Puppy-induced Injuries ...

[koalathebear]

Elbie quit with the jumping and biting some time ago but now and then when he was grabbing at our jeans, he'd get a bit of flesh in his mouth and that hurt a lot. He never went for flesh though - just fabric, but the accidental bites still hurt even though he never actually broke any skin.

Nonetheless, even though I wish it were not the case ... sometimes our puppy has caused injuries even though he is not usually a biter e.g. he doesn't get aggressive about food (you can stick your hand in his bowl), he doesn't get aggressive about toys (he'll 'let go' upon request).

Our injuries:

- during the class-room sessions of puppy class when our squirming puppy wouldn't keep still, I'd frequently get a random paw in the eye or worse, a claw down the face as his legs flailed around

- sometimes when we try to lure him with food he gets our fingers/hands in an attempt to get to the treat

- my OH tends to cuddle/play tug more with Elbie so he's had his hands/fingers bitten a few times by accident when Elbie's been aiming for the toy and he's got hand/fingers instead

- Elbie's settling down in the car a bit more but he still doesn't like it and on Sunday when the car when around a turn and he was jolted in the back seat, he started growling and biting a bit. I wasn't injured, but it wasn't fun

- we are still trying de-sensitise Elbie to his seatbelt harness. He hates it and will growl/snarl/snap when we try to put it on. Yesterday, he was snapping and although he didn't actually bite on my arm, he was certainly trying to and one of his teeth slashed my arm and cut the skin open. It's more than a scratch - it's actually a cut. Nonetheless, after many more treats and sessions of putting on harness and taking off harness, we got him a LOT calmer today when he'll actually sit there as harness is snapped around his neck, a loop goes around his right leg and another buckle snaps on his left side. I wish the harnesses weren't so fiddley - more opportunities for a flailing puppy to bite ...

Generally though he has a very soft mouth - if you put your fingers in his mouth, he gums them or will nibble very gently. Even when he looks like he's nipping at your fingers - if you keep still, I find that he is still just gumming and nibbling and not applying any pressure. I find that injuries take place when he's distracted and doesn't know what he's doing. I have no idea if we'll ever end up with a completely bite-free dog - sometimes when he's a bit bitey and obnoxious, I worry if we've done something along the way and if more experienced dog-parents would have managed to avoid a bitey little alien...

When he does bite and it's a painful one, I find it really hard not to be angry and take it personally. I can tell he doesn't really mean to do it but grrrrrr I know dogs don't feel guilt but Elbie always seems to know he's done something wrong because he'll give you a look and then turn on the appeasement behaviour - unsolicited sits and drops, puppy-dog eyes and that sort of thing.

Finally, our most interesting puppy-induced injury was when Elbie darted into the spare room of our new house ahead of my OH. The day earlier, Elbie had done the same thing, my OH had been too slow and Elbie had piddled all over the floor and a few bags, too because he still wasn't used to his new surroundings.... On the day in question, my OH dashed in after Elbie and was so busy scanning the floor for wet patches that he didn't look where he was going - he cracked his head hard on the corner of a shelf and cut his head :D

Edited June 28, 2010 by koalathebear

[persephone]

The growling/biting etc when you put a harness on, or restrain him is a bit concerning...

what do you do/say when he does growl/bite?

may I suggest that he only gets fed when he gets his harness on..and is polite about it he will soon catch on! It means polite, too - a growl and there is NO food.

Edited June 28, 2010 by persephone

[aussielover]

I keep tripping over my puppy!

When she is going psycho, she can barrel into you and that hurts too!

Of course the puppy biting hurts as well, but she has gotten a bit better, especially with taking food. She used to snatch it from your hand, nearly taking off your fingers! But she is more gentle and delicate about it now.

[koalathebear]

The growling/biting etc when you put a harness on, or restrain him is a bit concerning...

what do you do/say when he does growl/bite?

may I suggest that he only gets fed when he gets his harness on..and is polite about it he will soon catch on! It means polite, too - a growl and there is NO food.

He used to not like us putting his collar on but these days he sits quietly while we put it on. Then it was the leash. Now it's the harness ...

The harness has a snap around the neck, then has to be slid up over his foot and then around his back so he REALLY hates it. Presumably he also associates it with his car rides which he also hates so for the past couple of days we have been putting the harness on and taking it off in association with treats and also meal times. It's a very, very slow process but he is getting better. If he bites the harness, we say: "let go" or "no biting" - both of which he responds to. If we see that he's about to lunge at the harness and bite it, then we tell him to sit - he also responds to that and will sit and wait. It took us a couple of days and a lot of cheese to desensitise him to the leash so we are preparing ourself for the harness desensitisation to take quite a bit longer. What we're doing is taking the harness off and putting it on again even if there is no walk/car ride.

As for the car trips, we've been taking him to the car, making him sit and wait and then jump up on the seat and then reward him when he's in the drop position. He was ghastly on the ride to obedience. On the ride back, however, he remained in a quiet drop position for most of the trip except for where there were sharp corners - at which point he would get very unsettled and bitey again.

ETA: I should add, Elbie sits peacefully for his puppy collar (kind of a snap fastener) but alas he now needs to wear a new leather collar with a buckle and so we have get him used to THAT now ...

Edited June 28, 2010 by koalathebear

[Hello Gorgeous]

I occasionally get the wind knocked out of me when I'm sitting on the couch and one of the dogs decides a good place to snuggle up in would be my lap

[VJB]

Several injuries on me. Once Heidi was racing for the same toy that I was trying to get. I got there first, by half a second, and she lifted her head up really quickly, quicker than I lifted my head, and I got knocked out (just about, I saw stars)!. That bone on the top of her head really hurts when banged with force under my chin. This has happened twice, and now I'm very conscious of other people bending over her, because I don't want them to accidently get hit by that hard head bone of hers.

I have been body slammed a few times, but she's thankfully not done this for a while. I've worked out her body language for when she intends on doing this (from over-excitement), and I have a reserve squeaky in my pocket which I throw, and she follows that instead of body slamming me.

Get stood on everyday, tail whipped regularly, and scratched down my legs while sleeping in bed. Paw punched in face while sleeping.

Thats about it, but I'm still alive.

[whiskedaway]

The only injury my puppy has caused was when we first got her. We took her out the front for the first time to meet our neighbour's bulldog and we thought everything would be alright with the fence between them. Well it was - until Akira decided that she should try and get under the fence to see Cooper. (The fence is a white picket fence, but hard plastic had been put along the bottom so there was only a gap of about 8cm underneath it because someone in our housing group used to have a tiny dog that would play in our neighbour's yard). Well, she got stuck, and as I was trying to pull her out, I hurt her a little bit and she got scared and bit my finger. I thought it was nothing until a day later and it was super red, puffy and infected. I had to go to the doctor, and the doctor tried to tell me that I had an aggressive dog that should be PTS, even though she bit me in reaction to being scared.

After that, we put bricks underneath the plastic, so she couldn't put her head under again. And now she's too big to do it anyway.

[Niques]

God, where do I begin?

I still have faint scars on my arms from when he started teething. And it was so hard to be cross with him as well because he sounded in such pain.

He walks very, very closely to me and I currently have a large scratch and bruise down one leg where he got a claw stuck whilst following too close.

He can't take a treat gently which is so much worse now that it's cold - that tiny nip hurts like hell! I came home from puppy school one evening with a gushing, bloodied thumb where he caught the gap down the side of the nail. He used to hit that spot a lot.

He used to come and pounce on me when my back was turned, which takes the breath out of you. He did it when I was lying on the couch one day - just crept up behind and leapt on my head. Thankfully, he's (mostly) stopped this. He'll still pounce from the front though.

And just the other day he slammed into my knee which was a lot of fun.

He is like Elbie though - not at all food (I can easily grab a bone out of his mouth) or toy aggressive so I don't mind putting up with his other slight bad habits for the present. He's fundamentally a good dog :D

[tlc]

The growling/biting etc when you put a harness on, or restrain him is a bit concerning...

what do you do/say when he does growl/bite?

may I suggest that he only gets fed when he gets his harness on..and is polite about it he will soon catch on! It means polite, too - a growl and there is NO food.

I totally agree with this. In this thread are you looking for solutions to the problems with Elbie? Or are you just wanting to hear others storys?

I am curious the way some of your post reads I'm assuming you are sitting in the back of the car with the pup? Is so this could be adding to his anxiety, especially if you are trying to calm him if he is anxious. Trying to calm an unsettled/anxious dog only adds to its anxiety. For example if you are trying to sooth a dog that is upset/anxious you are really confirming to him that it is ok to be this way. I hope I am making sense, you should never reassure an unstable state of mind, the best thing to do is ignore it. Sorry if you are not looking for advice just thought I'd add my 5cents worth. Ill give an example of exactly what I mean and you can maybe relate it to your situation with your pup.

3 of my dogs before they were 6 months old were taken with me to somewhere there was fireworks on a lead everything casual, lots of treats for being unreactive and ignore for reactions. All were great hardly bothered with the noise too busy loving the treats!!

1 of my girls I didn't have the chance to go anywhere there was fireworks with her before she matured so she is a little strange around fireworks thunderstorms etc. If there is a thunderstorm she likes to be close, I let her be close but pay no more attention than I normally would. My OH on the other hand feels sorry for her and tries to reassure her in a soothing voice you know the one "oh its ok, come to dada, oh you poor little poppet" and so on you get the picture. So I have had to explain to him that by doing that to her he is actually reinforcing the fear she has therefore she thinks she is doing the right thing by being scared stiff because he is basically praising her unstable state of mind.

As far as puppy injuries go with my four I can't really think of any, however some of my furniture didn't come out quite so unscathed :D

I am not very good at putting things into words so I hope I am making sense. It sounds like you are doing everything to make the best home possible for Elbie. Good luck.

[W Sibs]

Emmy's cuddles can sometimes knocks the wind out of me... she full launches in my arms and her face knocks right in my face.

the second week i got her, my friends were convince i got a cat instead of a puppy... i had scratches and marks all over my hands and wrist.

Emmy knows 2 modes.. fast and faster.. so watching our steps around the house is a much.

[koalathebear]

Hi tlc

Thanks for your post. Our problems with Elbie and car travel are the subject of a separate post and we're making slow progress with it. Without repeating everything in the other post over in this one, one of us has to sit in the back with him at this stage - not to calm him - just make sure he doesn't jump forward onto the driver. The reasons for this are:

1. The backseat buddy doesn't provide that much protection to the driver unless the puppy's been trained to stay in a drop position - which we are trying to do

2. We have tried two harnesses - one that buckles into the seat belt buckle and one that loops through the seatbelt strap. Neither has worked so far. The first because even though we've shortened the strap as much as we can, it is still too long and Elbie can fall down into the footwell which has happened a few times. We can't make it any shorter. The second one does keep him more constricted but even though it's quite secure and snug- he can wriggle out of it when he's panicked which he has now done twice and almost ended up in the front with us

3. He is crate-trained but our car cannot fit a crate flat - the crate would be on a very wonky and uncomfortable angle.

At this point, our only option is to have someone in the back to make sure he doesn't jump about and to give him treats each time he goes into a quiet sit or drop position. We do not offer him comfort and encourage any fear or sookiness, having someone in the back is purely for safety reasons because we very much want to try to get him accustomed to car travel.

Many people have told us that we should have taken him about more in the car when he was younger so that he grew more accustomed to it. That had been our intention unfortunately during his earlier weeks many of our car trips were to the hospital to visit a terminally ill family member so bringing the dog was not an option, we couldn't take him when visiting relatives because: (a) my brother lives in an apartment; (b) my mother doesn't like dogs, we couldn't take him to meet other dogs because: (a) he was recovering from ringworm; (b) he hadn't had all of his vaccinations yet. Just driving around aimlessly in the car with the puppy in the back didn't seem like a very sensible thing to do at the time. In hindsight, I wish we could have taken him in the car more back then, but it really just was not possible. Thus, all we can do now is try to gradually get him to behave in the car - and he is getting better and being able to maintain his balance more and cry less, but it's going to be slow going.

As to the harness, it's the car harness so it's pretty understandable why he hates it so we're putting it on and taking it off him half a dozen times a day - paired with treats/mealtimes. He's getting better but he is stubborn. Reading this forum, I'm always aware that most other members here are experienced dog owners so would never face the problems/challenges we find ourselves facing as inexperienced dog owners, but all we can do is our best and be happy when both the puppy and us make progress. Things that are easy or old hat to other members are still new and challenging to us - I hope one day we'll be in a position where we have a bite-free, car-happy, harness-happy puppy but for now we're pretty happy with Elbie's progress and try to solve each new problem as it arises!

[W Sibs]

There are car harness that makes the dog have to lay down... you slide the seatbeat through the hoop and you click into the seatbelt. We use this for my brother's beagle.. who doesn't know the concept of being still. It doesn't allow him to move at all. it only let him sit right against the seat or he lay down. Maybe that would help?

I have to ask the boyfriend where he got it from though.. because I send him out to buy a car harness and he came home with that one..

[ellz]

I've lost count of all the puppy-induced injuries I've had over the years, but I have to say that the most recent was a doozie.

I was walking across my yard with my arms full of firewood and my 7 month old Staffordshire Bull Terrier puppy flew across the yard and cannoned into the back of my legs, literally knocking me flat. My shoulder and back were a little sore for a couple of days (left side).

Yesterday I was walking outside and my right hip went POP and my leg almost collapsed from under me and I could barely walk for the pain shooting through my leg and back. Last night was a shocker and today I went to the Dr.

I have a herniated disc in my back. The fall might not necessarily have done it, but it may have contributed to it.

[koalathebear]

There are car harness that makes the dog have to lay down... you slide the seatbeat through the hoop and you click into the seatbelt. We use this for my brother's beagle.. who doesn't know the concept of being still. It doesn't allow him to move at all. it only let him sit right against the seat or he lay down. Maybe that would help?

I have to ask the boyfriend where he got it from though.. because I send him out to buy a car harness and he came home with that one..

We have one of those - Elbie wriggled right out of it even though it was put on very snugly... The smallest size is too small so we went for medium and made the straps snug - he still got out. Sigh ... :rolleyes:

[W Sibs]

There are car harness that makes the dog have to lay down... you slide the seatbeat through the hoop and you click into the seatbelt. We use this for my brother's beagle.. who doesn't know the concept of being still. It doesn't allow him to move at all. it only let him sit right against the seat or he lay down. Maybe that would help?

I have to ask the boyfriend where he got it from though.. because I send him out to buy a car harness and he came home with that one.. :rolleyes:

We have one of those - Elbie wriggled right out of it even though it was put on very snugly... The smallest size is too small so we went for medium and made the straps snug - he still got out. Sigh ...

wow.. you have a very talented little one there! :D

[koalathebear]

Yes, alas - he's like Harry Houdini ...

On the plus side, we've made some progress with new collar and harness. As mentioned, our growling, resistant cranky, bitey puppy did not like his new collar or the car harness. One slice of low fat cheese (cut into many, many little pieces, though), kibble and many cheesey farts later ..

[wuffles]

I had knee surgery 7 weeks ago (ACL reconstruction) and the amount of times dogs have run into me is scary Strangely enough, my two seem to stay clear (Ava ran up to me and bumped it when I got home from the hospital, she got roused on, and she hasn't done it since). Other dogs, however..... I've had a rottie, samoyed and labrador all put back my recovery a little

(They haven't damaged the graft at all, just made the knee a bit more tender!)

Satchmo can't wear a car harness, he hates it so much. Ours both ride in the back of my wagon.

[matilda1]

I've had a black eye from katie jumping up o the bed while I was still laying in it when my husband let her out of her crate in the morning. i went to duck for cover as she cam in at a million miles an hour, but she nose-butted me in the eye.

I also have scratches down the front of my arms constantly from her trying to grab treats out of my hands during training sessions. but then they just blend in with my normal vet nursing scratched arms.