puppy has cut my arm on walk

[lecce]

Just come back from walking our 5 month old lurcher GS with a slightly bleeding arm. We saw another dog in a field who stopped for a sniff but, as he was on his way home, I didn't let her off the lead in case she tried to follow him (her recall is a work in progress). After he had gone, she carried on the jumping she had been doing to him to me. She reaches my shoulders on her back legs and, even with the lead really short, I couldn't stop her. She broke the skin on my wrist and it is smeared with blood - not dripping - but looks a mess. She was also biting at my dress. I just felt powerless and a total idiot, as well as very shaken. After a couple of minutes of me saying, "No, down" etc, she stopped and the rest of the walk was fine. She has done this before, but only a couple of times and it was weeks ago and I was in a coat in trousers so it was easy to just blank her and she stopped. This time it's a really hot day here so I'm in a floaty sundress and therefore vulnerable to attack!

I am sure she acted in play, not aggression, but it has shaken me up. She still jumps up at the dc and has put scratch marks on them, though not broken the skin. She stops if we call her away, but then it feels like she's being given a treat for hurting them. We also confine her to the kitchen if she gets really hyper, which helps, but no real progress seems to be being made longterm.

She has lots of toys to chew and is played with, though she has no interest in 'fetch' etc and play of any length of time results in her jumping up and hurting people. She is walked three times a day for 20-25 minutes.

I have contacted trainers but don't know what to look for them in terms of qualifications etc. Is this type of thing to be expected or are we going wrong/is it a red-flag?

It does sound like normal naughty puppy behaviour, tbh. My nearly 6 month old is the same. The difference is, he's a mini poodle/cocker so not able to reach much above my knees! Your girl is much bigger and therefore it's more of a challenge. I tend to pick my pup up and put him in the kitchen for a bit when he goes all Devil Dog, but not sure how you cope with that when you're out. Someone far more knowledgeable than me will be along shortly :)

It's pretty normal puppy stuff...it's just more of an issue if you've got a larger puppy rather than a small breed as they can reach you better.

My advice probably isn't worth much, but I'd pick the rock solid command - for my boy that's sit, he's fantastic at sit and will do it in just about any situation, so if he gets a bit too much I make him sit, praise him, get him to then do something else and it refocuses him.

Do you go to classes at all? - they can be great for dealing with that one tricky thing you're not managing to work out by yourself and of course they're good for getting used to still paying attention to you with other dogs around.

My dog would do this as a pup when over excited. I found taking her to obedience training helped a lot. She will still do it very occasionally (she is 15 mths now), again if over excited.

Lurchers are a bit 'special' in terms of their training - they are not like a lab or a retriever - so you are right in that you need to look for the right trainer. I'm on a lurcher forum that has recommendations for a trainer that works in the north and another that works in the south east. I've seen the northern one in action and he was really good - lots of help with different problems for different dogs that were there. pm me if you want any further info.

Her behaviour has nothing to do with aggression and is not a red flag for anything. She's a puppy, she got excited and she jumped on you. She doesn't know that she's big, heavy and has sharp claws.

Get thee to a training class asap. Clicker is a great fun, positive, reward based training method that the whole family can get involved in.

If you give her a treat when she stops hurting your DCs then you are rewarding the stopping and not the hurting, which is exactly what you want to be doing.

Good grief this is just an untrained puppy no aggression at all.

Wear long sleeves when out walking and contact an APDT trainer. It sounds like you need a lot of help to educate yourself about dogs and dog training.