New puppy questions

[Mom4Life1994]

I need some help. I have a 9 yr. old Chow/St. Bernard mixmale at home. Very loving dog and has been my baby since we brought him homewhen he was 8 weeks old. We started looking for a new puppy because of his ageand I have two girls age 10 and 13. We knew we wanted a big dog and fell inlove with the mastiff breed. We are not super active, we go on walks and suchbut I did not want a dog that didn’t fit us. The English Mastiff seemed a goodfit and I was introduced to a breeder through my cousin. She has several full grownmastiffs that have a wonderful temperament and were just what I was lookingfor. She was planning a litter that would be ready the end of March and I metthe momma. When the puppies came we went and saw them, decided on a littlebrindle male and fell in love. Got a call a few weeks later that our little boyhad ended up being the runt and was struggling, so we went back and made thedecision to pick another puppy. My husband found a little female fawn he likedso we settled on that. The runt ended up not making it even though he had beento the vets twice. The breeder called uswhen our little girl was 5 weeks and said the mom had weaned the pups and didn’twant to be with them so I could come get her. Brought her home andintroductions went ok, I was never worried about Coda because he is so mildtempered, and he did well. Very interested in her but not sure what this littlething was. Ok now for my problem, she can be very sweet but wants to bite ormouth everything and us. We have toys for her and chew sticks but she stillwants to play rough and bite. She is 6 ½ weeks now and I am not sure how tostop this. My husband say just give it time and she will grow out of it but I’mnot so sure.
I know I am going to get a lot of responses of take her backbut I can’t, I found out too late that there should have been a guarantee and acontract. Yes I am learning that the breeder I got her from is not what I thoughtand that Adara should not have been taken from her mom so young but I can’tchange that. I trained our other dog but I plan on putting Adara in puppyclasses as soon as I can. I guess my questions are is this normal ate her ageand what should I be doing to help her? I also have been told by friends that Ishould not play tug or anything like that because it will encourage her to beaggressive but I played and still play tug with Coda and he has not an aggressivebone in him. I want her to be a well-adjusted adult but honestly don’t knowwhat I should be expecting of her at this age. She has been to the vet andother than a slight cloudy spot on her right eye (we will recheck it when sheis 8 weeks) she is in good health. Eats well, potty’s outside 90% of the time,sleeps 3 to 4 ½ hours at a time at night. Basically a good puppy if I can getthe mouthing under control.

 

[Xenawarriorprincess]

I think mouthing is very common in puppies. My 7 month old was very mouthy as a young pup. Now that she has her adult teeth, shes not mouthy at all. Just keep offering her toys to chew on, and walk away from her if she gets mouthy. She should learn that her behavior causes play to stop.

 

[AKBull]

You called it right there at getting her so young. Not thinking so highly of that breeder. Some of those problems you mentioned could have been dealt with from the mom, like stop biting. But the pup is still very young and learning right from wrong. And she's also being a puppy.
You could verbally react when she bites you "ouch", or something to that effect, and then ignore her, walk away. Let her know that this is not the type of thing that's ok to do. You're going to need to work on it because normally she'd have learned some things from her pack and she'd still be learning them.

As for tug-o-war, don't get too carried away playing it. I believe what it could possibly do is tear a ligament in their rear legs. That's what I've read anyway. I'll play a little with my boy, but it's time to stop when he digs in and tries to pull me around.

Welcome to the board BTW! Feel free to share some pics too.

 

[Smart_Family]

Yea it's definitely because she's so young. I agree with akbull that the breeder is at fault here. There's much more than weaning that needs to be done with puppies. She should've been with her mother and siblings til at least 8 weeks if not 12. It's at this age that the puppies learn appropriate dog behavior and part of that is bite inhibition.

 

[Duetsche_Doggen]

I had to be sure I read that right leaving at 5 weeks is early, but as everyone mentioned its the "breeder's" fault.

 

[dpenning]

The puppy pirhana teeth don't help matters but it does get better. Daisy is 5.5 months now and still mouthy but it gets better and better the older she gets. WAY more tolerable once they get their adult teeth. Hang in there, she'll be great!

 

[Bianka's Mom]

I am sickened by what you said about her giving you the pup at 5 weeks. As a breeder I can agree that the mom probably didn't want much to do with the little tykes anymore but she still should have given her the chance to spend some short periods with them. My Bulldogs often would not want much to do with their pups after 5 weeks but the litter needs to stay together till 8 weeks so they can learn dog behaviors from one another even if mom doesn't want much to do with them. When your puppy mouths another puppy in the litter and the other pup reacts by biting back or screeching at the top of it's lungs and startles the biter they are learning action reaction from one another. Each pup needs the chance to be on the receiving end of hurtful bites from litter mates as well. The worst biter I ever had was LIlly who was the only pup in her litter and I mean shred your hands up till they were bleeding and she lives with friends on the block behind us and grew into a wonderful dog but her puppy hood was a nightmare due to the mouthing. I right away chalked this behavior up to her having no litter mates to play/learn with. Its gonna be just fine but you could try a pressurized air horn and blow it each time she hurts you. (They have them at pet stores) That may help. It works for lots of bad behaviors. Even works great for cats sneaking out the door when you go out. Good luck and I think it will be just fine

 

[Mom4Life1994]

First off I want to thank you all for your advice andc omfort. I had been looking online for advice and was getting all these horror stories about how she will never be a good dog and was going to have discipline problems for the rest of her life. I’m very glad I found this forum and will definitely look here for advice in the future. I have been doing the loud no and walking away when she bites and hurts, she seems to be listening to that and will mouth(put her mouth on my hand and kinda chew but not hard enough to hurt) but not bite most of the time. I have been working on “Sit†with her and she does it decently and I make her sit before I give her her food bowl. I have tried “Comeâ€but it is kinda hit and miss so I never let her off her leash when we are in our yard. A friend told me she was too young for the obedience training I was doing but I want to be sure she will behave, so what do you think? Is a 2 days shy of 7 week old puppy too young?

 

[Smart_Family]

If you're going to do the obedience training now and for the next week or so you need to pick one thing, whether it be sit or come or whatever and only work on that for like 5 minutes at a time, a couple times a day.

 

[ruthcatrin]

Ditto the breeder's fault, whether or not mom wants much to do with them she'll still teach them some, PLUS, they learn all sorts of socialization skills just from interacting with the other pups in the litter. So basically you have a typical young pup

Sounds like you have the start of the solution to the biting, basically she's not old enough and socialized enough to realize it hurts when she does that, just go slow with the obedience, "come" probly shouldn't be considered truely solid till she's older no matter how good she is at it since young pups are too distractable.