I’m all about R+, but what do you do when your pup is being a stubborn little sh*t and wouldn’t just leave something dangerous?

[thruve]

I love everything about my cheeky munch monster, but there were a few occasions where she made me jump out of my skin, hit another dimension and come back. I’m looking for advice on how to keep my cool and use positive reinforcement in painful or potentially life threatening situations.
I’ll give you a few examples, but I’m sure the possibilities are endless.

Scenario 1 - pretty standard: puppy biting gets out of hand. They play, but bite so hard that there’s blood, sweat and tears. What do you do? How do you not scream a little out of pain?

Scenario 2 - they somehow (maybe due to a random leash zoomie attack) get out of their collar / harness and you want them to stop immediately, because you’re near a busy street, or just don’t want them to run away. Do you shout at them to stay? Dig into your pockets quickly to find treats? Pray?

Scenario 3 - this happened to us today: my puppy found a rose branch in the park with massive thorns on it and didn’t want to leave it. Obviously not something you can grab out of her mouth with force and you don’t want to leave it with her too long either because there’s more chance for swallowing or biting on the thorns. I tried to keep my calm and offer her a whole bag of treats but she kept running in circles with it in her mouth. What would you do? Fortunately I managed to eventually do the trade off, but it was way too long and I lost my whole daily water intake in the form of stress sweats in a few seconds.

The last problem happens to us relatively often, despite practicing leave it on a daily basis at home.
When she’s in a good, obedient mood we walk like a dream duo, but when she’s in the middle of her witching hour, it’s a living nightmare of her wanting to eat everything from the ground and me either begging her with treats or on my knees and elbow deep in her mouth to remove an unwanted object.

I’m looking forward to reading your wisdom. Thank you and all the fluffy gods bless you all.

 

[meehan8381]

@thruve Scenario 1: Time outs. Puppy should be either in a pen or on a drag leash in the house at this stage in puppy biting so I either leave the pen or clip the leash onto a sofa and leave the room.

Scenario 2: Say their name and start running backwards, high pitched enticing "Puppy puppy puppy!" and lots of treats when they come to you. When you're out on a walk with a puppy you should have treats ready at hand anyway to reward for engagement and good behavior.

Scenario 3: If she was on a leash I would reel her in, grab the branch, hold it still, and say firmly "Drop It". Wait her out. The second she loosens her grip reward with tons of treats. If she's not loosening I believe this is a dire enough situation where you pry her mouth open, same as if your pup got into glass shards or chicken bones- the risk of them swallowing it is more dangerous than risking guarding behavior.

Management is key. Don't walk her when you can tell she's in a witching hour mood. Set her up for success.

 

[thruve]

@meehan8381 Thanks for your advice. I realised I left out that she’s 5 and a half months old and it’s more about the cheeky adolescence, than the early puppy behaviour. She’s not on a leash in the house.

With the biting I give her time outs, or I leave the room but still happens out of the excitement of play. I guess I was asking more about us humans managing our natural reaction to pain without scaring them, haha.

The running to the other direction thing sounds good, will definitely remember it if it happens again, thanks!

The rose incident happened when she was off the lead in a tiny park with a fence, where we were practicing fetch, come when called, etc. It was very tricky to get her to stay, she was guarding that branch like crazy. But I agree, when it is dangerous - I do grab things out of her mouth, because a light trauma is always better than a massive health risk.

 

[meehan8381]

@thruve I think in scenario 3 it might be worth it to have her on a drag long leash then, since the more she practices blowing you off the more she's going to do it, especially during adolescence when they're testing how far they can push boundaries.

For biting honestly if you yelp that's how other dogs and pups react too when they get bit too hard, so I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

 

[thruve]

@meehan8381 I tried the long leash, but she got super excited about it and ended up all tangled. I’m trying to get her used to it, because I want to take her to bigger parks where she will definitely need it.

I have this tiny park (more of a garden, really) near my building, which has a fence all around and generally very safe for puppies to roam around and be trained. The rose branch was unexpected there.

 

[sdr77]

@meehan8381 With scenario 1, I'm having a hard time leaving. When I start to walk away she gets excited because she thinks it's a game. Plus I have to dislodge her teeth from my pants/foot/face, and I haven't found a way to do that that doesn't get her more excited.

 

[frenchgirl]

@sdr77 Same problem here and my house is completely open concept so I can’t really get away. I go into the corner and turn my back to her (so I’m wedged into the corner facing the wall) and stand completely still and silent. She either calms down and sits - in which case I turn around and give her a treat - or loses interest and walks away. That works some of the time.

 

[meehan8381]

@sdr77 Is she in a pen or tethered to anything? If so and she's just following you as you get away - it sucks but just be as boring as a tree and get away as quickly and calmly as possible. If not containment will work best here. Our husky was either in a pen or tethered to the sofa until he was around 6 months old bc he was so nippy.

 

[thruve]

@sdr77 I sometimes also just turn my back to her immediately and freeze, that can shock her. Although I do have long hair and it can happen that she launches an attack on it from the back, especially if there’s a clip on it. My puppy is getting a lot better, I think with super chewers it’s a long process that requires endless patience.

 

[woodworker]

@thruve Okay so first and foremost, when the puppy is a danger to themselves, it is absolutely okay to use any means necessary to make them safe again and fix any repercussions later.

1. You need to teach your puppy bite inhibition when it comes to humans - I've found negative punishment is the most gentle and effective way to do this. Negative does not mean bad, it means taking something the puppy is enjoying (you) away to stop an undesired behaviour. When your pup bites so hard it hurts, remove yourself from the pup and ignore for 30 seconds or so, she should soon get the picture! Some people do yelp when the puppy bites too hard but others advise against it as it can actually wind your puppy up.
2. Make sure you have a correctly fitted harness that cannot be slipped. If your puppy does run away, call in your most happy tone to make your puppy think something fun is about to happen with you. Reward like mad if puppy does come back. Some people teach emergency recall for these types of situations so if your puppy is prone to slipping her collar, it might be worth teaching her.
3. You need higher value rewards for your puppy out and about. Puppies do the things they find the most rewarding - they decide what that is, not us. So if you chasing her while she has something inappropriate in her mouth is fun for the puppy, she will keep doing it. Whatever you do in that situation, do not chase the puppy and make sure you have reward of high enough value to be worth trading for. This could even be a ball or stick if your pup likes playing fetch.

You mention her 'witching hour' - is your pup getting enough sleep during the day? Pups should be sleeping 18-20 hours a day. Anything less than that can end up with overtired and over stimulated puppy which causes havoc. Enforced naps might be your saviour! It certainly made our girl much better behaved and more attentive diring training!

 

[thruve]

@woodworker Thanks for all the valuable feedback and advice, I'm still learning best practices and it's so good to have input on the various problems and training techniques. Probably I did not phrase my post very well, but what I meant is that obviously it takes time for both you and the pup to develop effective communication strategies for the long run, but what happens when panic situations arise in the interim and you need an effective solution immediately.

For example my pup is not prone to slipping her collar, it was a new one that turned out to be faulty and opened when she launched into a random zoomie. The emergency recall sounds interesting, I'll definitely look into it. But again, these take time to learn.

As for the high value rewards - I am starting to realise that my pup is really fixated on sticks and wood, so would not let go of them for any kind of treats. Also, you never know when will you come across something that your puppy just really gets into, especially at this period of adolescence.

My bottom line is basically that training takes time, especially if you want it to be 100% positive and you also need to figure each other out, whilst living your lives. There can always be surprises and dangerous situations and I was looking for a way to managing these without raising my voice or forcing her in any way.

 

[anthonyk]

@thruve Scenario 3 - teach drop-it by throwing a bunch of treats like in this video

. then you can reel her in, throw a handful of treats and tell her to drop it. The large numbers of treats are very likely to be higher value than the branch. Plus the whole thing will just reinforce your drop it training.

 

[thruve]

@anthonyk This is really useful, thanks! My pup can usually be motivated by treats, but sticks and branches are turning out to be the highest value of all these days, so need to find alternatives.

 

[anthonyk]

@thruve Exactly the same situation. The trick is to train the drop-it everywhere else. By the time you get to sticks the “drop-it” should’ve become an instinctive reflex.