Problem with Spoiled Brat Puppy - Page 4

My suggestion to you would be to watch "Dog Whisperer." You can buy this DVD at your local retail store.

And mine would be to not try the Dog Whisperer, although there are things on occasion I would agree with .. his methods are not geared toward the average dog owner.. can you run your pack of 40 dogs 6 miles every day??? Sorry that would be a big mistake..... IMHO

Maligator. Absolutely perfect. The only other thing I would suggest, especially for a novice handler/puppy attention getter, is a book by Sheila Booth, Purely Positive Training. Sheila really promotes the center of their world idea in a way that anyone novice-pro can use. ANKLES! does she get your ankles?! yikes! I hate it when they bite ankles! GOOD LUCK!

You still have time. 1) Keep her on lead tied to you whenever she is not crated; 2) Crate her when you need time and when it makes sense for her eating/watering/housebreaking/napping schedule; 3) Carry her around a lot, especially when the rest of your dogs are milling. Infantilize her and become her mother in her mind; 4) Never call her twice, never give her another command that she can ignore. When she is on lead (when she is not crated) call her calmly fifty times a day and, if need be, haul her in like a fish. All calmly in charge, but get excited if she chooses to be good; 5) Let her become a little bit hungry before feeding, then sit on the floor when you feed her, feeding her only small fractions of her meal at a time, and feeding new portions when she looks at you and asks nicely (sits, for example, but not when she paws you aggressively). Do this with treats, as well, but make her earn them by being well behaved and attentive; 6) Play ball on the wall with no other dogs around. Sit on the floor with your legs in a V and your feet on the wall and put the puppy in front of you, walled in. Bounce a little ball around and make her work hard for the ball. Give it up now and then, letting her win when she has tried. Then reassert yourself and take the ball back firmly and start again; 7) Little bits of sitz and platz are okay at this age. If you work at it, she will turn around by 12 weeks. If she is still behaving as you describe at 16 weeks, I think you have lost. On the other hand, how she behaves now means almost nothing. The race is on and you have 6-7 weeks to win. From 12-16 weeks she MUST learn to watch your face and hold eye contact on command. That must happen by 16 weeks if you want a very competitive dog, in my opinion. So from now to 12 weeks she MUST learn that you give commands and she listens to them. Obedience is not yet important; she just has to learn that the things you say matter A LOT and it is essential to pay attention to them. Good luck.

Ditto MVF: Hold all treats up by ur nose and make her look at u and as soon as she does give her the treat and they should be very tiny pieces Keep her hungry . a hungry pup looks to u for food Sit on floor and feed her every bit of food she eats for the next month. Sitz and platz by 8 weeks old catch her in the natural sit holding food over head and platz then a few times u have to keep her busy with u at all times Crate her at all times when not playing or working with u. Dont let her bond with the other dogs, cats birds or anything that is free for her to focus on . Yes more kids need discipline like we do our schutzhund pups!!!!!! I heard about the case against the couple somewhere in Us that were charged with keepping their foster kids in dogs crates Not a bad idea~1 some parents need to be locked in dogcrates to get their undivided attention That is why u put the pup in a crate to keep her undivided attention on the person who gets her out Make her sit before u open the kennel door and sit going back in and throw a tiny treat in and always good kennel, good sitz, good come good platz with excitement and as someone already said act silly and keep attention on u If people saw how i act training puppies they would call the men with the white coats ,,,,,,Rita Ledda taught me how to train my pups at 6wks old like she does and before they go home. They all scream for several days when left alone but ignore and dont pay attention till they are quiet. I have a radio tuned to an easy listening station usually Christian stations and they are born to it and are raised with it I tell my people when they leave pup at home and they are gone turn the radio on.....good way for us to go to sleep also...Good luck try all the ways and keep pockets filled with treats and tugs for transferring those teeth from skin to tugs or rags..

Ah, I remember this well! What you have described is why we gave my youngest the nickname "Freakin' Flyin' Monkey!" If she hadn't been a pup from one of our breedings, I would have given her back to the breeder. I discovered that long walks, marrow bones, cheese sticks, an old sleeve cover and a crate would soon become the best inventions ever! My pup needed to learn to be alone, to spend some down time and just relax. When I would take the pup out of crate and go outside, after she took care of needs, it was play, chase me, find me, anything I could think of to tire that monkey out. I will admit, I chose to allow her to mingle, play and become part of my pack. However, I never let her forget that I control that pack. At night I would tire her out to exhaustion, tie her to me, and lie down on the sofa with her lying on top of me to sleep. After a long day of training, she sometimes still does this. She wasn't taught any obedience, other than sit until she was over a year old. Having her tied to me when she wasn't in the crate allowed her to learn what was acceptable and what wasn't without a correction. My dog didn't learn focus, really learn focus until after she was 2 years old. If I had it to do all over again, with her, I would have taught focus much much younger. What I did get was a dog with a whole lot of confidence, independence, a bit reckless at times, happy to do the work, and surprisingly enough, she is actually a very good house dog.

Blue - Great advice on here, I just want to commiserate with you a bit. Blitzen had it right on, I was in utter hell a few months back. At 7 weeks, I had the MOST beautiful puppy I had ever seen. Even now, that he is 8 months, every single day people stop and say that he is the MOST gorgeous dog they have ever seen. So, I have the beautiful, soft puppy, and all I wanna do is hold him. Nope. He wasn't going for it. He would bite my face, hands, head, anything he could! All I wanted to do was hold the little jerk! There were times when he was so fierce that I had to literally throw him backwards to get away from him - then he would just charge forward to bite me. It was a fun game for him. I never cried so much in my life. Torn shirts, torn jeans, both my husband and I still have scars from him. Once we found out he was cryptorchid, we decided to not do schutzhund with him. He still has an incredible drive and he's very social - we are going to start tracking with him on a more serious SAR type level in the spring. But, he's still a baby, and wants to viciously attack and dismember people who want to come in the house (working with a trainer on this one). So, stick it out and it'll get better and you'll be so in love! It happens to all off us! I wish you the best of luck and keep us informed of your progress with your little demon. Here is a picture of him (Ben) when he was 7 weeks old, there are some more there too that you might like! http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g14/msklausler/7weeks04.jpg and this is his picture here on the database @ 8 months & 85 pounds! http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/470542.html

I had forgotten how much work a new pup can be. Timing and perseverance are everything. A lot of good info on this thread.