Puppy won’t stop biting

[Xiuminwonwoo]

Okay so, we recently got a female cockapoo puppy at 8 weeks old. She originally settled in well, learnt tricks quickly and generally well behaved. She is 13 weeks now and has gotten worse with biting. We have tried everything, ignoring her and walking away, redirecting attention with a toy, yelping or saying ouch and time outs but it’s just not working. I’ve read about spraying water in the dogs face but we think it would only excite her further. Recently her biting has gotten harder and she appears more aggressive- snapping at us when we trying to remove her from a situation she is enjoying (such as trampling the plants). She lunges and bites down hard, so hard that she’s drawn blood and pierced the skin. It’s aggravating everyone in the family and honestly I’m fed up it’s getting ridiculous. She doesn’t listen, a calm and assertive command does nothing and yelling escalated the situation. My brother and Dad refuse to come into the room if she’s there and I’m honestly considering re- homing her. I do love her but it’s becoming too much to handle. I really wanted a sweet, calm puppy that would be a good friend not sure this. Is there anything that we can do? I don’t want to use physical action and hit her etc

Yes we say something similar and so have bought a really long snake to give her when she’s being especially jumpy/ bitey.

We have tried to get her used to the car and so are visiting paths within a ten minute radius, letting her run around and meet new dogs

I’m not going to make her turn around to go back home when she still has bounds of energy.

OP I have a working cocker and he would run himself to the point of collapsing to play ball if I let him. Just because he thinks he has the energy to do it doesn't make it the best thing for him.

You have both cocker and poodle in yours so you need to understand what drives both breeds and work with them. I can't begin to tell you the number of times people have told me that a working cocker needs hours of walks a day when actually they don't ( I went to gun dog training with people who train them for a living). They need 'some' physical exercise but not lots but what then do need is stimulation such as hunting things. At your puppies age you can tire them out much more through doing obedience training without getting her hyped up.

It sounds like you're trying to do too much too soon. Definitely find a trainer.

I do love her but it’s becoming too much to handle.

Did you do any research at ALL before getting her? Puppies bite, it's what they do. No, it's not pleasant but it's perfectly normal behaviour. And you have a mixture of two high-energy working breeds in a hyperactive puppy body - honestly, what did you expect?

I'm sorry but it really frustrates me when people get puppies and then get angry with them for displaying normal puppy behaviours. \

We take her on two walks a day- playing fetch and running around- they can last for 30 mins to an hour depending on how hot it is or how tired she is.

You are MASSIVELY over-exercising her. She's just a baby. If you want to tire her out, use brain games. Feed her from a kong or toy, or scatter kibble and make her hunt for it. Or use training - we make ours work for his food. So every "mealtime" is actually a training session and we hold some kibble back for little training sessions throughout the day, plus some higher-value treats for walks.

No wonder she's hyper and bitey. She's over-tired and over-stimulated and not given a chance to rest!

Yes, please get some professional help with training; people don't say 'go to puppy training' because it is all a complete waste of time. Find a trainer or club where reward-based training is used, preferably training to the Kennel Club Good Citizen syllabus.

You wanted a 'sweet, calm' puppy but have chosen the most active pup in the litter of a cross between two very active breeds, which isn't the same thing at all. That isn't to say you have a disaster on your hands, but you need to start working with what you actually have rather than what you wanted to have and the sooner the better.

Read 'The Perfect Puppy' (by Gwen Bailey), see if there are puppy parties nearby (vet clinics often run them) where you can socialise her with other puppies amongst like-minded (equally stressed!) owners, get to training classes and do the homework. She will change as she grows but they don't 'just' grow out of things - it takes patience and work.

I’m not going to make her turn around to go back home when she still has bounds of energy.

But you need to. You're her owners and you're the ones responsible for her. She's a puppy who wants to please and will go and go because you've told her to.

The importance of the five minute rule won't be clear until she's an adult. Lots of puppies can physically go for hours but that doesn't mean they should. You need to tire her out with training and brain games. All walking her for miles a day will do is create a dog that needs miles of exercise everyday as an adult before they're tired.

Brain work, scent-work and training tire them out a lot more than a walk in my experience. Or take on a short walk and train every step of the way. Sit to cross roads, not jumping at other dogs, sitting to greet people etc. Bring food with you and reward, reward, reward!

Think of your puppy as a young toddler.

Ever tried reasoning with an overtired 2 yr old? Ever tired taking a 2 yr someone they need to behave after they've missed their nap?

This is what you are doing with the puppy. She may not think she needs a rest, but she does.

In puppies and toddlers both there is a very fine line between " oooh this is do exciting and we are having sooo much fun" and complete irrational meltdown.

About the dragging out of flower bed thing.. Here's something that helped me. An angry tone didn't work. Even if you're seriously pissed off, call your dog with a cheery voice and reward it for coming....or it won't come! Just remembering that was a game changer for us.

You do need a trainer Op.
In the nicest possible way you sound very inexperienced.
Way too much exercise, you risk long term damage to joints with what you are doing.
You chose the wrong pick of the litter and probably the puppy was taken from its mother too soon.
An experienced trainer will be able to support you to bring the puppy up right so you don't have a nightmare teenage dog.
Cocker poo mixes are popular, they seem to be every other dog where I live, but they can vary so much in energy and characteristics.
You will never tire a cocker and they can make themselves ill exhausting themselves, they can be quite neurotic too. You need to learn techniques to calm these characteristics rather than encourage them.
All the best!

Check with local vets, most of ours do puppy training classes.

I am not an expert at all and I also think there are breed specific variances to the advice on walking. I don’t follow them fully either specifically the time I have been gauging it on distance rather than time. At 13 weeks we walked ours 20 minutes three times a day rather than twice but actually we barely covered a kilometre in that time as it was sniffing and rolling and general stimulation. It works for him. We have upped the distance but really not the time he is 5 months (he will also sleep anywhere which helps as we are an active family and has to bbe out with us a lot this is him right now 😆. An hour is just too much and will be making your puppy bite more. Any excessive biting or crazy action we used to take this as tired (this was usually overstimulation from my DS(8). We then used to put him in the kitchen where he knew we were around and he would harumph and then sleep that really helped and didn’t stop him from having a good night sleep.

A 2 hour car journey to a trainer will be much better for him than a 1 hour walk.