[pointblank]

I have a 10 week old choc lab called Shirley who is adorable in almost every way. She is a typical puppy I think BUT theres one little thing I'm unsure about. When she does something wrong/naughty etc I tell her in a firm voice NO....she then looks at me then rears up at me barking and jumping etc like a savage and I usually have to put her into her crate if she carries on doing this. Is this NORMAL behavior?????
What do I do to stop it as I do not want her to challenge me when she gets older/bigger. I must admit I smacked her on the nose before and it really upset me as I've never ever laid a finger on a animal.....she STILL carried on going for me after the tap so that wasn't even the answer.
HELP.....IF this is normal pushing the boundary behavior etc how long should/will it last.

 

[-Angela-]

It is totally normal behaviour and does not mean she is a dominant dog/will challenge you when older.

Please don't smack her on the nose again, that's very "old school" and as you've seen it didn't solve it anyway. (ditto for rubbing her nose in her mess if she toilets inside before she's toilet trained).

There are lots of posts in the puppy section about puppies biting, jumping etc. do take a look through, I think it will reassure you and hopefully give you some ways of dealing with things.

We seem to have got off very lightly with our Lab pup but I have read tons of posts very similar to yours :flower:

One question - do some breeders not tell puppy buyers about these little crocodile pups they are taking home? There seem to be so many posts where new owners are surprised about their pup's behaviour.

 

[_Mary_]

As Angela says its perfectly normal behaviour for a pup, Jules wrote a very good post about puppies and nipping and how to overcome it, its called something like "Lab pups DO bite and hard too", you`ll find it as a sticky in the puppy section I believe, just had a look and this is the link
http://www.labradorforums.co.uk/ftopict-42797.html

 

[Clarissa]

We are getting loads of this 'challenging' and 'pushing the boundaries' behaviour!! Poppy is 15 weeks and barks back at us when we tell her off and tries to bite us.

Having read lots of posts on here, I gather that it is totally normal, though I agree it doesn't feel like it should be normal!!

The moments of loveliness (some days very few and far between) are utterly delightful

 

[pointblank]

Thanks for your responses.
I'm glad this seems normal and hopefully should pass.....I have a soon to be 9 yr old yellow lab who has been an angel from the moment we got him so I suppose I expected to be lucky the second time. :lol:
I've just read the sticky so I've a few things to compare to and try.

 

[-Angela-]

Thanks for your responses.
I'm glad this seems normal and hopefully should pass.....I have a soon to be 9 yr old yellow lab who has been an angel from the moment we got him so I suppose I expected to be lucky the second time. :lol:

I think if we ever adopt another Lab pup from rescue we will need to prepare for them not being like Mins too.

I remember when she was younger, meeting a very nice lady who thought Mins was wonderful and wanted to take her home (no chance!). She had a spaniel pup at home herself and showed us her hands/arms where the pup had been erm, "puppying" - she looked like she'd been self harming 8O :lol:

A good case for adopting adult rescue dogs perhaps though

 

[JohnW]

Think about this, she is 10 weeks old. That's just 70 days old or 1680 hours old! What part of "No" do you think she understands? :wink: Remember, her language is not English.

In the wild a pup of that age just eats, sleeps and plays. It wees and messes when it feels like it, why should it be otherwise? They cannot play cards or scrabble, their games are war games which they need to learn to catch dinner and defend the pack.

But then we come along and expect a totally different set of rules, and it says a lot for the adaptability of dogs that they are able to learn the totally alien set of rules we inflict on them. But dont think they will learn these rules over night. It takes quite a time. It is nothing to do with dominance, in fact dominance is one of the most over used words. Very few dogs try to dominate humans, and certainly not at the age of these pups. All they are doing is just what they want to do. They simply have not learned "Human Rules" yet.

Regards, John

 

[spiketwo03]

pointblank, my 8 week old puppy Coby is doing exactly the same thing as Shirley. It's quite frustrating cause when he's calm he is a joy to be around and easy puppy (we managed to crate and 'almost' toilet train within a couple of days ).
Others have suggested that we get up and ignore him for a minute or two when he does this but he ends up biting our ankles and doesnt even realise we're ignoring him :? lol
I also cant wait until this 'phase' passes...

 

[JohnW]

With calm steady persistence it will soon come right. As I said, my Amy was the worlds worst alligator as a baby, but this was her at kust 16 weeks old.

Regards, John

 

[spiketwo03]

JohnW, just wondering what techniques worked for you?

 

[81cat]

Hi,

Truffle was exactly like this until about a week ago (he's 20 weeks old now). If evicted from the sofa he sometimes still responds by growling and biting, but it's getting less now. We went for ignore him unless he actually bit us, when he would be put into timeout to calm down. This seemed to work for us, and I hope we don't go through that phase again!!!

Hang in there - one day she'll be angelic again.

AngelaC - we read all about what to expect, but was still unprepared for just how bad Truffle was. I felt the same as after I had my baby, when no amount of reading beforehand could prepare me for what it was actually like.

Cat and Truffle