Snarling pup

[daftwit]

Our 20 week cocker spaniel bitch pup, is constantly curling her top lip, snarling and biting me and the children .

we have tried yelping ( like pups) , ignoring her, giving her chew toys, but nothing seems to help. In the end we put her in the garden / crate for
" time out" .
Has anyone any advice on how to deal with her frustrating behaviour ?

[lougle]

Is she getting plenty of exercise?

Have you noticed a pattern in her behaviour, e.g. when is she biting you, what happens before, etc?

How long has this been happening?

[daftwit]

Maybe it is not enough exercise, I have been limiting her exercise due to being a pup ..... 5 mins for each month of her age.

She seems worse after meals, she is on Eukanuba, is it possible for a puppy to be hyper stimulated following meals ?

[lougle]

The type of food can affect dogs.

[binger]

Not much help but totally normal behaviour for this age/breed. She is learning and pushing her luck. IMO this is the hardest stage of dog ownership. If possible get her mixing with other adult dogs, she will learn so much more from them, they will teach her better than you can.

I'm afraid when we were going through this it got to desperate times before it got better. You need to be firm and consistent. Are you training too? Get a clicker and put in a good half hour every day and you will reap the rewards. If it's any consolation things changed around 6 months and she is now the perfect pet and you can take her anywhere. Things will start improving soon.

[fanoftheinvisibleman]

My dog was on Eukanuba as a pup and I did post on here about his behaviour after eating. He used to go completely nuts straight after eating and crash into things and be generally uncontollable for about 40 minutes till he'd savaged himself out. He is no longer on eukanuba and no longer like that but I fully accept it is possibly just a coincidence. Could be worth looking at a change though and it is ridiculously expensive for a food that isn't the best quality despite the branding.

[Vibbe]

When my cocker (now 2 years old) was a puppy, she'd bite as well. It's normal puppy behaviour, but so frustrating. And those little puppy teeth are so sharp!

If she was biting, I'd usually get up and leave her. Yelping and telling her no had no effect.

I found that in certain situations, it would help distracting her with a toy or a chew/treat. That would mostly be when she was exploring eating cables

Usually she'd be really bitey when over-tired and hyper. I'd pick her up, hold her and talk to her calmly until she fell asleep - would take a couple of minutes. That would usually be when she had been playing loads or when excited to see my DH come home.

She didn't growl or snarl loads, but the few times that she did, I told her no. In which situations is your dog growling or snarling?

I don't think that the amount of exercise is a problem. We would take her out whenever she needed to go out, and go for 10 minute walks each time. If we were out playing, we'd be out longer - probably 20 minutes maximum.