Puppies nip and chew, it’s part of their growing up. If he nips, yelp at him so he knows not to bite hard on people. Give him lots and lots and LOTS of legal things to chew on, and if he gets bitey give him something legal to bite and chew.
Lots of trainers don’t like playing pull toy with puppies, stating dominance issues but I’ve always played pull games with my pups–they just have to learn that when I say drop it, I mean it! It’s a judgement call and will depend on the particular disposition of your beastie.
He’s a total cutie, by the way, very good ears for his age. Any idea what his parents weigh in at?
OMG, Barkley is a total cutie! Good luck with the training. And thanks for sharing the pics; I think the rule about pics extends to -all- pets, not just cats.
Two other books - Somebody already mentioned Kilcommins “GOGD”, but they have a new one - “My Smart Puppy” which is a treasure. Also, “How to Raise a Puppy You Can Live With” got me through several dogs - I see it a vet offices all the time.
I hear ya, and it definitely sucks. It’s a problem with herding dogs, too, as they tend to be a bit mouthy since that’s part of herding behavior. My border collie cross has to be reminded not to grab parts of me that don’t have his toy attached. He gets frustrated and tries to control my hand by grabbing my elbow–ouch! He’s always very apologetic when I scold him for it, though. Luckily he has a soft mouth and doesn’t actually bite down but those little teeth are poky–the shepherd I grew up with had the habit of doing these pinchy little nips, like flea nibbles but catching the skin and it hurt like fire. You couldn’t really call it biting, it was just how she enforced what she saw as discipline on us–she did bite my dad right in the ass one time because he was yelling at mom, didn’t break skin but it definitely cooled his jets!
The ideal thing would have been to radiograph the “parents” of the puppy. If I were in the market for a latrge breed dog, I would stick to puppies who were offspring of OFA (Orthopedic Foundation for Animals) certified breeding stock. More info on that here: http://www.offa.org/
I would like to fine tune a bit here. There was an excellent study done in the early 90s looking at nutrition as it relates to hip dysplasia. The study shows that limiting caloric intake has a positive effect on phenotype of the hip joint. Basicall, if you feed about 10% less than the dog would normally choose to eat, you wind up with less hip problems. Glucosamine and chondroitin supplementation may play a role in the healing of joint injuries, but they have a minimal effect on prevention. I would use a quality food, but aim to keep the dog very lean. I euthanize a handfull of dogs each week whose only problem is obesity.
We’ve had to cut back on our Malemute’s feed pretty considerably as she started having arthritis problems in one back leg. We discovered the neighbor was feeding her all kinds of inappropriate crap, from steak bones to butter cookies. :eek: It’s really hard to tell when she gains weight since she’s so fuzzy, but she got pretty chunky there for a while and couldn’t walk far at all without limping. We started her on glucosamine and chondroitin, aspirin for the stiffness and pain and cut her daily food intake by about 30% until she slimmed down–we’ve recently put her up to 75% of what she was getting originally and we had a stern talk with the neighbors about not feeding our dogs. She’s back in the pink now, and able to take our usual 5 mile uphill hikes quite handily. She’s a bit slower, but that’s all to the good since she no longer outpaces me.
Unfortunately, the neighbor’s formerly athletic lab/chow cross is now fat as a sofa cushion and doesn’t get nearly enough exercise, and the rottie from across the street is about fifty pounds overweight–and they say he just lost twenty! He’s a really young dog, too, under two years but that much weight on him is just terrible. The poor pup can barely walk a mile on a flat surface without having to lie down for a rest. I feel sorry for the poor critters and want to take them all on walks with me!