Hey all,
New owner here of a ~10 week old pup (Bailey) adopted from a shelter. She was brought in as a stray with the rest of her litter (3 other siblings). We adopted her the day after she was brought in. She's been great - smart, caring and very playful. I picked her up one week ago and she's already picked up a few simple tricks (sit, down, stay). My only concern is when we start playing with her toys, she can sometimes get playfully aggressive. She does simple things like accidentally bite me when I grab her tennis ball from her to throw across the room again (never clamp down, but just bite and then realize that it was my skin, not the ball). But my concern is when she seems to actually get aggressive. For example, we have cats and she sometimes grabs their toys and I am trying to re-direct her to her toys and when I tell her "drop it" or "no" she seems to get annoyed at me for saying that and actually barks. A few times this past week she's even snarled for a few seconds. Another example is when I am walking her on her leash she is great with it 90% of the time, but sometimes the leash gets right in front of her and she starts biting and tugging on the leash. When I try to get her to let go of the leash so we can continue our walk, she has actually snarled at me (not sure if she's in the mindset that shes playing tug-o-war with the leash and gets upset that I am telling her no).
I've read through the stickies about bite inhibition and was hoping her litter would have taught her some of it already. I've tried doing the "OWW" and stop playing with her method, but here is my concern which I do not know how you guys bypass it. If I say OWW and ignore her/leave the room, she continues to play but then goes on to explore. That leads to her being able to pee/poop where she wants, play with the cat's toys, or even try to play with the cats. So I can never truly ignore her or leave her alone, but have to stay there and make sure she doesn't get herself in trouble. I know I shouldn't put her in her crate as a form of scolding, so I wasnt sure if I should be putting her in a room where she can't get in trouble (like the bathroom), or do I just keep what I am doing in terms of stopping playtime but making sure she doesn't do something bad.
I plan on taking her to obedience classes with other dogs (the shelter we adopted her from is offering them for free) but that can't be done till she has her vaccinations complete (5 more weeks). I'm hoping once she can socialize with other pups she'll find out what is ok and what isn't.
Any advice appreciated!
And here's some pics of Bailey, and I know at this point its a pure guessing game of what mix she may be, but if yall have any guesses I'd love to hear it!
20121223_090800 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
20121216_224502 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
