maddie_addie
New member
Breed: SamoyedAge: 9 weeksSex: FemaleTime in home: ~2 weeks
I've seen a tax is appreciated?
So, we adopted an adorable samoyed girl. Nimbus.
Overall, she rocks. Super smart, super cute. Rarely has had an accident in the house from day one. Sleeps well in her crate, and is already handling just one nighttime wake up to go potty. [sup]good girl, go potty![/sup]
Anyway, last week, we started to socialize her by having friends over, thinking she was ready, and it was smart to start socializing her as early as possible to other people and pups in her space (so she doesn't become territorial — a trait we've heard can come out in female Sammies).
She did okay — excited peeing, jumping, certainly expected — but was also getting mouthy when excited with our guests. Up until this point, she has been a little mouthy with us too, and we've just been accepting a few chomps because we were focusing on our bond, trying to set the tone with good vibes.
We were rewarding good behaviors, mitigating chances for bad ones and redirecting, and trying to mentally stimulate with puzzles and such. I was even training "tummy" and had her eating HELLA treats when she was letting me rub her tummy and not CHOMP my hand. She'd go for the chomp, then settle and lick it, and I'd give a treat. Etc.
Right track, right?
Right.
Then, we got ahead of ourselves and switched things up. Big mistake.
For some reason, we decided, "We should start trying to fix this biting thing. Let's crack down on it. It could become an issue in the future if she thinks it's okay to bite people." Which is true, but in retrospect, her biting was at least... puppy-ish. Manageable. But at the time, it seemed aggressive. And sometimes, it was — but you had a chance of stopping it.
Anyway, not knowing any better — seriously, we hadn't found this sub yet, we're first time puppy owners just doing our best to raise a happy, healthy pup — we of course thought "Cesar Milan, yay!" and started to TSCHHH! our dog when she was doing undesirable things.
It only took three days — three days! — for her to devolve into this absolutely frustration-ridden, psychopath explosion nightmare child. Because spoiler alert: when you're playing with a puppy and mixing in bouts of random loud noises and getting spooked from an interruption on the hip, they're going to think that playing rough is how you play.
Ack! I hit send early. Sorry folks. Stay tuned for chapter three, I'm typing it up as you read.
So, like I said — duh. Spoiler alert. All that stuff. A post in /r/samoyeds sent me here, and upon reading a few articles, I started to cry because I immediately realized my mistake. If "The Cesar Approach" is right about one thing, it's that your energy is contagious.
All of those corrections made her feel, I'm sure, like she could do nothing right. So now, all of this frustrated, angry energy is coming out. Because we were exhibiting it while supervising her and correcting her missteps.
We thought she just seemed frustrated because we were helping her find her place in the pack or whatever. Now I realize she was frustrated because, suddenly, we were treating her like dicks.
At this point, things have gotten really bad.
On Monday, we made that choice to start correcting. By Thursday (now) she's a much more stressed and aggressive dog than on day one.
This breaks my heart in two, finding clarity after the fact. Thank gosh I found this sub when I did.
Anyway, it's now to the point where she is aggressively biting my wife when trying to do anything, not just play. Which, of course, leads to more frustration plus a healthy heaping of guilt, shame, and physical pain sprinkled on from her little dagger teeth.
She'll chomp our hands, our ankles, our shoes, our arms — we try to redirect, but she just ignores our "offerings" of chew toy, bully, and chooses a destructive or frustrated behavior within a few seconds instead. It's harder and harder to get her to settle, even when WAY overtired.
We don't want to develop a negative association with her crate, so we don't want to just lock her in there and walk away. She does pretty good at settling if we walk away (thanks to me doing the Kiko Pup treat drop whenever she settled down by herself), and falls asleep for periods of time where we can roam about the house, and she won't wake up, etc — but she's clearly getting tired before that point, and no matter how hard we try, she is just staying RAMPED UP from all this pent-up anger that we've instilled in her with our (foolish) dominant TSSCHHH! stuff.
We were probably doing it way too much, because she was biting "way too much" (in our opinions at the time), but we did a poor job of letting the breed be the breed.
I think it was so enticing and kept happening because it seemed like she was starting to settle down, but in reality, she was just suppressing that anger.
Chapter 4: For the Love of Dog and All that is Holy, Help Us, Kind Stranger
In all honesty, I don't quite know where to go from here. I don't want to keep correcting her in that way, because clearly, it's just pissing her off more. We get glimpses of the awesome dog within — once she's settled, fed, tired, etc., she just gives you little smoochies and accepts tummy rubs and is, in every sense of the phrase, a good girl.
Now, it's important to note that within the past four days, there have been some good times and victories too. It wasn't ALL bad on our front. We still rewarded her for mellowing out and say "settle". She had a few great walks in the park with the leash on. She did well in the car (for the first time!) because we adjusted our expectations, switching from a carrier to a hammock with me riding in the back, feeding her frozen carrots and corn the whole time. (Much better car ride!)
But all of that said, her default state is now HURRICANE NIGHTMARE STATUS THREAT LEVEL 9,000+.
My wife is at her emotional max. Homegirl is in tears just from being with her, and trying to play and undo all of the bullshit angry aggressive vibes, and failing over and over again.
I know it's a long process, but we need a few simple wins here, folks. Team morale is low around here, and we're doing our best to stay positive for puppy and constantly check our energy — it actually brought a mindfulness practice back into my life, yay! — but we're just upset that we caused this, and now have no idea how to get out.
If you have any tips for quickly making progress with aggressive behavior, PLEASE share below.
It's so sad seeing a cute little puppy get so aggressive. It's 10 times sadder knowing you caused it. And it's 25x scarier to realize that you need a way to move forward, but don't know what that is, because your Nimbus has become a Cumulonimbus and is thunder storming her lightning teeth FULL FORCE into your wife's arm, drawing blood through a decently thick zip-up.
We're already looking into puppy classes. But until that happens, please give us a few things to chew on (ha) that we can work on and (hopefully) put an end to this HARD biting and frustrated temperament.
We've tried:
I've seen a tax is appreciated?
Chapter One: Meet Chompy Seal Girl
So, we adopted an adorable samoyed girl. Nimbus.
Overall, she rocks. Super smart, super cute. Rarely has had an accident in the house from day one. Sleeps well in her crate, and is already handling just one nighttime wake up to go potty. [sup]good girl, go potty![/sup]
Anyway, last week, we started to socialize her by having friends over, thinking she was ready, and it was smart to start socializing her as early as possible to other people and pups in her space (so she doesn't become territorial — a trait we've heard can come out in female Sammies).
She did okay — excited peeing, jumping, certainly expected — but was also getting mouthy when excited with our guests. Up until this point, she has been a little mouthy with us too, and we've just been accepting a few chomps because we were focusing on our bond, trying to set the tone with good vibes.
We were rewarding good behaviors, mitigating chances for bad ones and redirecting, and trying to mentally stimulate with puzzles and such. I was even training "tummy" and had her eating HELLA treats when she was letting me rub her tummy and not CHOMP my hand. She'd go for the chomp, then settle and lick it, and I'd give a treat. Etc.
Right track, right?
Right.
Chapter Two: We Fucked Up
Then, we got ahead of ourselves and switched things up. Big mistake.
For some reason, we decided, "We should start trying to fix this biting thing. Let's crack down on it. It could become an issue in the future if she thinks it's okay to bite people." Which is true, but in retrospect, her biting was at least... puppy-ish. Manageable. But at the time, it seemed aggressive. And sometimes, it was — but you had a chance of stopping it.
Anyway, not knowing any better — seriously, we hadn't found this sub yet, we're first time puppy owners just doing our best to raise a happy, healthy pup — we of course thought "Cesar Milan, yay!" and started to TSCHHH! our dog when she was doing undesirable things.
It only took three days — three days! — for her to devolve into this absolutely frustration-ridden, psychopath explosion nightmare child. Because spoiler alert: when you're playing with a puppy and mixing in bouts of random loud noises and getting spooked from an interruption on the hip, they're going to think that playing rough is how you play.
Chapter 3: Well, Duh — But Now My Wife is Crying and Bleeding. It's a Vicious Cycle. Now What?
Ack! I hit send early. Sorry folks. Stay tuned for chapter three, I'm typing it up as you read.
So, like I said — duh. Spoiler alert. All that stuff. A post in /r/samoyeds sent me here, and upon reading a few articles, I started to cry because I immediately realized my mistake. If "The Cesar Approach" is right about one thing, it's that your energy is contagious.
All of those corrections made her feel, I'm sure, like she could do nothing right. So now, all of this frustrated, angry energy is coming out. Because we were exhibiting it while supervising her and correcting her missteps.
We thought she just seemed frustrated because we were helping her find her place in the pack or whatever. Now I realize she was frustrated because, suddenly, we were treating her like dicks.
At this point, things have gotten really bad.
On Monday, we made that choice to start correcting. By Thursday (now) she's a much more stressed and aggressive dog than on day one.
This breaks my heart in two, finding clarity after the fact. Thank gosh I found this sub when I did.
Anyway, it's now to the point where she is aggressively biting my wife when trying to do anything, not just play. Which, of course, leads to more frustration plus a healthy heaping of guilt, shame, and physical pain sprinkled on from her little dagger teeth.
She'll chomp our hands, our ankles, our shoes, our arms — we try to redirect, but she just ignores our "offerings" of chew toy, bully, and chooses a destructive or frustrated behavior within a few seconds instead. It's harder and harder to get her to settle, even when WAY overtired.
We don't want to develop a negative association with her crate, so we don't want to just lock her in there and walk away. She does pretty good at settling if we walk away (thanks to me doing the Kiko Pup treat drop whenever she settled down by herself), and falls asleep for periods of time where we can roam about the house, and she won't wake up, etc — but she's clearly getting tired before that point, and no matter how hard we try, she is just staying RAMPED UP from all this pent-up anger that we've instilled in her with our (foolish) dominant TSSCHHH! stuff.
We were probably doing it way too much, because she was biting "way too much" (in our opinions at the time), but we did a poor job of letting the breed be the breed.
I think it was so enticing and kept happening because it seemed like she was starting to settle down, but in reality, she was just suppressing that anger.
Chapter 4: For the Love of Dog and All that is Holy, Help Us, Kind Stranger 
In all honesty, I don't quite know where to go from here. I don't want to keep correcting her in that way, because clearly, it's just pissing her off more. We get glimpses of the awesome dog within — once she's settled, fed, tired, etc., she just gives you little smoochies and accepts tummy rubs and is, in every sense of the phrase, a good girl.
Now, it's important to note that within the past four days, there have been some good times and victories too. It wasn't ALL bad on our front. We still rewarded her for mellowing out and say "settle". She had a few great walks in the park with the leash on. She did well in the car (for the first time!) because we adjusted our expectations, switching from a carrier to a hammock with me riding in the back, feeding her frozen carrots and corn the whole time. (Much better car ride!)
But all of that said, her default state is now HURRICANE NIGHTMARE STATUS THREAT LEVEL 9,000+.
My wife is at her emotional max. Homegirl is in tears just from being with her, and trying to play and undo all of the bullshit angry aggressive vibes, and failing over and over again.
I know it's a long process, but we need a few simple wins here, folks. Team morale is low around here, and we're doing our best to stay positive for puppy and constantly check our energy — it actually brought a mindfulness practice back into my life, yay! — but we're just upset that we caused this, and now have no idea how to get out.
If you have any tips for quickly making progress with aggressive behavior, PLEASE share below.
It's so sad seeing a cute little puppy get so aggressive. It's 10 times sadder knowing you caused it. And it's 25x scarier to realize that you need a way to move forward, but don't know what that is, because your Nimbus has become a Cumulonimbus and is thunder storming her lightning teeth FULL FORCE into your wife's arm, drawing blood through a decently thick zip-up.
We're already looking into puppy classes. But until that happens, please give us a few things to chew on (ha) that we can work on and (hopefully) put an end to this HARD biting and frustrated temperament.
We've tried:
- Kongs (the original shape puppy one and the puppy bone shaped one, which is too hard for her to get stuff out of)
- Bullies
- Nylabone natural whatevers (she ate that whole dang thing in like an hour, so probably never again? lol)
- Puzzles (we have the sliding one with the fish fin lookin' things
- Positive redirection with a command she's really good at like sit! and then giving a treat (this doesn't always work though, sometimes she's just TOO RAMPED UP and ANGRY.)
- Rewarding every tiny instance of good behavior — marking it with a clicker, giving a high value treat (instead of kibble)
- More mental stimulus — but how? What? I feel like she needs a job to do, because when we're training, she's great. At least, before she loses interest or you run out of treats, at which point, we're back to the nightmare
- More opportunities to socialize with other pups. We have a puppy play date set up for this weekend... but what do we do if she's still being aggressive?
- Getting her around confident adult dogs that can teach her how to just be a calm pup? She's generally submissive (probably just nervous, which sucks, because that can turn aggressive) around bigger dogs, but we keep running into them on leash, which I know is a no-no, but it just happens. They come out of the woodwork! We live in a city and it's so hard when parks and stuff seem like a good way to get exercise and walk about.
