# 8 month old, the struggle is real! Advice appreciated.



## nolefan (Nov 6, 2009)

Having a Golden puppy come home as your first dog reminds me of the term: "Baptism by Fire". I'm impressed to hear you admit that it's been challenging - you sound like a great owner, I suspect you're doing a very good job with him. 

Is the trainer who works with you now your first formal obedience experience class with Cooper? I'm trying to understand how you have arrived at having an 8 month old Golden who still thinks it's ok to put his teeth on your arm. He is past teething and should not be doing this at all. The hormonal issues are not in your head, but this business with him misbehaving and mouthing you is a training issue and my first thought is that he needs stricter management.

I would start by having him drag a 3 foot leash in the house when you are home with him, something short - you can cut off a cheap old leash or make your own. This will allow you to gain control of him when he starts acting up without putting your hands on his collar or his body. He needs to hear a low, quiet, stern voice from you letting him know that you are very unhappy with his behavior and it is not acceptable. 

Hopefully if you think about it, you can figure out what is usually a trigger for this behavior. Is there a time of day it usually happens, is it when he is excited, or overly tired or bored or when he's been home alone? Does it happen when you're busy and ignoring him? All of these things can be important clues to figure out how to keep this behavior from happening in the first place.

Practicing "Nothing In Life Is Free" (do a search, it is a training protocol) could be a good thing for a teenage boy who is too big for his britches. He needs to 'wait' to go out a door until you release him and give permission to go, "down/stay" while you fix his meals, let you put the bowl down on the floor and not get up until you release him to eat. He should have do a trick like "sit" or "shake" for petting. Start having him wait to get on furniture until you invite him up. Things like this remind him that you are the leader in this relationship and he is not the one in charge of your home.

I understand that exercise for a dog this age can be very difficult to come by. I'm glad you recognize how important it is though. He needs daily aerobic exercise, something that gets his heart rate up. Are there parks or schools or athletic fields you can take him on a long line and practice retrieving or an agility club you could join to begin working on teaching him some things to get started in an activity that would be fun for both of you? All you need is a basic obedience foundation (sit, wait, stay) to get started. There are clubs and people who can help you.


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## puddles everywhere (May 13, 2016)

I don't live in LA but spent lots of time there when my son was stationed at Miramar. LA is a very dog friendly area, they have dog friendly beaches & dog parks are abundant. I also loved the outdoor seating at so many restaurants and main street activities in the smaller surrounding towns. 

If you haven't joined a good obedience training facility do so. Training will drain them far more than you realize. Walk on the beach with a long lead. You are relatively close to many trails for hiking. I'm truly jealous at all LA offers.

The bitey stuff will stop with the obedience training and it's loads of fun. Neutering won't change anything but access to the day care. Get involved with your pup and enjoy having a wonderful dog for many years to come. Like they say, you get back what you put in. Enjoy that beautiful boy.


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## CoopersMom16 (Dec 29, 2016)

You're not alone. My Cooper is 7 months and bites constantly. Hands, arms, feet, not to mention walls, table legs, sofas, you get the picture. My vet and trainer say Golden's and labs are the mouthiest dogs and this is a common problem. If you search biting on this site, dozens of articles come up. They all stop eventually, though some posters have said not until a year. Hang in there.


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## Adijay (Feb 22, 2017)

Good I m not alone in this ?


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## Gleepers (Apr 20, 2016)

Well, I'm a fairly experienced dog person and Penny was super challenging. We did ok through the summer but after the kids went back to school it became all me always me again. I caved and bought her a friend to chew on at 7 1/2 months old. It did decrease her chewing on me at least. (I've got 3 kids I should have known adding more doesn't make life easier but I did it anyway). The plus side is now at 12 mo things are good. Penny loves to steal EVERYTHING and is occasionally stil a royal bitey PITA but for the most part is much much better than she was. Every month seems to bring more evidence of the good dog she is becoming and also a new method to drive me insane. And of course now I've got 2 in the house. (New guy is just about exactly the same age and a chi/golden mix. So like 1/2 a Golden with barkey dog tendencies)


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## puddles everywhere (May 13, 2016)

I have had labs in the past and never had the bitey behavior my golden girl had... totally unexpected for me. 

Something we did was touch training. It was a fun game and it helped her to learn that touching the hand gets you a piece of kibble. Biting got you a toy stuffed in your mouth and mom walking away from the game.
This helped but then so did wearing long sleeve sweatshirts  Having an older golden to teach what was acceptable behavior was priceless. 

I found that when the adult teeth came in the bitey stuff stopped. Gratefully for my girl it was more about teething than behavior. And I was lucky, she never chewed on anything like furniture or rugs. 

We did take lots of short walks when she would get really wound up and the other golden had maxed her quota of puppy time. This was also a good time to teach leash manners before she got too big.

By the time the adult teeth came in she knew how to sit & down with both verbal & hand signals. She knew how to spin & circle (pre curser to directional jumps in obedience), to sit when greeting people, recall, retrieve & go outs (again beginning behavior for obedience trials). Basically I'm saying keep them busy with constructive behavior so they don't have as much time to play the bitey game. 

Good luck and enjoy the puppy stage... it doesn't last long.


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## bixx (Sep 8, 2015)

Lovely photos! 

What he's doing could be a sign of boredom. Some dogs need more activities.

We had a very rough time too with Amber but stuck it out with one method of teaching her that it's not an acceptable behavior. We ignored her. She could be hanging with her teeth on our sleeves causing us extreme pain, but our message was clear: no looking at her, not even a (second or third) reprimand. We turned our backs on her and gave her full silent treatment, not for 10 minutes, but for the rest of the evening. There would be a clear verbal reprimand but it's only said once. Of course in the beginning, she didn't understand the message, but since it's what we did consistently, she learned soon enough that she was without a playmate once she used her teeth on us. Two weeks of the same thing and the problem was pretty much over after that. That was how she learned bite inhibition and she stopped mouthing us.

Another trick I used was going into training mode because Amber loves training time. As soon as I could see that she was going into crazy mouthy mode, I would say "let's go training". She would immediately grow calm and literally wait for my orders. Then we would do a few minutes of nose work games. It's enough to tire her out. 

Hope this works for you!


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## MattAndCooper (Nov 4, 2016)

Thank you all for your replies I appreciate the Advice and support! All great help. 
@nolefan I will try the Nothing in life is free approach. His 3 week training was the first formal training he had. 

When I submitted this post, shortly after my trainer had me come in to practice a few things to play with cooper. 

She's having me hand feed him this week, practicing take it, leave it commands. 
Also a few games like tugging and drop it for food. 
Along with my training homework which is making sure cooper walks proper heel (Fast, Slow, left, right), sit, down, stay (for up to 1min), come , in short few minute bursts which he does quite well when he knows theres food involved! 

I think cooper does needs more play time, especially on days where I work, he gets bored with the usual routine. The extra training this week has helped so far!


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## FosterGolden (Mar 10, 2014)

Adolescence. It's normal. You just have to work through it. More training sessions, but shorter and more high energy. Might not be the best time to work on long stays. They go through phases, some are worse than others, and if you just train through it, be patient and understand that it's hormones, not your dog being bad, you'll get through it OK. 

In addition to more training, if you can run him through woods of some type with the dog off-leash, that helps, too. Sniffing walks are pretty exhausting, but you'll want to find a way to communicate to the dog when you want loose leash walking and when you want sniffing walking, especially for a marker. I tell my dog to "go sniff" when I want to let him sniff and mark. When I want to loose leash walk with his head up, "no sniff, let's go!" and my body language changes as well. You might not care, but I don't want my dog peeing all over everything all the time and I don't let him pee on objects, just foliage, but not someone's flowers. I think it's rude! 

Food puzzles like snuffle mats and similar are great, too.


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