Is my Puppy Normal?

We have a 12 week old Brittany Spaniel puppy. I don't know if it's normal puppy behavior or if my puppy is overly hyperactive.

Today I met a 16 week old golden retriever at the park. He was a wonderfully calm dog. I'm sure they all have their unique personalities, but I was so envious of the owner of this retriever. Maybe ours will mature into that calmness soon.

Okay, here's his behaviour. He's constantly getting into trouble. His new thing is to bark at us and nip at us when we reprimand him for bad behaviour. We reprimand him by saying "no". He barks back at us and mouths/nips at our hands, jumps up on us. Kind of like the other thread about getting into an argument with your dog. We try to distract him with toys, doesn't work, so we send him outside to get his frustration out. His typical routine is HYPER, eat, sleep, HYPER, eat, sleep, HYPER.....

If he is "unique" and does not have the most highly desirable disposition, we can live with it and hope he grows out of it soon. But does this sound like normal behaviour? How is a "normal" puppy at 12 weeks supposed to be? I've grown up with puppies in the past (as a kid) and don't remember such roughness out of them. Everyday my son is in tears because he gets a pretty good bite. It doesn't break the skin, but does look like a blood blister under the skin. I'm always with the two of them, but the dog nips so fast and out of nowhere.

I love my dog and he's beautiful, I just need reassurance that he is a normal 12 week old puppy. We plan to neuter him, will this help? Thanks for any thoughts.

 

Other people will respond with help as to what to do (not my specialty) but I can answer your question. Unfortunately, yes, this is normal. My puppy did the same thing. I got him at 6 wks (he is 10 mos now) and he was a terror. He is a St. Bernard so he was a very large terror. I worked with him on a lot of the stuff ppl here told me to do and stuff I read but none of it did much good. It just took time. He still has his moments but has calmed down ALOT. He used to maul me (literally - my arms and legs were so cut up b/c he would just bite and bite and bite) and he has quit doing that. He is Very very hyper as well. But he is learning to channel his hyperactivity into playing with his toys. He knows now that I'll play with a toy with him but not when he is biting me. Just give it time and be consistent with the reprimands and the puppy will eventually catch on. It took Indy until he was about 6 mos until I really could walk around him without fear of getting bitten so there is hope out there.

 

Your puppy sounds perfectly normal to me! The puppy stages are so frustrating sometimes but gosh darn it they are so worth it! By the way welcome to the forum!
P.S
We love pictures of the furbabies!
:kiss_puppy:

 

oh, hon, that's normal.... at least pretty much normal for us!! LOL.... how do you think Bailey got his nickname MONSTER??

My bestfriend says that God made puppies CUTE for a reason --- so you don't kill them!! hehe

 

This is so reassuring to read! Thank you all. If you have any other suggestions please let me know. Today was an especially bad day for him. All I did was yell at him today. Can you yell too much? I'm starting to worry that he'll get meaner from me yelling like damned if you do, damned if you don't. It seems to rile him up even more. Please tell me I'm wrong.

I'm wondering if he isn't getting sexual now which is adding to his hyperness. I think I saw him humping his pillow/bed. It may have just been rough play though but it did kind of look like humping. In fact, he did that to my son last week too for a split second.

I hope neutering him will calm him down. I think the vet said they get neutered at 16 weeks....I'm counting down the days!!!!

 

Sounds pretty normal to me especially for an active breed like the Brittany. He will need lots and lots of exercise......a well exercised dog is a well behaved dog. Teach him to play fetch and/or hide and seek (hide some treats or toys around the house and have him try to find them) and try to burn as much of that energy as you can. I imagine he will calm down at least a little bit as he reaches maturity. Too much yelling is definately not a good thing....he will eventually learn to (sounds like he might be already) just tune you out. Practicing the NILIF program would probably be a good to start now.
Here is a link with more info on NILIF:
http://www.k9deb.com/nilif.htm

If there are any trainers in your area that offer puppy social groups you might want to enroll in one of those too. He will have lots of puppies to romp around with and will burn alot of energy doing so.

As far as humping....it is not always a sexual behavior. It can also be a dominance behavior or an anxiety issue.
Best of luck.

 

Don't worry, you puppy is absolutely normal like other puppies. Sounds like positive enforcement would be better in training of yours. Instead of yelling at him, stop him from doing the "bad" thing, and enforce his stopping by giving him a treat and appraise him for obeying you.

Do you let him free in the house all the time? If so, you probably want to restrict him in a certain area of the house by using the exercise pen or the doggie door so that he won't get into troubles.

I've been taking my 4-month old Cavalier to puppy school for the past several weeks. It's a good socializing opportunity for the puppies and a great one for you to ask the trainer a lot of questions. Well worth the few bucks you pay.

Humping is normal for the little boys, too. Mine does that all the time. At first, I thought it was due to the sex drive in male dogs, but I soon found myself wrong. A 12-week puppy doesn't have that kind of drive yet, he might just find "humping" a fun thing to do. My dog is 16-week old now, and he's going to have the neuter surgery tomorrow. Yes, yours will be more calm and won't be humping after the surgery too.

 

Yea I think excercise is key. Every spare minute you have make him run or something, then he will be too tirred to do anything, hopefully! Do the positive training stuff or the Nilf stuff, he is just a puppy, he'll grew out of it, given the proper training.

 

Totally normal. My pup was the same way, trust me- she was crazy, and I too was so envious when my brother-in-law got a golden pup, because it seemed so much calmer!! Some breeds are just naturally much more active than others, there's not much that you can do about it except giving your pup plenty of exercise and appreciating their "unique" personality To give you a small ray of hope, Cameron, who was like a tornado as a pup, is now 1 1/2 years old and MUCH calmer. She is still active, but not nearly as out of control as she was for the first year!

 

Been there, done that. I actually found this forum because our pup was so crazy I didn't know what to do! I would sit and cry in frustration.

Definitely start working on the NILIF program. The smarter the dog, the tougher you have to be. Yours is still young, but once the pup KNOWS the command, insist he perform it with ONE command within 3-5 seconds or just walk away. Come back shortly and try again. He will quickly learn that if he wants something - to go outside, to play, to eat, whatever - he MUST obey you quickly.

The nipping is VERY frustrating. Some dogs are nippier than others. We have one of the nippy ones, and it took a LONG time to make any progress. Here is my favorite article on bite inhibition: http://www.jersey.net/~mountaindog/berner1/bitestop.htm

A tired dog is a good dog. Train him. Teach him commands and fun tricks (they are all tricks to your dog). Play games - fetch, hide-n-seek, frisbee, etc. Walks aren't enough, but getting out to see new places is definitely good, so DO go on walks. Drive him to new neighborhoods for a change of scenery. Bring him to the pet store to see other people and dogs (check with your vet first to be sure it's safe for him to be out and about). Take him to a park.

Supervise while in the house. Maybe gate off an area for him to be in and watch him carefully. You can also try tethering him to you with a leash. Talk to him. Teach him something all the time. While you are working, have him sit or down or whatever you can think of. Maisey (who used to come here a lot) taught her dogs "right" and "left" when she was working in the kitchen chopping up vegetables. I think she would call out a direction and if they came to the correct side, they would get a little piece.

Hang in there, and try not to yell. Dogs think yelling sounds like barking and it just makes them more excited. Keep calm. Speak slowly in a low, calm voice. I know, it's hard to do.

Try positive training, like clicker training. A good book to start with is Pat Miller's "Power of Positive Dog Training." Any of Ian Dunbar's books are also wonderful. Get one of his puppy books - there are many life-saving tips in there.

Puppies are a LOT of work. I know what it's like to see the calm ones and envy their owners. But all dogs are different, and if you are patient and consistent your dog will mature into a well-behaved, fun dog!