Ripped to shreds

[rippedtoshreds]

Puppy advice please.
We have a springer. Got her at 8 weeks and now she’s 13 weeks.
She’s settled in pretty well, sleeping midnight til 6.30, has had someone home with her pretty much solid since we got her. She’ll settle in her crate in the day time.
She’s eating fine, playing fine etc.
The problem is the bloody biting. It’s horrific. From 6.30am until bed at midnight she just bites, pounces, attacks.
She jumps up for affection and as soon as you pick her up she’s ripping your hair out, or puncturing your hands and arms, even biting noses and faces.
You only have to walk from one side of the room to the other and she’s hanging off your trousers growling or off my shoe laces or slippers.
Every single person who’s come to visit her has puncture wounds in their hands.
The kids are covered in scratches, little bite marks, their clothes are ripped and this is literally happening when walking from the lounge to the toilet. They are separated by stairs gates the entire rest of the time.
If I want the kids to come in the kitchen for lunch then I have to pick them up over the stair gate and carry them to their chairs or they get attacked and bitten on their legs. The whole time the dog is hanging off my jeans biting me while I’m carrying the kids.
We put her in her crate for a minute to calm down, but as soon as she comes out she’s attacking again.
My parents are desperately worried that we’ve got an aggressive dog around the kids, even though she’s only 13 weeks old.

She’s from a registered breeder and is pedigree.
She can’t go out yet as hasn’t had all of her jabs, but I play with her in the garden chucking a ball for 15 minute spells. If anything this ramps up the aggression and she’ll come in all wound up and attack even more.
We take her for car rides and to meet friends dogs which wears her out slightly.
Evenings are the worst. She almost goes into a frenzied attack and we will be sat on the sofa and she’ll just fly through the air at you and basically attack you.
If something has scared her then she’ll attack too.
My LO bought a balloon home from a party. The dog saw it on the other side of the room, started barking manically and then just ran around in a frenzy biting everyone.
I’ve had experience of puppies before, but have never experienced such a bitey aggressive puppy.
Please tell me this is normal for springers and she’ll grow out of it?
I’m so worried that she’ll be an aggressive dog.

She can’t walk yet.
She’s not had her second vaccinations.

Nothing to add except STOP
PICKING HER UP. Dogs do not need to be picked up. When she jumps up you push her down firmly.

Yup no picking up and I would not be allowing her on the sofa until she has learnt proper boundaries.

Not to much exercise in the garden as this can overstimulate as well. Maybe try some lead training in the garden to keep play a bit calmer.

I remember being in tears with my lab, many trouser had been ruined because she hung off them trying to get at my legs, regularly air snapping at my face. She is now well balanced and happy!

If you are really struggling maybe get 1-1 with a reputable dog trainer they will be able to see any mistakes you are making, and come up with a plan, but you will need to be very consistent and that’s the whole family too!

My working cocker was very like this as a pup, I really thought I’d got a bad one. I thought he’d end up being pts and I was going to be the owner that didn’t train and care for him properly. But tbh I think they’re all varying shades of demonic at that age. They make them cute so you don’t kill them.

He’s absolutely fine now and grew out of it fairly quickly, that said even now at 7 years old he will only truly relax when he is ignored. My in laws can’t understand why he can’t relax at their house when theyre constantly shouting him over and talking to him and throwing toys.

I also still use time out for some new training we are doing (stopping barking at animals on the tv). It worked for him as a pup and now, but he is loves human contact so it may just depend on the dog. I didn’t necessarily put him out but I would gently push him away or turn him away from me and ignore, ignore, ignore. Basically an immediate end of fun type consequence for the behaviour. Yelling hyped him up more. A trainer once said to us that puppies do not know language at such a young age and so ‘no’ is sometimes meaningless to them.

By yelling I mean yelping in response to nipping, not yelling at my dog

Still ignoring. There’s been a few small nips, but around 5% of what we would normally have at this time of night. She’s wild and doing zoomies and ripping her toys up, but leaving us alone so far.

Ok, the savage biting and growling and frenzied attack started. Took her for a wee and just given her a filled bone on the rug.
She’s quiet for now.

Is there a reason you weren't giving her attention and playing while she had zoomies?

I'd have been sat on floor playing constant fetch, find the toy, fun training like sit/stay rewards, that sort of thing. Once the biting stated, my attention would stop and is move to the sofa leaving pup on the floor.

Never lift or pick up a dog.

Because if you play with her when she’s in that kind of mood she gets worse and worse. You try and play tug or fetch with toys but instead she’s biting hands, feet, ripping slippers, hanging off dressing gowns, she gets really rough.
Then it’s so rough she needs time out, which then upsets her so she growls and bites as soon as you pick her up to remove her. It’s just horrible.
She’s played with lots during the day and knows how far to take it, but at night she gets feral!

She was that hyper last night that she started digging up the sofa and has ripped it, she ripped a sofa cushion, was hanging off the curtains until the curtain pole was in danger of falling down. I really don’t want to encourage that!

That sounds better!

As so9n as she heads toward you and the sofa, sharply stand up. It's irritating for the first couple of days, but she'll stop when she can't get to your face.

Ah. Missed that update!

Ha yes I remember the hanging off curtains. We actually have floor length blinds and BiteyDog used to attack them. I had to tie them up and drape them over a chair for months. Now he doesn't bother with them and treats them with respect if his ball goes behind them. At the time I honestly thought there was no way we could ever have blinds with a dog but slowly his behaviour changed for the better.

Are you doing any training with her? Puppy classes usually accept puppies from the first vaccination to get things going or you can get a trainer in to give you some tips.

I also take mine out well before 13 weeks even if I have to carry them. The socialisation window closes at 14 weeks and then you’ll have new problems to deal with.

She starts training this week.
Then her name is down for flyball at 9 months old.

Flyball is awesome. I have a friend who competes.

Aaahhhh, she’s finally crashed out on the floor.
As evenings go, tonight was maybe a 6/10. It’s usually a 1/10!

Training doesn't need to wait until you start classes with your pup, it should be something you're doing pretty much from day one. As well as obviously helping to set them up to be well adjusted adults it gets their brains working and tires them out far better than physical exercise will. If the interaction she's getting with you is mostly play and her brain isn't getting a good workout then it's no wonder she's hyped up all the time.

There's a really good FB group (Dog Training Advice and Support) which is run by professionals and has loads of good articles and guides in their 'Files' section, including Congratulations on Your New Puppy which is a collection specifically for new puppy owners. I'd highly recommend joining and giving those a good read through as there's plenty which should be useful for you.

I'd also recommend having a look at the YouTube channel Dog Training by Kikopup. She's brilliant and has a playlist of videos entirely about puppy training.

She sounds scared are you sure this is the right dog for your family?

That's huge progress! It's a learning curve for you and her. Keep it up!

If you can do gun dog training I strongly recommend it. We took ours to a chap who didn't have them with kennels outside. And like mentioned above some gun dog training can be done as classes. We never will work Barks, but we had struggled for so long, we were completely desperate. Conventional puppy classes just didn't work for our dog, he was very very bad, we used to come home from said puppy classes with ripped clothes and bloody hands

I think we are more scared of her than she is of us!
I genuinely think she’s just a very bitey puppy who has a mad hour in the evening.
From researching this it’s really common for puppies to turn wild and very bitey in the evening as they’re overtired and overstimulated.
I’m positive things will be ok!

Sounds like you are making great progress, it is really hard work with puppies and kids but at least things are going in the right direction!

Just bought a snuffle mat online too!
They’ve got great reviews.

Great work OP !!!

We have several snuffle mats - our lab has every meal from them. They are completely brilliant.

If your pup is on dry food, also play games with him using a few pieces as treats. Excellent way to keep him occupied for a while.

Sounds like all will be fine, well done 👍👍