We have recently adopted a puppy (he is about three months old and we've had him for four weeks now). So far on most things he's doing pretty well. We're now on two days with no accidents, he's down to waking up twice in the night, learning to sit, lie down, drop and come, and is generally a sociable and pleasant little dog.
But he is still very mouthy, and every now and then gets a mad moment of rushing about with his mouth open, biting everything nearby. dh worries he might bite one of the many visiting children (we have a 9 and 10 year old, and they are pretty sociable). We are working on a no tolerance approach to the biting this week, with ignoring, stand still, walking away and trying always to have a chew toy ready to give him instead of the clothes/hands/feet he's after. Hopefully this will work!
But our biggest issue is the cats. dh insisted that we got a puppy because he read that the cats would cope better (we have two rescue cats, about three years old now, who apparently had had dogs in their life before - we've had them for a year). This is our first dog as adults, but we both grew up with dogs, and dh also had cats. His experience was that the cats made sure that the pup knew how to behave, so he expected the cats to be quite dominant. One of our cats is quite canny and the pup generally leaves her alone, but unfortunately the other one generally puts up with being poked and licked for a while, vaguely wave his paws as the pup (which he seems to quite enjoy) and then runs off. Cue pup chasing him, and more recently catching up and then biting his back. Sometimes this makes the cat squeak. This really worries dh, and has made him start talking about "taking him back" (I don't think he'd actually follow through with this, as he and the pup spend a lot of time together, and a fair bit of the time is cuddling together).
The pup has two proper walks a day plus two round the block walks (and this makes a huge difference to his behaviour) he has lots of chew toys, and we have found some ranges of puppy rawhide to give him (again this really clams him down) plus he has bones too. We are trying really hard on stay at the moment, and have started giving him treats for sitting still when the cats are around rather than yelling at him when he does chase the cat, but that's this week's approach so quite new.
So I'm just looking for any additional ideas on the cat chasing/biting front. dh thinks that the pup wants to hump the cat (he recently has been humping anything furry, despite coming to us already castrated). I'm assuming I can't spray the cat's back with bitter lime?
Oh, and he is mixed breed - his mum was an American Water Spaniel and his father is unknown, but according to the vet he probably has some husky and some lab in him. He seems to have quite a strong retriever nature.