shorty82

hey poodlefan we already did our research before we got jet and there is nothing to worry about as we only take him around the block which takes no more than 10 minutes and we feel that is enough for him until he gets bigger. It's more to get him used to the lead and it helps him with his training for loose leash walking and also to exert some of his energy. The rest of his energy is spent playing and training in the backyard.

It has been great to hear from you koalathebear because you make us feel so much better in the respect that we are going through the same thing as you were and its so hard to find someone that can relate to you, especially one that isn't going to criticise and so forth so i really appreciate your help. We are taking Jet to training and have been speaking to a number of behavourists and I guess the best thing we have learnt in the last few days is to avoid him getting agressive at the best possible time.. the moment we start to see any sign of nipping and biting we take action, whether it is to stop playing or to put him outside if he is inside and I think he is starting to calm down. A big thing that we found was that we stopped walking him on the vet's advice to wait til his vaccinations were complete but ever since he had gotten worse (in the last 2 weeks). After speaking to our behavourist at trianing she told us to try and start it back up again (just avoid him from touching the grass areas and sniffing any dog droppings, etc).... and ever since it has helped alot.. which i knew it would because he is so active.. The only thing that has arisen since taking him for walks is that he gets overly excited when he gets closer to home and won't calm down on the lead... i think i might take a new route on our walks to see if that helps....

hey koalathebear, i just checked out your topic and it's like our dogs are twins LMAO He is identical to what our dog is doing and you tried what we tried so i will definately check out the tips you have. Will let you know how i go, at least i feel a little relieved now as one of the behavourists made me feel bad for doing what i have tried saying it's "agressive" and i would never do anything to hurt our puppy but as you know you get to a point of desperation to try new things when people say it worked for their dog straight away but like you said, it doesn't work for all dogs.. every dog is different.. Hopefully what helped your dog might help mine... Thanks for the info, really appreciate it :D

thanks everyone for your replies. Koalathebear, that sounds exactly like our puppy, straight for the jeans or anything that hangs down he can reach lol, will definately check your link out and see if it works thanks HugL, tried the yelp it worked 1 or 2 times and then he just ignored it and it was like it made him angrier so we stopped.... he is very stubborn!!!! Also he has tonnes of chew toys but prefers to find things in the backyard to chew on like wood and bricks that we didn't even know we had that he miraculously finds out of nowhere :D. I was told by a behaviourist that redirecting him to a chew toy is not the way to go as it is actually rewarding his biting - which i totally didn't know so we have stopped doing it but he has tonnes in the backyard to play with when he wants to and when we play with him. thanks for the link bianca.a - we are kind of limited at the moment because our vet told us not to take him for walks until he gets his last 16 week shot which kind of threw us because we started taking him for brief walks around the block and it kind of calmed him down a bit so he will be 16 in a few weeks so hopefully that might help him get a bit tired out. With being at work i don't get to spend heaps of time with him but i make time for him when i get home, the problem is because of the biting it cuts our time together short because we end up going inside as he doesn't calm down and gets worse with everything we try to do. Poodlefan, we always let our dog inside to spend time with us and play with him outside.. he does sleep outside as he is a big dog and we wanted him to get used to his kennel before he got too hard to train to sleep outside.. he loves it outside more then he does inside as he hasn't learnt to settle down and finds outside in the open more exciting then inside.. but at the same time loves to spend time with us on the couch inside when he is "calm" mode. I know that puppy's biting is normal but when it gets to the point that there is agression in the biting like grabbing body parts and growling/snarling/biting when you try to correct him doesn't sound very "playful" especially when he goes to lunge at you and doesn't stop. We just want to curb it before he gets worse, that's all - he's already grown quite fast as you can imagine a 13 week pup would so we just want it under control before he gets too big and hurts someone... those teeth of his can already do damage and just worried as we have young family members we want to feel safe around him. Nekhbet, we are taking him to all paws forward training and i actually posted the same topic on their forum site and the head behavourist told me to call her to have a chat about it. I am going to check out their leadership forums like suggested and also everything that everyone here has suggested and hopefully between the 2 forums we can fix our puppy's problem. I want to thank everyone again for your help, you guys have been great Will keep you all updated and let you know how we go Fingers crossed ;)

Hi, I currently have a 13 week old German Shepherd Puppy who has developed a bad habit of biting over the last 2-3 weeks. The problem that we have is that it starts off as play biting which is normal but then when either myself or my partner try to correct it, our puppy starts to get agressive with the biting and snaps and starts barking or growling when we say no. I've checked on different forums to see if I can get some advice and tried everything from - saying no and replacing my arm or any other part of body he is biting with a chew toy - say no and stop playing with him and leave him alone - tried to say no and hold his snout closed but this just agravates him more - tried to say no and gently push him away but he just gets worse because he thinks we are playing - tried making a loud noise when he bites and did this by putting a little rock in a a container and shaking it which seemed to work at first but now it doesn't phase him There was a time where he also started to try and hump my leg but he has stopped doing this. The main thing is that when you say no and you put your hand up to say stop he starts barking and snapping more. To me this sounds like a dominating thing and it sometimes gets bad where we can't even walk in the backyard without him attacking our ankles and jumping up and biting our clothes and also drawing blood sometimes. We try to correct him and get him to calm down by saying no and trying to get him to settle but once he is in that mood he just doesn't want to listen. We have started taking him to training and he is in week 2 of puppy school. I was hoping someone could help but giving some advice we haven't heard before so that we can try and snap him out of it before he gets any bigger. He generally is a beautiful dog and does listen most of the time but sometimes when he gets too excited or in this mood he is too hard to control and I worry that he won't grow out of it. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!