Aggression in hand-reared pup

[PinkPjamas]

I have a pup I've hand reared after her Mother refused to feed her and began attacking her, at one week old.

She's doing very well health wise. I still see her siblings, and I've had her socialise with them once a week or so-It's difficult as we have to separate them all from Mum to do it and (backstreet breeder), there's not much room to do this, but I've done it as often as feasible.

What I'm concerned about is, her siblings are lovely, cuddly, placid little things, they want to be picked up and cuddled for ages, don't nip or growl unless playing with one another, very nice natured.

She, is very growly and bitey. She's 7 weeks now and I have upped the discipline, not letting her do certain things, she has toys and they're the only things for chewing on but she's SO aggressive. I picked her up just now to put her little harness on for training, and she was really going for me, very aggressive and snappy and very loud growling, really attacking me not puppy nipping or chewing.

She's 1/8th wolf, Dad malamute, Mum quarter wolf three quarter husky-all highly strung 'difficult' breeds.

The last thing I want is to raise a dog with behavioural problems.

I wouldn't say I'm very experienced with dogs but I've been around pups a fair bit and I've never known one seemingly as 'angry' as her. I know It's a trait in hand-reared ones as we just aren't as good as their Mums and siblings, at creating boundaries.

Any tips appreciated!
Thank you.

7 weeks is still so young. A harness, training & discipline? My pup is 8 weeks & im just focusing on toilet training & praising good behaviour.

The Caesar Milan website & books are full of good tips though.

Cesar Millan has been discredited. Avoid him like the plague. Check out kikopup on YouTube.

Why has he been discredited?

This website explains why pretty comprehensively

I have a hand reared puppy and to be honest she has been horrible. She is fear aggressive to some things but just plain aggressive to others.
She has no respect for people she does not know and won't take orders from anyone but me. She has no dog manners or social skills either despite being very well socialised as soon as she was able to be. I used to take her to work with me so she met hundreds of dogs and people before the socialisation period ended. She also lives with my adult dogs and has done since birth.
Mine had no littermates so no chance to learn bite inhibition.

However, she is devoted to me and is the most loyal and affectionate dog I have ever had.

My behaviouralist said this is typical of a hand reared pup sadly.

Most hand reared animals are horrible, sadly. We will pay £2000 to hire a foster mare for just a few months when a broodmare dies, because a hand reared foal is useless.

At 7 weeks she is still very much a baby and I would question the training harness etc. At that age I would be carrying out relaxed and Iow-pressured handling and training through play with her. Concentrate on building the bond between you in a relaxed manner while still having consistent boundaries in place. Picking her up and putting a harness on her is quite confrontational, she's clearly not happy with it and is telling you that so I would take the handling back quite a few steps to a level she is comfortable with and work from there. She really is extremely young still. It is very difficult if she is missing out on the vital socialisation and learning from both her dam and littermates.

I do wish you all the best with her though, and it sounds like she is lucky to have ended up with you. That is certainly one of the most difficult/challenging combinations of breeds I can think of - Malamute/Husky/wolf(!) puppies being churned out by a byb makes my heart sink to my boots. Based on the Mals/Sibes and various crosses thereof I see in the practice (I am a vet), I would think it unlikely that any of this litter are going to be easy dogs to own. You may want to consider speaking to someone experienced in these breed types for some tips and guidance sooner rather than later - perhaps try contacting the Malamute or SH breed clubs who may be able to put you in touch with someone local.

I agree on the Cesar Milan thing above - whatever you do do not use any of his "training" methods. Have a look at Angela Stockdale's website, she does a lot of work with aggressive dogs - your pup is still extremely young for any kind of 'diagnosis' - but there is a lot of interesting information on there.

Is the mother still with the breeder or with you? If she does genuinely have that level of wolf content (there are plenty of breeders professing to be breeding "wolfdogs" which have no more wolf content than your average chihuahua) then I'm pretty sure whoever is keeping her will need a DWA licence.

I'f you've no experience with wolfdogs then these people might be able to help, as well as fostering and rehoming dogs they'll offer advice to wolfdog owners.

She needs much more socialisation and you dont have much time to do it. she hasnt learned bite inhibition.
Ask your vet if there are any puppy socialisation classes near you and get her there asap, at least 3 times a week.

I am just checking in to say I am very, very grateful for all the replies, I posted at a daft time obviously as it's Xmas, but I'll reply properly as soon as I get chance.
Unfortunately I am 100% sure she is part wolf genuinely ,I know the breeder went to great lengths to obtain a half wolf dog (her grandad) and I've met him-he's enormous.

Really appreciate all the advice and I realise a bit too soon with the harness. I just thought, she'll be allowed outside soon and I wanted to get her used to wearing it. I was probably wrong to do that.
Thanks again everybody.

Hi Pink

Hand raised animals unfortunately often have very different behavioural development to normal. Socialisation is essential (use Sophia yin's socialisation checklist) but is still unlikely to entirely overcome the trauma of early maternal separation.

There are plenty of absolutely enormous malamutes out there. Having worked with exotic animals for years I'd be fairly sceptical that the breeder managed to get an f1 wolf-dog hybrid into the U.K. ,assuming that's where you are) what lengths did he go to? Where did this dog come from? If you seriously think it's genuine you need to report to your local authority as a contravention of the DWA

one thought that came to mind was that dam would usually reject one dpup from a litter as a result of her detecting something wrong with it at birth.

With its potential to grow into such a large ddog, with huge aggression issues, that has a high chance of not being able to address i wouldn't be hopeful of its future sadly. It doesn't sound encouraging.

All i would try is to get it in with another litter, but that depends on age. I always offer my bitches for this when there's a phantom pregnancy, but this one needs a litter and this dpup may already be well past this stage. I would say it needs to be with other youngsters 24/7 or as much as feasibly possible with close monitoring.

Horrible backyard breeders, can this really have happened?