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.

Ok I’ll try sock too!
Got antlers today, rice bone, and whimzees but the medium instead of the small!

I think once you can start walking it'll get better. I looked after an Akita for someone that was overfed and under exercised. They thought it was funny when it grabbed the child's arm
Only dog that has ever scared me as it had no facial expressions and would lunge at you and attack. It did it one day and I stuck a lead on and walked. And walked. And walked. She slept for about 5hrs after it and I did the same every single day and she was a bloody angel compared to what they left me with! She also had a soft lead on so I could get it without her biting me

Cardboard boxes make great puzzles when you put their food or treats inside; cardboard egg boxes make it harder for them to eat their food quickly as well.

I also give cardboard tubes - toilet roll or kitchen roll inners etc. One owner whose puppy I've looked after (I'm a home boarder since my own dog died) used to tape up one end of a toilet roll inner, add some treats and then tape up the open end.

Old socks stuffed into a ball makes a great toy to rip up.

A big pen or crate in a room you can shut off helps with the sleep issue if that is possible - even a bedroom or if you have a large enough second toilet/bathroom would work.

I agree about doing some basic training to keep the bitey shark occupied! I'd forgotten how bad my dogs were as puppies until I had a 5 month old spoilt cocker spaniel to stay - his mad hour included charging at me to bite as hard as he could, the bruises were awful! Interestingly he didn't do it to dh and teen ds's - we found out that his male owner was very strict but his female owner was very soft (not saying this is the case with you, just this particular situation) and so he was trying to treat me as he did his female owner. It took a few days to stop him being so bad but I didn't have young children and could ban visitors until I'd got him to behave better - still had his zoomies and mad spells!

So the deer antler is a hit.
The kong kept her occupied for 15 minutes too, but I’m going to freeze it tomorrow to make it last longer. Can’t get loads in there, as she’s only got the smallish red one.
She’s just started doing zoomies, but her biting has been around 5% today, as opposed to around 80% on previous days.
We’ve had a calm day, lots of crate time to enforce sleep.
And a visit to the little pet shop for a harness.
Think that mentally wore her out.
Also she needs a harness for dog training, and she seemed fine with it in the pet shop, but since we got home she just freezes when she’s wearing it.
We tried tempting her to move with toys, treats, attention etc.
She did walk around a tiny bit, but mainly just sat there sulking.
So I think we will have to add harness time to our day, along with quiet time, nap time, training time, treats time and wind down time!
It’s like scheduling a day for a newborn!
Toilet training still great. In the past 6 days she’s had 4 accidents. So that’s not too bad!

Great work OP - what an improvement!

Just remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Our dog is 9 months and I’m still reminding myself!

Our pup didn’t like the collar, harness OR going for walks at first - we thought we had the only dog that didn’t like going out!

Little & often did the trick...

Sounds good. I thought that stage would never end but it did - after a LOT of repetition and patience.

Another question for the experts.
What should I be doing when she shows fear?
So basically she seems to hate it when my kids do dressing up (especially hats).
She also barks manically at the hoover and if there’s something where it’s not usually, eg a carrier bag of shopping in the hallway.
She barks and barks at these things.
Should I be comforting or ignoring?
Currently I ignore and offer a toy.

It really depends on what it is and where we are on how I react. My dog is quite fearful and despite being a gundog is terrified of guns so if we are out and one goes off he will try and crawl up the back of my legs and then refuse to walk. I will in a cheerful voice says it's ok and try and carry on as normal as it's not something I can do much about at the time.

If it's an object which I know he is just not sure of such as roadwork signs on the pavement I will go and touch them myself and then let him get his confidence to approach it in his own time.

If it's the Hoover I ignore as he just doesn't like it and runs off until I am done which is quite handy at times

The dressing up thing is an interesting one and an excellent learning curve for pup. You can’t have her freaking out every time you pass someone with a hat. Get the kids to enjoy playing dress up, but to calmly come in and talk/play with pup a bit first. To get her used to it.

The thing billypup was and still is scared of is traffic. So when she could go out we sat at our bus stop, which is busy enough to be effective but quiet enough not to be overwhelming, for a few minutes every walk just being calm together and treating her whenever anything went passed

I don’t know any animal that doesn’t either bark or run from the hoover. But distraction and toys are the best way with other things.

Everything sounds so much more in a routine for you. That’s brilliant, time to start enjoying her.

Also ration the high value things like the antler for when you need it.

Yep. Antler is evening only.
Just put the kids backpack on the hall floor and she went nuts. Barking and growling at it.
I touched it to show her it was fine, but still barking and snarling.
I ended up throwing treats onto it and around it, which she went and took no problem.
Then she ignored it afterwards.
Hoping that was the right thing to do?

Perfect - distract, distract, distract (preferably with nice treats). Pop a treat or two on the object and allow her to take them in her own time, or not at all.

Take no notice of the objects yourself and she will come to learn they are nothing to be scared of.

I don’t know any animal that doesn’t either bark or run from the hoover.

Meet Battendog . He can be nervy about new objects or things that have been moved but, for whatever reason, the hoover is Not Something To Be Feared. Literally hoover right round his lying body, using hoover to push legs aside. No reaction.

The other dogs in the house hate it so I'm not really sure what he is so relaxed...

My dog went barking mad at a bin bag that had blown onto our driveway yesterday!

He’s 9 months and I’m still learning..

Treats and distraction around unfamiliar things. Bright and breezy. Overly reassuring her (picking her up etc) will make her think that it's something to worry about.

So, came home and put backpack back down on the floor in the hallway. Cue her barking at it again. Chucked one treat behind bag, she took the treat and is ignoring the bag again.
Funny things aren’t they puppies?

They are a law unto themselves!

These are making me laugh now, I think @battendog might secretly be a bit of a weirdo and @ripped you know puppy is now going to learn, bark at rucksack = get treats. (But for now absolutely the right way to handle it )

I love dogs, just as you solve one problem they turn it into another.

I think @battendog might secretly be a bit of a weirdo

It is no secret. He is quite, quite obvious about his weirdness. That and his good looks are the only things he has going for him...

OP I'd really encourage your instincts that your dog is overtired and overstimulated. You know how children's behaviour deteriorates when they are overtired, and puppies are no different.

When our youngest dog was a puppy she was extremely bitey. It is awful and you have my sympathy. We adopted a routine through the day of regular naps which had a miraculous improvement on her behaviour. She would refuse to sleep unless we popped her into her crate, I think she was frightened of missing out on fun & excitement. If you have children at home I'm guessing your house is quite noisy and busy, and your pup probably thinks he's missing out too! I'd add in at least one more nap for yours; either early afternoon or evening. I know you worry about too much crate time but if the dog is sleeping, and needs that sleep, that is positive (and completely different to being crated just as a confinement).

Anyway, within a few days of our new routine she was getting 18 hours sleep a day (that includes night-time) and was a much, much nicer dog for it. BTW, within about 9 months she became the most darling, gentle creature you can imagine. There is hope

Did you follow the link Crumpet gave you? All the advice on there is excellent and given by professional trainers using positive training methods. They've got brilliant files on puppy biting and puppies with children, and will answer specific questions you might have.

Yes. I added myself to that group a few days ago.
And I’ve read every single file on puppy biting, which is helping us as adults but there’s nothing on there to answer my questions re the kids.
I think I need to reintroduce the kids and dog again with her on a lead.
Basically every single time she sees the children, even for a few seconds she’s nipping them and biting their clothes.
If they walk from their stair gated area to the toilet she jumps up and hangs off of their clothes every single time.
I have to carry them absolutely everywhere in their own house.
If she manages to sneak in a stair gated room when we are entering it (as she’s quick and ninja like) then the first thing she will do is jump on the sofa and nip their faces or pull their hair until we pull her off.
If I walk through a room she’s in whilst carrying the kids through, as let’s face it I can’t put them down to get nipped to shreds then she bites their feet leaving marks and scratches.
I’ve tried sitting them on one side of a stair gate with the dog on the other and got them to pass treats through. She takes the treats but gets so excited and wound up she starts biting me and hanging off my clothes as she can’t get to them.
I genuinely cannot have them next to each other for even a second right now.
Tried earlier while my little boy was cuddling on my knee to let her come up and sniff him. All of his arms and legs were tucked in, so all she had was his back to sniff.
She ran straight over and starting nipping and pulling his t-shirt on his back.
Tried with my older 5 year old daughter this morning. I had to dog by the collar and was trying to encourage “sit” and we were feeding her treats, but she just gets so over excited that instead of wanting the treats she was just nipping my little girls hands and hanging off her dress.
Literally don’t know what to do.
Dog training starts tomorrow so I’ll ask the instructor for tips.
I might even take the 5 year old training with me, as they encourage family kids to go along.

Why are you keeping an animal that is hurting your children? I really don't get this.

What ages are your DC?

For goodness sake, she’s a puppy.
She will grow out of it!
She’s just very excitable and bitey, mainly with the kids as they are loud, fast and high pitched and she sees them as other puppies to play with.

“Why are you keeping an animal that is hurting your children? I really don't get this.”

It’s what puppies do, it’d be like deciding babies are dangerous when they get teeth and start biting everything...