Hello,
I'm new to the forum, and in bad need of help.
My husband and I recently got an English Springer puppy, Charlie, when he was 8 weeks. He is now 13 weeks, and in the time we've had him, we have had extreme difficulties in training.
The first week, before he settled in, he was an angel. But then we took him to my husband's relatives' house for Thanksgiving, and they played rougher with him than I prefer and he got overexcited. So I took him back home, away from the bad influences. The trouble is, he still hasn't calmed back down.
Charlie is very smart -- he knows four tricks and will do them when he is calm (especially if there is food involved). But then there's the other side of Charlie. He goes on rampages, barking, biting/nipping any human in sight, using dominating behavior (like climbing on our laps and standing over us), etc. The word "No" or "Sit" does not exist when he's in this state of mind. Now, I know that puppies like to play, and I know they like to bite -- I can deal with that for a time. But we have tried method after method of training him not to bite and nothing is working. If anything, he's getting progressively worse.
First I tried getting up and walking away when he started biting. Then he would follow me and chew my ankles. Or he would give up on me and chase our cats and try biting them. The next step was always time out in our bathroom. That works briefly, but pretty soon, he's back to his old tricks. Did that for a couple of weeks.
So then we started trying to grab his mouth and hold it shut when he bit. That only made him bite more. So did popping him on the nose. And finally we resorted to the controversial alpha rolling -- I still have scars on my hands and arms and I think all we did was traumatize the dog and make him more aggressive. Oh, did I mention we tried the spray bottle technique too? This dog likes water. Forget that one.
He's definitely a dominant puppy. He always tries to run out the door ahead of us (even as I'm pushing him back and telling him to wait for the human to go through first), he "sasses" us when we correct him, he sometimes growls when we put him in timeouts and he always growls and snaps when we bring him in after letting him run in the fenced area behind our house. (Taking him on long walks is tough because we're in northeast Ohio and it is freezing everyday up here.) He hasn't shown any food aggression, but he can be possessive of his toys. And it's not just me and my husband. When my dad or my mother-in-law have visited, he has done the exact same things to them. He's very stubborn and we're running out of ideas.
So I guess my question is, what else can we try? We're thinking of giving him the doggy anti-anxiety supplements just to get through these days with him. But will he grow out of this or do we have a hyper and/or possibly aggressive dog on our hands for life? Should we be worried for our cats? I don't want to take him back to the breeder, but our nerves are wearing very thin. Along with that, he's not a particularly cuddly puppy -- usually when I try to pet him for a while, he ends up biting again. Kind of defeats the purpose of even having a dog, when we can't even enjoy his company!
Please help!
