Slowhand wrote:[youtube]

I need one of these. The launcher, that is. I already have a dog with short legs.

Bumpy bump bump

Any advice for a high energy puppy that is in the mouthing stage (7 months old)? Here’s our general approach:

- all food compacted within a KONG
- walk in the morning and evening (2 miles each time)
- antler chews all over the place
- crate if she’s too wound up or too “bite-y”
- spray water if she’s too wound up to too “bite-y”

Overall, she’s an awesome dog and pretty good with my kids (she’s 51 lbs already). Sleeps all night and fully potty trained. I know this phase of biting and crazy energy ends but didn’t know if others had good advice along the way (training classes hard to come by these days).

The Savior wrote:Bumpy bump bump

Any advice for a high energy puppy that is in the mouthing stage (7 months old)? Here’s our general approach:

- all food compacted within a KONG
- walk in the morning and evening (2 miles each time)
- antler chews all over the place
- crate if she’s too wound up or too “bite-y”
- spray water if she’s too wound up to too “bite-y”

Overall, she’s an awesome dog and pretty good with my kids (she’s 51 lbs already). Sleeps all night and fully potty trained. I know this phase of biting and crazy energy ends but didn’t know if others had good advice along the way (training classes hard to come by these days).

Buy her a pet parakeet *Sorry Joe* I will burn in hell

The Savior wrote:Bumpy bump bump

Any advice for a high energy puppy that is in the mouthing stage (7 months old)? Here’s our general approach:

- all food compacted within a KONG
- walk in the morning and evening (2 miles each time)
- antler chews all over the place
- crate if she’s too wound up or too “bite-y”
- spray water if she’s too wound up to too “bite-y”

Overall, she’s an awesome dog and pretty good with my kids (she’s 51 lbs already). Sleeps all night and fully potty trained. I know this phase of biting and crazy energy ends but didn’t know if others had good advice along the way (training classes hard to come by these days).

Zero tolerance for any mouthing/biting of people.

Does she utilize the antlers (be careful with these)? If not find something she will chew beside people's fingers. Carrots worked great when my current dog was a pup. Even froze them when she was teething. Still her favorite snack.

How does she react to the water bottle? If it makes her more excited find something else. A whistle or something that beeps can distract and might interrupt the biting fixation.

Timeout in the crate is a fine alternative. Try not to make it feel like a punishment to her.

It's all about rewarding the good behavior. We use marker training and it generally works pretty well. When she's worked up and bitey, redirect to an antler or whatever and as soon as she goes for it, use a marker word and reward her with a high value treat. We give a high pitched 'yes!' and immediately treat. At first you'll have to start the interaction but eventually she'll go do it on her own. Reward that too for a time if you can...then make rewards intermittent and it should become learned. Obviously this is distilling it down quite a bit but it's the most effective form of training. Negative reinforcement or 'punishing' to a place that should be a safe space for her should be avoided if possible. We don't ever put her in her crate but we have a 'place' (her living room bed) that we will put her in when she needs to be separated.

My also-7-month-old puppy tends to be mouthy/bitey. When she was younger it was more of a problem because A) she was less controlled with it and B) her puppy teeth were SHARP. Now when she does it it doesn't even faze me as she never truly bites. I know this is how dogs are with one another, but I suppose I should discourage it with humans.

phatj wrote:My also-7-month-old puppy tends to be mouthy/bitey. When she was younger it was more of a problem because A) she was less controlled with it and B) her puppy teeth were SHARP. Now when she does it it doesn't even faze me as she never truly bites. I know this is how dogs are with one another, but I suppose I should discourage it with humans.

Yeah I think it's dog dependent. I'm the only person my dog gets mouthy with (i mean aside from when she wants to bite anyone she thinks is a threat). My friend lets his dog get super bitey with him and he doesn't care so there was a time the dog would be like 'hey you're a man lets play like this' and it got a bit painful at times.

We are thinking of getting a puppy now, and want a golden or black lab. Where is the best place to look. Really don't want to go to a puppy mill

PetFinder always has a ton of dogs, easy to search, usually from rescues or fosters

Since we don't have room to foster, we've been volunteer walking the window dogs at a couple Doggy Style stores in Center City. Their dogs are typically young southern refugees like we used to send from Texas. They've been getting adopted quickly during the pandemic, which is great. This is Fred, he was only in store two days before someone snapped him up. You can see their selection at SavedMe.org

Pretty sure my wife found our puppy via PetFinder.

She thinks it was basically a puppy mill though our dog, a German Shepherd/Golden Retriever mix (who somehow looks like a skinny black Lab), was clearly not bred intentionally. She ended up getting this particular puppy because after we had the bad experience with Lilly earlier this year and had to return her to the rescue we found that we seemed to have been blackballed from rescues.

Also, she just got spayed yesterday and it's amazing how much skinnier she is now. Apparently this is typical due to dehydration?

phatj wrote:Also, she just got spayed yesterday and it's amazing how much skinnier she is now. Apparently this is typical due to dehydration?

How's she doing? Don't remember any of mine looking much skinnier but probably not as noticeable in smaller dogs.

She's looking much better now. Pretty much fully back to normal, a bit too much so since she's supposed to take it easy until next Friday when she gets the stitches out.

my dumb little bastard goes on hunger strike every other morning now and half the time she does she eats a bunch of grass and pukes on her walk, smh.

Probably developed an eating disorder due to all the hurtful names you call her.

Small chance that calls for a vet visit.

Did you change food or routine around the time the grazing started?

Uncle Milty wrote:Small chance that calls for a vet visit.

Did you change food or routine around the time the grazing started?

A few weeks ago we cut treats off bc her stomach has been bad forever. She was fine on a just kibble diet and her poop has actually seriously improved. We barely give her any human food and we've reintroduced some treats. We started about two weeks ago on half a probiotic as well as the vet said that was the next step and it's made her poop quite good.

She started grazing on and off about...a week to 10 days ago. This may be correlation but we were at a friend's and I wet her food with what I thought was cold water but it was hot water (stupid backwards single faucet) and it broke open one of her pill capsules and she was eating a warm to hot bitter pill soaked gruel and I fear I ruined her forever.

She'll still eat pieces out of our hand here and there and will eat any treat we give her with no remorse so it's not just food...it's only sometimes her kibble. She destroyed it yesterday but cares not for it today.

Does she eat her evening meal okay?

Correct to assume her stool was loose before?

JUburton wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:Small chance that calls for a vet visit.

Did you change food or routine around the time the grazing started?

A few weeks ago we cut treats off bc her stomach has been bad forever. She was fine on a just kibble diet and her poop has actually seriously improved. We barely give her any human food and we've reintroduced some treats. We started about two weeks ago on half a probiotic as well as the vet said that was the next step and it's made her poop quite good.

She started grazing on and off about...a week to 10 days ago. This may be correlation but we were at a friend's and I wet her food with what I thought was cold water but it was hot water (stupid backwards single faucet) and it broke open one of her pill capsules and she was eating a warm to hot bitter pill soaked gruel and I fear I ruined her forever.

She'll still eat pieces out of our hand here and there and will eat any treat we give her with no remorse so it's not just food...it's only sometimes her kibble. She destroyed it yesterday but cares not for it today.

Try pumpkin, it worked for both of our boxers when they get indifferent about food.

Uncle Milty wrote:Does she eat her evening meal okay?

Correct to assume her stool was loose before?

Yup, always loose, sometimes borderline liquid. And we've never made it to evening without her eating her breakfast sometime around early afternoon.