# My puppy is 14 weeks old and super aggressive toward me



## Test-ok

I've found that the tone of voice used will work better than others...A low stern NO or NO BITES will work better that a non stern hi pitched voice saying the same thing.
I don't think she's being aggressive, she wants attention, wants to play, they have so much energy and are teething along with growth spurts like crazy they need to get that extra energy out so they can sleep and grow. lol

I use a clicker with treats when I want her attention..I make her sit until she calms down the give her the treat.


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## SwimDog

Do you have a video exmple of the behavior?

It could be inappropriate puppy play (most likely) or it could be abnormal behavior. 

If behavior continues or increases, that tells us somehow it was reinforced (intentionally or not).

We need to set up more structure so that your puppy cannot practice as many mistakes.

Have long toys so that you cn play without putting your hands near bitey puppy faces. At other times we have to create more structure and reward good behaviors throughout the day.

Due to your puppy's age and your frustration, I would highly recommend a privte lesson with a qualified trainer.


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## Goldylover2

My pup did the same thing. I had to go see a trainer. This is one of the things he taught me. Go buy a nylon rope from your local hardware store. Make it about 8 feet long. Attach it to her collar. Now go walk her outside where you have plenty of space. Walk in one direction then turn around. She probably won't follow you when you turn around. Let her hit the end of the rope as you turn around. Don't yank the rope. Just keep going back and forth until she gets that she is supposed to be following you. Every time she tries to get in front of you, turn around and go the other way. Work on this every day. You can keep this rope on her in the house. When she acts up. Just start walking around the house. After a little practice she will continue to follow you. As you walk say heel. When yous stop and she stops, tell her to sit. Don't give her toys when she acts up in the house. Get her in a calm state first, then give her toys. This getting her to follow you will instill that you are the pack leader.


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## Coby Love

The only thing I remember when Coby was little that if he got too wild or bit or nipped to just pull your arms and legs close to your body and turn your back to the dog and walk away. Ignore the behavior. 

Also there is the sudden noise thing (pennies in the can) to startle. Gosh it was so long ago, I can't remember. Coby was always mouthy. We couldn't play too crazy with him because he really wanted to tug and play and his teeth would hurt scratch even if he didn't bite down.


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## Anon-2130948gsoni

Do you have a puppy class you can attend together? It sounds like she needs mental stimulation and something other to play with than you? That would also give you access to someone who can help evaluate her behavior and give you ways of addressing it.


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## Keleigh

What are you doing when she growls at you? Just walking by? Petting her? 

Obi was pretty bad at going for the ankles, especially when I was wearing socks. He's not so bad now, he's 17 weeks, but still does it when he wants something to do. I carry my treat bag with me attached to my pants around the house and when he tries to go for the ankles, "Leave it" will usually work now. Of course you can't stop there. After the "Leave it" and I treat him we have a quick learn session so that I know he's completely moved on from my ankles. Early on I would just do one "leave it" + treat and he'd leave it but the second I started walking, it was back to the ankles.

As for the growling and biting your hands, Obi was also quite mouthy. Are you moving your hands/arm quickly around her face? If her mouth is on a trajectory to your hand/arm, don't snatch your arm away superfast. Quick movements equal fun to puppies so she probably thinks you're trying to play keep away with your hand/arm. This will only cause her to become more excited and try harder to capture the prize.

If she does get a hold of you, don't try and pull your hand/arm out of her mouth. This may make her bite harder because she's thinking you're a toy and playing tug. If a high pitched yipe doesn't work, simply make your hand/arm limp to so that you become unfun. This worked with Obi several times.

Also, no matter how frustrated your are...Never, ever ever ever ever hit your dog. This could create more problems and possibly turn inappropriate puppy play (which is hopefully what we have here) IN TO aggression because your dog will learn that it needs to protect herself from you and your hands.

Stay calm and speak sternly but not yelling. Yelling may only excite puppies more, I know it does for my pup.

Are you crate training her? and how is she sleeping? Pups that aren't getting enough sleep can be cranky and it can actually inhibit their learning and maturity. If she's been up for a few hours, put her in her crate and let calm down and get some sleep.

I know you're frustrated. I would say that almost everyone on the forum has been through what you're going through at some point and it's just a matter of working through it.

From 14 weeks to 17 weeks alone I've seen great improvements in my pup's behavior but it takes a lot of patience, a lot of practice/training, and consistency.


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## TexasGoldRush

I agree that tone goes a long way because our 7 month old girl responds to a hard AHHH from me much better than she responds to an irritated no from my husband.


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## BuddyinFrance

Lots of good advice posted here for you already. Try not to stress... I know that is easy to say... but my puppy also went through a very difficult period.. biting.. nipping heels..scratching.. but it does pass I promise. I called a behaviour specialist at the time and I was desperate .. but she had a two week waiting list. By the time the two weeks came round things had already improved greatly.


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## Calgrl54

I promise...this will pass. I still carry scars on my hands from my puppy at this age. We got him into a good puppy class with excellent trainers and very shortly he outgrew this annoying behavior. Today, my boy is the sweetest 6 year old ever. Thinking back on those trying puppy stages I would have never believed we could get to this point. It's all worth it!!


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## The life of Piper

How's the puppy?


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## Elsa Cholla's Mom

Hugs. I have a bitey puppy too. But she was like that from the start. She doesn't like her head touched for one thing, so DH and I just stay away from her head. I found yiping didn't work for me, but whining like a pup does makes Elsa back right off. And Time Out. 5 min. makes a lot of difference in the energy level. 

Your pup wasn't like that before? Perhaps you are being challenged for leadership? If my pup growls at me, which is rare, I roll her over on to her back to remind her, I am Alpha, not her.


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## laprincessa

Elsa Cholla's Mom said:


> Hugs. I have a bitey puppy too. But she was like that from the start. She doesn't like her head touched for one thing, so DH and I just stay away from her head. I found yiping didn't work for me, but whining like a pup does makes Elsa back right off. And Time Out. 5 min. makes a lot of difference in the energy level.
> 
> Your pup wasn't like that before? Perhaps you are being challenged for leadership? If my pup growls at me, which is rare, I roll her over on to her back to remind her, I am Alpha, not her.


please don't alpha roll your puppy
Just please don't


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## Yuki

Alpha rolling shouldn't be tried unless you know what you're doing. It can agitate the pup and make matters worse.

As others have suggested please follow those methods. It's not about alpha or beta, positive reinforcement gives positive results. Pups sure are a handful as they grow but patience and calmness is the key. 

If you yell or get agitated, pup will get more excited. If you are calm, pup calms down too. It's hard, I know, I have had 2 goldens so far and my first was a nightmare of bites, bruises, bite wounds, ripping my clothes etc. I ripped my hairs out trying and training to get her to stop biting. 

With Yuki my current golden I always kept calm and even if he was hyper he calmed down, came to me and placed his head on my lap for petting. Sometimes I lost my cool but I calmed myself soon so I could train him better.


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## solinvictus

An ariticle on what Alpha Rolls really mean and do to our dogs.


What “alpha rolling” is really doing to your dog — RespectYourDog.Com

Norske Artikler


To those unaware, alpha rolling is the physical act of forcibly rolling a dog over on his side or back, pinning him there until he is forced to submit. The objective is to assert “who’s boss”, and for the dog to reach what popular media has dubbed “calm submission”. It is dangerous and based on flawed understanding of how dogs work.

What you think alpha rolling does to your dog
As you’ve probably been led to believe by reading a dated book, or by watching the more recent “Dog Whisperer” by Cesar Millan, you’re under the impression that your dog needs to be told who’s in charge and that the best way to do that, is via an alpha roll. In your head (and I don’t blame you), this will effectively establish you as the “pack leader”, and the dog will be content now knowing it’s proper place in the “pack hierarchy”.

What you think alpha rolling tells the dog about you
You think that a firm alpha rolls shows the dog that you are strong, and willing to take charge.

What alpha rolling really does to your dog
To understand this, you must first understand the three basic mechanisms a dog has when faced with danger. 1) Flight. This is exactly what it sounds like. If presented with danger, flee to get away. 2) Fight. Also what it sounds like. If presented with danger, fight to protect. 3) Submit. If option 1 and 2 fail or are otherwise unavailable, submitting is a last ditch effort to communicate not being a threat, and hoping that the danger will go away.

When performing an alpha roll you are forcibly holding the dog in place, thus eliminating option one, which is flight. In many cases you will experience that the dog attempts to fight, which is option two. When the dog realizes that he can’t win, he will move on to option three, submit, and hope that you will go away if he remains completely still.

Since the large majority of aggression and behavioral problems stem from insecurities (not because he wants to “dominate” you/someone else), forcibly alpha rolling the dog will just serve to make the problem even worse. In other words, when you really should work with the dog to help him overcome his insecurities, you are instead manhandling him exacerbating the problem.

This is logical if you think about it. What if you were insecure about something and someone forcibly pinned you to the ground? Would that make you more or less insecure?

Suppression does not equal correction
Since alpha rolling is often done in response to something the handler considers “wrong”, it effectively contributes to the suppression of warning signals that the dog gives off before something more serious takes place, such as a bite. For example: a growl is usually the dogs way of saying “back off, or I’ll bite!”. If you respond by alpha rolling the dog into forced submission, you are also suppressing his natural behavior (growling is natural), and teaching the dog that growling is ineffective as a warning signal. Do this enough times, and the dog will stop using growling as a warning signal altogether. Then, the next time the dog feels threatened, he will remember what happened the last time he tried to warn a potential threat by growling, and go straight to biting instead.

This in turn will usually be interpreted as “the dog attacked without reason” by an inexperienced owner, when in reality, that very same owner is to blame. Thus it is safe to conclude that simply suppressing behavior is very dangerous, and does nothing to help correct how the dog feels on the inside, and increases the chances of a bite immensely.

What alpha rolling tells the dog about you
Behavioral science clearly shows that the more secure a dog is, the less of a reason he’ll have to act aggressively towards other dogs. Despite what you might think, your dog is not being “dominant” or “asserting himself as pack leader” if he constantly tends to act out against other dogs / people. This is a very simplistic and flawed view of a much more complicated problem. Instead, he’s being a bully because he’s insecure. Do you think that playground bully who always kept picking on you back in grade school felt very secure about himself? It’s often those who bully most who are the most insecure, something behavioral science again shows.

So what then are you telling your dog by being a bully? That you’re insecure. So instead of showing him that you are a calm, trustworthy leader, you are demonstrating very effectively through aggression that you are a threat, and you’re doing so in much the same way a highly insecure dog would. To top it off, you’re making his insecurities even worse. Nobody wins.

This also makes sense if you think about it, and it is evidenced in behavioral science. Dogs are looking to be as comfortable as possible, not to constantly compete. Always having to assert one another as the “boss” simply requires too much energy to even be close to comfortable.

Much worse, techniques such as pinning the dog to the floor, grabbing jowls, or blasting hooters at dogs will make dogs anxious, often about their owner, and potentially lead to an escalation of aggression. Source
Consider this contradiction
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m humanizing dogs and that they aren’t capable of feeling the things I’m describing (which is simply false). But even if you were correct and it is true, how do you explain your own contradiction? How can dogs be advanced enough to sit around all day and think about how they always have to “be the boss”? And how can they be advanced enough to walk around and “dominate” everyone around them because the want to be “top dog”? But they can’t be advanced enough to feel insecure? It doesn’t make any sense. I hope you see that.

Rather than viewing a wolf pack as a group of animals organized with a “top dog” that fought its way to the top, or a male-female pair of such aggressive wolves, science has come to understand that most wolf packs are merely family groups formed exactly the same way as human families are formed. Source
Closer observations of wolves over the last 40 years have shown that (an alpha roll) is an act of submission, not dominance. A wolf voluntarily rolls on its back [..] no (physical) contact is made, thus avoiding dangerous physical conflict. Source
The debate is over
There is no longer any doubt in the scientific community when it comes to the fact that many simply have a very misunderstood and damaging view of how a dog should be treated. The debate is over, you just don’t know it yet. The problem is that many of those who engage in what they still think is a debate (which in reality is fact vs. fiction), are so ignorant that they can’t see beyond their own self-absorbed egos. They refuse to admit defeat, which is truly sad because so many dogs suffer needlessly.

Of course, we still have a lot to learn and we learn new things every day, but one thing remains certain - we must stop acting on past, clearly flawed research, and instead replace it with evidence based modern behavioral science.


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## Elsa Cholla's Mom

Solinvictus, Thanks for the post. Very interesting information to consider. I just wanted to say, I started out trying to raise Elsa with the positive reinforcement method only. As a bitey pup, that proved to be impossible. The one un-golden thing about Elsa is she isn't that willing to please. She is an independent and would get mad when she didn't get her way. I have the ran the gamet of things to try on her. Some worked, some didn't. I was on the road without internet, so ultimately I had to just go about all this instinctively. You are not suppose to ever use a crate for misbehaviour either, but Time Out became the only effective tool to use because I could tell, she had lost control of herself. And as bad as the Alpha roll is made out to be, when we were out walking, I guess it did the same thing as Time Out, because it worked. Like holding down a toddler who is having an out of control rage fit. 

My parents raised working border collies. While the Alpha methodology may be considered out dated, (and I did not know this), they still raised good dogs. It is always good to try and move on and up with the psychology of things, but that doesn't make everything that went before completely redundant.


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## Yuki

Elsa Cholla's Mom said:


> I just wanted to say, I started out trying to raise Elsa with the positive reinforcement method only. As a bitey pup, that proved to be impossible. The one un-golden thing about Elsa is she isn't that willing to please. She is an independent and would get mad when she didn't get her way. I have the ran the gamet of things to try on her. Some worked, some didn't. I was on the road without internet, so ultimately I had to just go about all this instinctively


All dogs are individuals and my first golden Saya was very much like your Elsa. My story raising her is pretty much same as yours, no Internet and going by instinct. Few golden pups have un-golden traits sadly but we owners need to hang on and be consistent, try things. By trail and error we sure find ways that work to train them better. 

Saya once pounced and wrestled me over a treat. I had given her half of it and was eating the other half myself. My fault mostly. From then on I ate first while she sat and then fed her. 

With pups like these we need to follow few steps to deal with un-golden traits. 

1. We go first, they follow next. 
2. We eat first, they eat next.
3. If you don't listen to me, I won't listen to you. 
For example pup wants a treat and tries for attention, we don't give it treat unless she sits, shakes paw or any dog tricks she knows, or fetches a toy etc. Ignore the unwanted behavior but no yelling, crating, tethering or alpha rolling. Just ignore for 5-10 minutes, turn away continue watching tv or cooking or start humming some song, do whatever you are doing like there's no pup around (act it out) until the pup figures out to do something acceptable to get a treat. 

This method below only works if your house is "puppy proofed" no harmful things lying around and things kept out of reach. 

You can go into a room and close the door for 1 minute, return and see the pup's behavior. If behavior is too hyper, biting etc, leave the pup and stay in room longer by another minute but the total time you leave should not exceed more than 10 minutes at a time, this is very important. Instead of crating the pup, leaving the pup alone and walking away works better. First few times will not make much difference but after pup sees your repeated behavior of leaving it will start understanding. Pup will start to understand that "mom leaves if I'm doing this. Let's make mom play with me" and stops whatever caused you to leave. Pup tries to think of ways to make you stay instead of making you leave. The pup will start trying out things to see what will make you stay and play. This way pleasing the owner behavior will take root. 

Sometimes they think up of funny ways on their own to get treats and it can be hilarious. Praising, laughing and petting at such times makes the pup feel "ok I gotta do this so mom can give me treat and play".

Sometimes they can show destructive behavior like chewing a shoe when you leave in the beginning. That's why you should leave for few minutes only. Peeping through the door and watching also helps. If the pup tries something unacceptable, like biting a shoe, say a firm no or shake a can filled with coins loudly from within the room. This startles the pup and stops whatever it was doing. Say "good girl", come out immediately and pet, if the pup tried something good like getting a toy to the door, give treats act like it's the best thing ever, play but don't be hyper or get the pup excited too much. Be calm and be happy. Encourage. 

These worked for me.


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