Rainey

We crated our Lab at the other end of the house from our bedroom from the very first night we got him. The first night he had some toys and a hot water bottle under his blanket, he only took about 1hr to settle in, second night was down to about 30mins, third night maybe 10mins and then that was it! He's always slept right through till after 7am unless one of us have woken him earlier. One word of advice is to remove access to water about 1hr before bed time, and give him/her a little bit of playtime then toilet right before you pop him/her away. This will minimise accidents in the crate which are still most likely to happen over the first couple of weeks.

Well I am happy to report that Scud's training is coming along nicely. I tought him to hi-five tonight (after the suggestion in this thread) and made a short video clip of his tricks so far. Here is the clip: You'll have to excuse the sloppy trainer in his uggs and old clothes (for handling the dog), hehehe.

Thank you so much everyone! I was sceptical as well, thats why I wanted to ask you all! My mind is at ease now! Hehehe.

My brag is really lame, but I am proud of Scud and his attitude to getting in his crate on command. He understands that to complete the command that he must be entirely inside the crate and sitting and he makes his own adjustments if his front paws are still hanging out the door. It is really cute!

Cool! Well I did think that he would be able to distinguish the two (sit from shake). I will just enforce that he does not get a reward for sit unless all paws are on the ground. We won't be showing him, he is just our child, but I wouldn't like to train bad habits into him while he is so young and easily influenced.

Hi there, I just had a basic question to find out the general consensus over the shake hands command? Scud has just learned how to do it, but before I cement it into his head should I continue??? The reason I ask is because I heard somewhere way back that it is not a very good command, and that he may never sit neatly if he's always lifting his paw. Thoughts?

BlackLab - No probs, you did provide some good advice for others reading the thread. ;) Riley, have you tried (as scary as the thought may be) the technique of grabbing the tongue and bottom jaw until pup starts to spit you out? Scud hated this but sometimes it made him bite more... Others have suggested that this worked for their pup though.

Absolutely agree KitKat, and nothing can be more rewarding than seeing your Lab following your commands and listening to your every word. I know Scud understands, I can almost hear his little brain ticking over when he's watching me. He's going to get into a fair bit of mischief when he's bigger but I am really proud of his progress so far. Something in particular that has impressed me is his ability to distinguish his own toys from the household items now, I know this may not stick, but at the moment he will go and get his ball or chew toys and is almost completely ignoring other 'tempters' laying around the house. As far as I am concerned, he is our child and we are willing to put in every minute we can to giving him the best puppy education possible.

Hehe, yes we've already learnt the retrieving part... he doesn't miss much if it falls on the floor the little bugger! ;) So anti-bitey training is going really well over the last couple of nights. The moment his gob opens up on a piece of skin or clothing I just shout a loud, gruff 'NO!' and then walk away from him and occupy myself elsewhere (instead of just turning around and standing still). This seems to work really well as all attention has gone from him. I have not been bitten since the day I created this thread. He's been getting lots of rewards for sitting still and letting me stroke his head, jowls, shoulders and front legs and he seems to understand this. I've also been trying some of the domination techniques to establish my position as head of the pack (thanks Blossom for the detailed advice here) by towering over Scud, holding eye contact, and rolling him onto his back and gently holding him there while I rub his tummy. This thread has been very valuable so far and I appreciate all the comments. Just to back up scudsmum from the comment by BlackLabrador, yes we expect this behavior for some time and are completely aware that Labrador's require a huge amount of dedication and time to shape them into a well behaved companion. This is what we were looking forward to. The purpose of this thread was to learn some of the most effective techniques to curb biting behavior, things that have proven to work by others, we are not particularly concerned that he is biting as he is just a puppy afterall, we just want to get on top of the situation from day naught.

Haven't tried the carrot yet! I think that is next on the list. Already doing yoghurt+peanut butter frozen cubes for him and he absolutely loves them (he'll do just about anything to get his teeth on em). My better half is just starting to get a bit concerned because he is growing so fast and can now pack a bit of punch when he bites hard. I'm trying to get him used to having faces down at his level so I lay down on the floor and he's normally pretty good but I've copped a few scratches to my cheeks and been bitten on the ears, nose and chin.

Oh we have been doing the yelping and the ignoring a bit too, but then he just decides to chew on your ankles instead, hehe. I think I will need to concentrate on rewarding for the good behavior but I'm worried we are already getting to excessive on the treats as he already gets probably 12 kibble pieces between feeds on avg.

Hello everyone, Our 11 week old Labrador puppy Scud is a biter. We are trying to ween him off this habit as quickly as possible but most of our techniques appear to stimulate and excite him more than anything else. It becomes a challenge for him when we hide our hands/arms or gently push him away and hold him back. I'm trying to avoid smacking because he's only a little baby really. Correcting with an appropriate chew toy does work to an extent but it is hard to always have one nearby when he gets excited. I know he has the full potential to be polite when he wants to but when he's in 'energy burning mode' its just full steam ahead with the biting. He starts softly and when we tell him 'no!' hand clap and hide our arms he just wags his tail and bites harder (lol). I'm thinking about different techniques such as the spray bottle, but also something that tastes bad to him that I can put on my hands and arms (any suggestions?). Is the biting just a result of teething, and I'm wondering when we should expect to see him start to grow out of this?

Excellent thanks for the advice guys 'n gals! He seems to really love these treats so it would be a shame to stop giving them to him. I'd say this bloat is a very rare condition that only affects a few dogs.

Last night I made some frozen peanut butter+natural yoghurt cubes for Scud, to use as a treat now and again. Today I read on justlabradors.com that ice cubes can be a hazard for dogs, is there any truth to this, and if so, would my frozen yoghurt cubes also be a hazard? I was thinking possibly a choking hazard but this person says that they have other effects on a 'hot' dog's stomach. I've been thinking about it more and lots of people suggest freezing foods inside Kongs etc, so I'm assuming what I've done can't be THAT bad? He's only had one so far with no problems.

Love the description! Our puppy is a little bit bitey but the fingers on his tongue and jaw seems to work well.

Just watching your video now, but I don't have sound so I might watch it again later when I am at home. Here is a link to Scud's music video:

Lol, what the hell!

I knocked this up today and would like to share it with you all. It is a video and picture montage of Scud at 10wks.

I'm glad to hear that it may not be the worst thing in the world to treat with his regular food. It makes it really easy for me because I can just have a container full of the kibble at the back door and I grab two every time we go into the yard for toilet time. He responds really well to his treat, sometimes I don't treat him on all of his wee's and just give him praise and a big cuddle, but he always looks for the treats regardless, lol. Meat and cheese are great as bigger rewards, but it makes it harder to always have on-hand as there is preparation time involved. Actually I'm glad to hear that he can have cheese because I wasn't sure about it.

I'm looking for something nice for Scud to reward him whenever he does the right thing. We initially bought these ABC biscuits by Pedigree but he doesn't seem to like them very much (chews and spits out), I feel like he must think we are pretty crappy owners when we try to reward him with something that must taste like rubbish. I've since started rewarding him with his regular Royal Canin kibble which he absolutely loves but I don't think that is a very interesting treat for him, and also probably not the right thing to do considering it is his regular meal food as well. Anyone know any good brands/biscuits that young Labs absolutely go bonkers over?

Ahh thank you, I wondered that but I'm sure I'd read that people put their dogs in their crates after they have done the wrong thing.

Zeus, that sounds exactly how we are feeding our puppy of the same age. 80g per serving, three times day = 240g. We are feeding Royal Canin Maxi Junior 32, but what you have would probably be even better. I think your puppy will love you for the diet change and will stop accepting the PAL altogether.

Russ_Ren, please make sure you give us an update in the morning, I really think things will get better from here on in. We've got our boy into a routine already after 3 nights (fingers crossed). What seems to be working well is the final feed at 9pm or slightly earlier... then remove access to water about 30 minutes afterwards. Scud then likes to have another nap which takes him till about 10:30, when he gets up I toilet him, then have a vigourous play session and then toilet him again (ensuring he's done no.2), once this has occured I settle him down and then put him in his crate and we take ourselves to bed. He's crated in the dining room (open plan house) and last night only sulked for maybe 5 minutes then slept right through till 7am where he was awake but peaceful and quiet. I've yet to use the crate for 'quiet time' because we've been home and he's never been too naughty to warrant the time out. I will need to begin this soon however, so that he's not too dependant about us being around. All dogs are different but hopefully something of our routine might help you out, but I'm no expert we might just have an angel, lol.

This thread is also useful for me. We've started our puppy on soaked Royal Canin because that is what he was fed from the breeder. I have not really introduced anything else (raw meat etc.) yet, but I did give him a small piece of fresh chicken last night. Soon we are planning to introduce the yoghurt and meat (Lamb Flaps and Chicken/Beef Mince).

Great read, puts it into perspective! Thanks for sharing.