpha dog, he has the possibility of learning to respect you as alpha. It also makes me wonder if you are not firm enough on him, or maybe not being persistant & consistant with training him. Are you alpha over your alpha dog?
good luck with him!

[iownazoo]

Thank you for the replies. We intend to put him into a basic puppy obedience class.

Yes, I am alpha over the alpha dog. I am firm enough and persistant. Most of the time, he'll put his ears back and give kisses, now he just bites and growls more. I don't know what started that.

I will definitely look into a certified behaviorist.

Do you think there is anything MORE I should be doing? Or am I doing something wrong? Thanks ahead of time for any suggestions and responses.

[clara4457]

I'm really hoping Carrie sees this and replies. I think this is something that needs to be assessed by a certified behaviorist. These aggressive actions that the pup is showing alarm me.

It is pretty hard to really judge in cyberspace since the dog's body posture is unknown, so I'm not really sure if it is inappropriate play and lack of bite inhabition or actual aggressiveness. Remember dominance and aggression are two different things.

One thing worries me - do you have any children? or planning on having any in the future? The potential for disaster kind of screams out to me.

I have to agree with everyone here that the dog needs to be evaluated by a certified animal behaviorist. I would look for a behaviorist that also has dog training experience. Remember, not all trainers have experience in dog behavior. I am a dog trainer and I am currently taking classes in animal behavior, but I would never tackle a case like this - I don't have the credentials or the experience. I would refer it to one of the two behaviorists in my area or the Cornell University Animal Behavior Clinic.

In the meantime, I would put him on the "Nothing in life is Free" program. The Dumb Animal League has it outlined
here

[lv4dogs]

I am not exactly sure what you do besides say no to him when he misbehaves. But here are some suggestions you could try.
I would not put him in his crate right after he gets punished. the crate should be a safe happy place for a dog. Instead give him a time out in a place you dont mind if he ends up hating it in the long run, maybe tie him to a chair or something & do not give him any toys or treats for a few minutes. Then release him.

Also when you take toys away from him, maybe try to have a treat in your hand, tell him to drop the toy & show him the treat at the same time, he should be more than willing to give up the toy. Once he drops the toy praise him & treat him.

ALWAYS praise when he is behaving well. This is the most important rule in training a dog.

Not sure what kind of toys you have but I would stay away from anything that resembles household objects, ex. old socks, how does he know the difference between old socks & new ones? Also the rope toys that resemble some throw rugs. Also I would not give him rawhides until he learns more for 2 reasons, #1- a rawhide only teaches them to chew, #2- for safety, when they get too small you may not be able to get it away from him.

If he was play biting you could *yelp* really really loud like a puppy does when they get hurt, they ussually back right off when you do that. You can try it for his aggressive biting too, but I am not too sure if that will work.

If certain objects, movements or places trigger him to be more agressive then I would avoid them until he learns more how to behave properly.

you can also try to hand feed him, even though he was bottle fed, it seems as if he still hasn't learned *dont bite the hand that feeds you*. Or at least feed him the first half of his meals by hand if you don't have that much time on your hands.

The one training tip I think would have the most impact on the pup would be the "nothing in life is free"
you make him obey a comand (any command) for EVERYTHING. If he wants supper he has to sit, If he wants to be petted you make him lay7 down, If he needs to go outside (yes even to potty) you make him shake. etc. etc. He never ever should get anything for free. This is also good for dogs w/ sep. anxiety. It builds their confidence, teaches them to respect you, helps with obedience training & bonding.

[3CaniBellisimi]

Hello iownazoo,

Sorry this is long, here are some suggestions and I hope that they help out. I hope other members will offer some tips to you.

Too much of a good thing:

Could part of this issue be constant access to too many toys leading to overstimulation and subsequent desensitization? I remember having read in a dog training book that if a dog has access to dozens of toys all at once, that the dog will devalue and not appreciate them since he can 'have at it' with any quantity of them whenever he desires.

As a result, you are giving too much power to the pup and are lessening your effectiveness as leader by providing too many choices to the 'baby'/puppy. Its kind of like handing a 2 year old child a menu at a restaurant with 40 choices which is too much for a kid to handle. You know how a parent will say to a toddler: "Ok, do you want Cherios, or Life Cereal for breakfast?" (Not, here's the room service a la carte menu for a huge restaurant and you decide from 40 choices including creme brule, crepes suzette, and pancakes too!).

Perhaps if you pick up and completely put away 35 of the 40 toys (especially the ones that encourage the growling/distressing unwanted behavior such as the squirel noise toy because that one is triggering an undesirable response in your pup) and only leave out 4-5 toys. The growling is something you want to discourage so if you know a toy will make him react like this, get the toy out of his environment and never torment or tease him with it because then you are positively encouraging and reinforcing that the growling and agreesion behavior is ok. This is behavior that you don't want to provoke and you don't want to encourage it or make it easy for him.

Has anyone in your household been playing "tug of war" games with this pup? Since you already see aggression in this pup, never play tug of war with him and do not let any children or spouses play tug of war or wrestling with the pup. Such games reinforce aggression and these games will absolutely worsen the situation. Definitely do not let anyone (relatives, friends, neighbors, etc.) engage in tug of war games with this pup.

If you limit access to toys and there are only a few available, then, if he has something in his mouth that shouldn't be there [such as shoes, or a small piece of something, an electrical cord, or anything dangerous] you can TRADE with him by offering him a Kong toy filled with something completely desirable. Fill the kong with such tempting things as soft cheese or natural peanut butter (avoid brands like Jif, skippy, Peter Pan etc. with tons of sodium and preservative and use that natural kind that you have to stir and keep in the fridge because it only has ground peanuts as the ingredient and is better for the dog than those ones mentioned previously). Anyway, if you have a much more tempting treat to trade, the pup might just drop the undesirable object and when he does drop it, at that exact moment give the command "drop it" and offer up the trade toy. This is so he learns that you are not a "taker" or thief of his toys but a "giver" or "sharer" with this exchange idea. You want the dog's trust and you won't get it by yanking something that he feels is desirable enough for him to growl over it unless you replace it with something that he finds even better than what he gave up. Don't be a taker; be a trader/sharer and the dog will be more trusting.

If I were you, I'd take away all of the RAWHIDE for now and hide it somewhere so that the dog can't get to it because it is also encouraging the possessive/aggressive behavior. Rawhide often contains proplene gylcol which is a sweet substance that is the non toxic but quite similar to the toxic ingredient in antifreeze. The rawhide with its p.g. ingredient is encouraging your dog to seek super sweet stuff and making him a 'sugar fiend'. It doesn't help him to be hyped up on a sweet and seemingly addictive substance. And, it also teaches the dog the scent and smell of something that could kill him such that if he ever came upon some antifreeze in the driveway, that he should lap it up because the sweet taste reminds him of rawhide. Therefore, if it was me, I'd make sure that NO Rawhide is available to your any of your dogs. If rawhide isn't an option, then you aren't placed in the position of having to wrench a too small rawhide piece from his mouth. When he is older and has gotten the hang of 'drop it' and learns that you will 'trade' exchange a better toy once he drops the undesirable thing he has in his mouth, then maybe at that point you can reintroduce rawhide to your household pets.

Puppies don't realize their sharp teeth is hurting you when they decide to bite you. Pups play by biting each other and their birth mother dog. Since he was taken away from the mom at such a young age (which was a necessity if she was killing the pups), then he didn't learn from the mother that he would get nipped in the nose by Mom Dog if he dared to bite her too hard. However, since this pup was deprived of his mom teaching him that if he bites too hard, she'd bite him back and he'd learn not to do that type of behavior. Since the pup was deprived of this experience, maybe a gentle tap on the nose with a flick of the finger might be required? Kind of like if you were the mom dog and nipped him on the nose but instead you used your finger tip instead? What do other board members think?

Please note, I'm not encouraging violence towards the pup and I have never struck any of my dogs at any time and I didn't train them with choke collars of violence. Please note that I'm not talking about whacking him on the nose or hurting him in any way or traumatizing him. What I'm describing is being gentle but firm, while using one finger only to tap the pup on the nose at the momen he is biting you while giving a firm, sharp verbal "No Bite!" to get the pup's attention. And he may be too young to be getting "NO". But still use "no" because the sooner he starts learning that or "UH-UH" the better. You can't do it in anger, it needs to be done with you as a leader and teacher guiding him to the right behavior.

Say he bites your hand, once your hand is out of his mouth, give him a desirable toy and put that in his mouth and teach him that biting the toy is what will get him a toy and praise. And that biting the toy is more fun and enjoyable than biting you.

Since there are tons of opinions and training techniques to discourage biting in pups, you could go to your local library and check out the many pup training books and try out all of the many techniques they suggest to discourage this extremely undesirable behavior.

When my dog Elsa was little, she would get too excited and bite me not realizing that those sharp little puppy teeth hurt. "No" wasn't registering with her as a 8 week old. But if I made a whimpering sound like an injured pup and said "ouch it hurts" "no bite", she'd immediately stop and start licking where she just bit me. I was trying to convey that what she was doing hurt me and soon she learned that all play stops if she bites me.

Perhaps some of the other DOTD members have some suggestions as to getting the pup to learn not to bite will share their ideas with you. You are absolutely correct in that you need to nip this aggression/biting/growling behavior in the bud RIGHT NOW because if not, the pup will grow into an impolite and biting household member. And if the dog grows and learns that biting is ok, then you could have a tragedy down the road, not to mention a possible lawsuit or having to euthanize the dog if he bites a child or neighbor later on down the road. So you are right, he needs to be taught how to be a polite and reasonable member of the family. You need to be the leader and teach this pup how to be polite through training and teaching.

I personally haven't had a pup showing as much puppy assertivenessas as your pup; so perhaps other members of the board can give you better advice on how to stop the biting behavior.

You can also look up articles on the web by doing searches such as :Canine aggression, Puppy Teething, Puppy Biting, Dog Bites.

Of course, puppy kindergarten, obedience training, and socialization of your pup are a must.

Good Luck and I hope I helped some.

Best regards,
Anna Lisa & her 3 dogs

Attached is a St. Patrick's day photo of my Alpha Dog Elsa:

[iownazoo]

Thank you for all of your replies. I will respond more later.

I forgot to mention that with my mother, he is totally sweet to her. Kisses upon kisses upon kisses.

Thank you 3Cani, Clara and lv4dogs. Your responses were very informative and I will read through them all again to make sure I do everything right.

3Cani, after I'm done writing this, I'm going to go pick up most of the toys. That is such a great idea, thank you.

I will respond more later.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!

BTW, 3Cani, Elsa is beautiful!!!

[Catchall]

Hi iownazoo,

First of all. I'm sorry about your puppies behavior, sadly, it is normal. At this stage in the puppies life you must take control. My trainers tought me to "play" with my puppies mouth. Open it several times daily, put my hands in it, rub the gums, inspect the teeth, brush the teeth, and touch the tongue. Your puppy needs to trust you, especially in an emergency situation. Also during feeding, take the puppies food bowl away, just for a minute, then give it back. You need to be able to take anything out of the dogs mouth at any time. These things will help the puppy trust you, and feel comfortable with you hand around it's mouth.
Next, during aggression, sooth the puppy by soft petting, and using a soft voice. Aviod playing aggressive "tug" with the puppy
sometimes it creates a "mean" streak.
Make sure your puppy gets a lot of hard chew toys. Soft toys don't help teathing pain like the hard ones do. A soft toy mimicks the softness of the couch, and the dog will chew on everything.
If the dog bites you, immediately take him away from the situation, give him a sterm NO, and then soft petting with a soft voice will calm him down.
I have always used these methods, and if you use them, I hope they help.
Good luck, and oh yeah, get him fixed ASAP.
Catchall

[guster girl]

I didn't read this site, but, there seems to be a lot of information on agressiveness. Here's the link. There was a site once that I thought was helpful, and, I'm trying to find it!

http://www.wonderpuppy.net/canwehelp/dbaggression.htm

I will make a couple of comments, though, after having read the other's remarks. I definitely agree with NEVER using the crate for punishment. You mentioned telling him no and then putting him in the crate. And, I don't think it's a great idea to put everything in the crate with him, either. The crate is only supposed to be big enough for the puppy to lay down, stand up, and, turn around. If you're having to put him in there for more then 4 hours at a time, they have those cage water bottles. BUt, I, personally wouldn't put food and a place to potty. Unless you're not using the crate to potty train. And, I know I only leave one or two nearly indestructable toys in my puppy's crate with him. Like a Kong or something. Anything that can be chewed on, but, not chewed up, and, not too many. And, if the puppy is sweet to your mom, but, not to you, maybe you could try to figure out what your mother is doing differently. Is she being more consistent with him or something? That's just strange that he's only being mean to you. Have you tried him with other people? I didn't read, and, please don't take offense to this....but, are you a guy? How old are you? How many others are in the home and how is he with them? Are you the only one that he is agressive with? Maybe he has issues with men and not women. How big is the dog? (I hadn't looked at the photo yet, and, didn't know how recent it was anyway) How long has he been agressive to you and do you know if there's anything about you that has changed since the agressiveness started? I'm sorry for all the questions, but, I'd hate to see this dog grow big and strong and still be that agressive with you. That would suck. Anyway, train the heck out of him, and, never use physical force with him, I think that would only make things worse. Fighting a fighter is counter productive. Kill him with kindness, man. Good luck, and, keep us posted.

[clara4457]

I am going to respectively disagree with the members that posted that you shouldn't use a crate for "time outs". The punishment is not the crate, but rather the exclusion of interaction with you.

Jean Donaldson in her book "Dogs Are From Neptune" expresses this better than I do :

"People get very antsy about the crate suggestion as they have been indoctrinated to not associate the crate with punishment lest the dog came to hate his crate. This is unnecessarily rigid. The punishment is the removal of opportunity to interact, not being in the crate per se. If, for instance, you were hanging out together with the dog IN his crate, having an enjoyable time wrestling, cuddling or holding a bone for him to chew on and the dog misfired with its jaws, you may very well boot him OUT of the crate as consequence. Would the dog then associate being out of the crate with punishment?"

Donaldson, J. (1998). Dogs are From Neptune. Canada: Laser Multimedia Productions (pp. 90-91).

When I was dealing with Leo's play biting (it was never aggressive, just inappropriate play) - time outs in the crate saved us. He still uses his crate for sleeping and relaxing, although the door is rarely closed now.

Since adopting Penny Lane last May and having a behaviorist at my house, I have become facinated with learning the subject of animal behavior and have begun taking classes and going to seminars. I is amazing to me how much research has been done on the subject of animal behavior.

JMHO

[ParNone]

I ditto Clara on the crate issue. When Oz is getting too rambunctious towards Murph in the house, I'll tell him "Enough" and if he doesn't stop, then I tell him "Go get in your bed" and he goes willingly and gets in his crate. I'm not angry or aggressive about it. I just calmly send him to his crate and shut the crate door, then I'll ignore him for maybe 5 mins tops. It's always a very short time out. When he's calm, I let him back out. I use it as an interuption of the unwanted behavior. He's not shown any signs that he dislikes his crate whatsoever.

Par...

[Cheshirekatt]

I agree with Clara and Par.

I also use the crate particularly for Wilma when she's getting too over-stimulated and out of control. I put her in it, close the door but don't latch it and put her in a down/stay. Putting her in her crate simply allows her to calm down and focus. Then I give her the release command and she's done. Normally she's much more calm and in control after a couple of minutes in the crate.

And she still loves her crate. She'll amble off to her crate randomly during the day to relax.



JMHO