Psycho Puppy

jcbobo · #1 29th July 2012, 07:36 PM

This is my first real post on this forum and this is also our first puppy! My husband and I adopted a fawn boxer. He is 8 weeks old and a complete mess that we absolutely love to death. After our first sleepless night, we spent the following day learning to love our crate, take naps in our crate, etc... He now has no problem with his crate and actually acts his best when he is in his crate. When we get home he does not bark, he just looks at us patiently. We've been able to put up groceries before letting him out and he just sit patiently. That's about the only "good boy" quality that he has.

When Bo isnt sleeping, pooping, peeing, eating or drinking, he's outrageously hyper. He persistantly bites very HARD an if he gets a good grip he will do the head shaking thing with your flesh in his mouth! We know he's teething and I have gone overboard buying him chew toys and we are constantly sticking something in his mouth in hopes of him trading that for our hands or feet. He feeds off the fact that we are reacting to him biting us and he goes crazy. We are "yelping" or saying "ouch" when he bites us and he just growls and bites harder back. The only thing that I have found that gets him to stop biting for the moment is to pick him up and hold him out in front of me until he relaxes. This isn't easy for me to do with a 12 lb puppy chomping at my hands. And this won't work much longer as he continues to grow. I need help. I fear Bo growing up and always being like this. I'm so afraid I won't be able to control him and he won't listen. I want him to be the perfect dog, and this puppy stage is scaring me. We try to ignore him but once he's drawn blood I draw the line. We have a friend that has a puppy german shepeard the same age as Bo so we have play dates three nights a week. They play HARD. Lots of growling, biting, tackling, I worry when we should intervene. The nights we don't have play dates we play a lot outside and inside. No matter what, we make sure he is exhausted by 9pm so I know he is getting ample attention, exploration, and exercise.

I have also not sat on my couch since weve gotten him. He is always wanting to sit in my lap, half the time he wants to sleep, the other half he is playing and that turns into biting and me stuffing a chew toy in his cheeks. If I sit on the couch, he jumps and bites and jumps and bites. We have a leather couch and I know it will get destroyed but I'm trying to delay it as much as possible. I'm just so worried he won't grow out of this. My husband and I are being persistant but nothing is working and I don't want this to be his forever personality. I want him to be a part of the family, my watch dog, and eventually have kids that can play with him.

I guess I am just looking for some guidance, or reassurance that maybe he will grow out of this and be a great dog one day, and how do we currently handle this becuase nothing seems to be working.

MorganBaby · #2 29th July 2012, 09:18 PM

Not to be mean but I have to first laugh, A LOT, because I SO was there not to long ago myself!

I do know your pain, and still get daily bruises! Morgan is my first boxer and OMG did I think we made a big mistake choosing a boxer after the first few weeks. Their biting seems to be way worse than any other dog I've had before, even during the puppy stage. It takes a lot of patience and early training but you can get past this. Now I say how I still get daily bruises, don't let that scare you as my girl is 1 year old so she's still young and feisty but I also do play rather rough with her but she does have a few commands to control it more and I also bruise very easily.
How I started with our girl wasn't working so I did a lot of researching, which is actually how I found this site. What did start to work for us was doing a puppy yelp sound when she would bite to hard/sharp. This was actually a task in itself to figure out how to yelp and sound like a puppy, but it really has to be similar to how a puppy would sound. Because think of it as litter mates playing, they chew and bite each other as play but when it is to hard/sharp of a bite you hear that "yelp" and the biting stops (for a minute). That high pitched yelp gets their attention and says to them "hey that hurt". I also found actually letting Morgan play with older dogs when she was a young puppy showed her the actual play etiquette better than puppies playing together, because the older dogs have learned the bite control/pressure that puppies haven't learned yet. I also always had a toy near by to do just what you are doing, swap the toy for your body limb! The more you show the puppy that the toy is more desirable the more he will want to chew that. Not only just shove the toy in his mouth but present it to play and switch into a game of fetch. I've found you need to keep the boxer moving - and just standing chewing a toy is not moving to them, they have to run around.
Also when the biting would get really bad, as you said you can't sit on your couch or it just becomes a cycle of jumping and biting at you. We had to resort to a "yelp", give a mean face, stand up, cross our arms, and turn our back on her. This ignoring of the bad behavior helped show her that was unacceptable behavior. And is she still jumped up on us (which usually she didn't with me or my boyfriend, but with our daughter she would keep jumping and biting at her) we would also have to leave the room, into a different area totally while ignoring her. The dog reads this as, "oh that behavior made them leave, they must not have liked that so I won't do that again." Upon returning to the room we would take a toy and start playing fetch, showing her we would stay and play with her and the toys.
Now as I mentioned how I have commands for her to control the biting more, that comes from the fact that my boyfriend and I do play rather rough with her at times and we do allow softer bites (mouthing) during this type of play. So knowing that we would be allowing some biting to continue with our play I have trained her to learn commands as to when the biting needs to stop because she does escalate the play sometimes to where the biting gets to hard and I need to stop her. It has helped that we've taken obedience classes since she was done with her puppy shots so she was easy to teach new commands to. The commands I use are "No Bite" and for the times when she's to riled up and won't stop is when all play needs to stop in order to stop the biting and I use "Enough".
Know all of this has taken a lot of training and time and is still a work in progress every day, and my girl is 1 year old. But I can say I am very jealous how fast your pup has taken to his crate! Because that's an area we still struggle with.
Sorry this was so long, but I hope it really helps! And I hope you are able to enjoy the antics of your new pup despite the hard work ahead of you

MorganBaby · #3 29th July 2012, 09:32 PM

Oh and I forgot to add, another thing I found very helpful was to read the book Culture Clash. I forget who the author is, but I found the suggestion from this site under the Books forum thread. A lot of my "understanding the dog" better and being able to train better came from after reading that book. And taking obedience classes from a good trainer will really help.
A boxer is rather a "crazy" breed, but it's that craziness that makes them so lovable.
Again I hope this has all helped, and keep coming back to boxer world, everyone here has been super helpful for us!

BoozerBaby · #4 29th July 2012, 09:51 PM

Going through it myself hehe but remember they need to chew even my 8 yr old boy who has passed needed to chew.I bought all the chew toys money money money but the best chew I bought was this huge nuckle from the pet store the guy said the bigger the better and he was right my little guy chews for 1-1 1/2 hrs also those big huge white rawhide bones also chews for a long long time he loves them but be careful and always watch your puppy they can be a choking hazard if he starts to choke just shove your hand down his throat and pull that hunk out of his throat must be very careful.I only allow my boy to have his while I'm on the computer and he sits right beside on his bed.But remember don't reward him for biting you if you yell loud enough you'll scare him and he'll learn.Mine has gotten out of that stage thank god but I tried stuff that didn't work so then I started yelling ouch hurt and scared him.Now I can say very firm no biting off and he gets off and then I give him something he can chew I'll ask him where's this or that kong or whatever.But never never reward him with a chew toy after biting you make him stop and get off 1st then walk around to find something for them to chew on or he will learn that if he bites you he'll get rewarded for it.Hope this helps a little we also tell him bad boy

BoozerBaby · #5 29th July 2012, 09:54 PM

oh ya just need to add lots of exercise and tire him out that's the best.If he gets bored he'll try to find something to get into trouble.

joannaryan · #6 30th July 2012, 03:08 AM

To start off with 8 weeks is still very, very young. It is going to take a lot of patience and consistant training and everyone in the family has to be on the same page. When your pup starts to bite try pulling your hand away saying NO BITE and walk away or give him something in place of your hand to chew on. Boxers too are people dogs and want to be around, lay on, sit on and be loved on all the time, so anytime that you sit on the floor, chair, couch they too are going to want to be near you. Your pup will soon learn. He's not crazy, nutty or out of the ordinary....He's a Boxer

Good luck and remember....consistancy is the key word. Good luck

Sansal · #7 30th July 2012, 04:03 AM

Anotherthing you can do if all else fails and the biting gets out of control: pick up the puppy or walk it into another room, close the door and leave him there for 30 seconds or so and then let him back out. If the biting gets out of control again - repeat. You might have to do this many times in a row. This is what worked for us when Sky was a puppy. I guess everyone else leaving the room and leaving the puppy behind would work to but I found that sometimes difficult with more than one person, other dogs etc in the room. The puppy stage will still last for a while, but you will get there!

jcbobo · #8 30th July 2012, 06:14 AM

Thanks for all the replies. We will continue to do what we are doing and hopefully one day it will click for him. I love that he is playful but my god those teeth hurt! But when he gets a little older I know he will be a fun dog...I just want to make sure I have control of him. His father was 90+ lbs and not fat in the least but. I would be so afraid to walk a 90lb muscular dog by myself and have him go into his psycho hyper biting mode. And i do not want our famiky or friends to be afraid of him. When he's not hyper and biting, he is a sweetheart. I love that he always wants to be in my lap, but dunno how that's going to work if he gets to be 90 lbs like his father... My husband would rather him not get on the couch but I don't know how to stop him from jumping up on it to get in my lap. He's to little to actually jump up on it but he sits there with his paws on the sides and jumps and his little claws just dig into the leather. That's why I sit on the floor, plus I love to cuddle with him...but every now and then I'd like to sit next to my husband too! Lol. And sitting on the floor makes me a huge target for biting. Sometimes I just have to go into another room completely because he's biting or trying to climb his way up on the couch to be with me. Maybe I need to start praying we make it thru this puppy stage.

joannaryan · #9 30th July 2012, 06:58 AM

We have leather couches too, I just put fitted sheets on the seats, that way when Toby jumps up on the couches, he's 8 months, I don't have to worry about any scratches and when the covers need washing, just take them off, wash them and put back on

Demismom · #10 30th July 2012, 05:27 PM

Time outs work great! Lucy is 1 year old and for the most part no longer bites when she plays. She is only allowed to mouth our skin. She did just this morning pinch me hard and I yelped very loudly and used our done command. That's her punishment, you bite, you don't get to play anymore. By anymore I mean at least 30 minutes. No exceptions and be consistent. They sure are one big bundle of energy, aren't they?