Ash--I know how you feel. Somehow it seems that everyone else is always nice, and since I disipline him he thinks I'm mean or something. I'm not an only child, I have plenty of people to ruin his training, lol. Actually, its not really my brother or sister, mostly my parents. You'd have to know them, but they definitily don't believe in training dogs the same way as I do. And my dad has a problem with playing with him to make him growl, and playing tug-of-war which I keep telling him NOT to.

ChrisAK--I know he's a puppy...a rather large pain-in-the-butt one at that....I know he's not trained well yet or anything, but still....I've been around many puppies, and I haven't seen on as dominant as this little guy. I just want to stop it now before he gets big. If he growls at me when I pick him up (I HAVE to pick him up sometimes, when he needs to go outside or whatever) I've now been saying a stern "no" or "hey." If I don't get really upset, he doesn't seem to get any more upset. He IS going to get neutered as soon as that is possible. The Humane Society said they would neuter him at 4 months...isn't that a bit early?

Candy--I read your post yesterday, and today I tried to be more positive with him. You know, sometimes (like yesterday) I just get really frustrated with him, and I'm probably yelling too much. He's just real good at figuring out which strings of mine to pull lol. But he was nicer today, and we didn't have too many issues...except he peed in the house 4 times. I grabbed him, said "outside" firmly, then put him outside to finish his duty. I tried the ringing the bell thing. I thought he was really getting it at first, he's rang it a few times. Apparently he didn't feel like ringing it today.

I know he really needs the positive reinforcement, because when you are negative with him, he seems to get more angry or afraid. I do give him a lot of treats, he has quite the variety. I'm going to have to try putting all of his toys away inside. I still have to leave a few in his dog run, so when I have to leave him sometimes, he won't get *too* bored. I've been trying to make him sit before anything, such as getting his food and water...being let outside, etc.

Also now he's taken to biting at Reggie and Smokey. They won't leave his food alone. At first he didn't care, but today he was biting at Smokey if he even got NEAR it, even if Smokey wasn't going for the food. Their food is in an entirely different room, they KNOW where it is. I guess I'm just going to have to always feed him outside, away from them. I just hope he'll stop biting at them, they are old and grumpy, they can't take it. Most of the time he just wants to play, but when he bit Smokey today, it wasn't play.

I think my family is making me even more frustrated with him. If I try to talk to my mom about anything with him, she just tells me "Maybe you should sell him. You should have got a female. So-and-so told me to never get a male, they are always aggressive." When I told her today that I was going to enroll him in puppy kindergarten she said "Why are you doing that? You don't have the money for that! I thought you wanted to get rid of him. You should get a female." GRRR! I DON'T want to get rid of him. Maybe I should have gotten a female, but well, it's too late for that now. I'm not just going to sell him and get a new dog, I'm going to help the dog I have with his problems.