dog wants to play.... a bit too rough

dirtyghettokid

i have an 8 month old lab pup. lately, she has been acting out of control. now i know she's an adolescent, but what she is doing lately is a bit much, and i would like help/suggestions.

basically, she'll get it into her head that she wants to play.. but she is way too rough. we'll just be sitting or standing and she'll all of a sudden start jumping up at us and biting our wrists. she mouths hard, and it doesn't matter how much we say OW! or no, she continues. now, i've told my husband to get up and leave the room when she starts with him. he does, but immediately she will turn and jump at me. like i'll be sitting down at the other end of the room and when he leaves, she will run & jump up on me and mouth my wrists. she always goes for the wrist. if i block her from jumping at me with my arms (protecting my face) she will jump higher and come at me harder. it's getting a bit much. last week she bopped me in the face, causing trauma to my front tooth. luckily, it didn't die yet, but i may loose the tooth over this dog.

she gets 2-3 thirty minute walks a day, play time with balls, etc and she gets plenty of things to chew on. i just don't understand where the extra sort of aggression is coming from!

she is booked into be spayed on friday, which i hope will help a bit... but my face and our wrists can't take any more of her abuse. any suggestions on how to get her to stop being so aggressive? again, we've tried yelping, OW, no! and walking away. it doesn't help at all!

edit: i just want to add that she also attacks my husband when he puts his boots on, or hugs me, or changes his clothes. she's like a walking/jumping giant mouth

kylith

She needs to learn that jumping up will have negative consequenses for her. If it were me I'd remove her from the room and leave her alone to calm down whenever she started to get too bousterous. Be consistant and she'll soon learn that being too rough means being left alone and being calm means being with you.

Smeefa

Hey I don't know how much help I can be, its been a long time since i've had to train a pup!

From what I can gather is she's not being aggressive, she's having a great time running around and jumping on ye, she just hasn't realised that she is in fact hurting you. It's a brilliant game in her eyes, with I'm sure you know already!

Basic training is fundamentally important in any dog - I don't know if you have done this with her but the process of her learning sit, down, stay and recall with positive reinforcement methods enforce both a strong bond and help her pick up other rules and skills a lot quicker as she gets to understand your actions better and she becomes more in tuned to your voice tone.
The longer you spend training her, the more obedient and attentive she will become!

Is she getting much playtime with other canine friends? They are much better at getting a message through to each other than we are! She will learn whats "too rough" very quickly. If you have trouble finding someone to play with, there are socialisation classes all over the place, some are run by vets etc.

Another thing might be that the "ignoring" part of the punishment isn't clear or consistant enough for her? Is there an option of a time out - maybe put in another room away from people for 3 minutes or something and a reward for nice play.

If you commit to be fully consistant she will pick it up very quickly!

dirtyghettokid

oh she knows her sit, stay, high five, shake paw, lay down, into your bed....but she is just at that selective hearing stage. she will do anything you want for food, but if you don't have food in your hand, forget it!

we live out in the country, and i don't really have contact with anyone apart from my husband and my father in law. sometimes i'll bring her to the beach (in the car) if it's a dry day, but i find most people with dogs steer away, so she gets no interaction with other animals.

we've resorted to putting her in her crate for 10 minutes when she's in that attacking playful phase.. but she just starts right up again when i let her out. she doesn't do this all day, but when she does it, it's too much. she's super hyper in the mornings when i get up as well. she sleeps in her crate at night with no probs. i don't make a big deal out of it when i first come into the room where she is, but the second i let her out, she just starts hopping like an olympic jumper, trying to bite my wrists. at least when i actually feed her the dinners, i have full control. i can put the food in the dish and lay it on the floor and she will look me in the eye waiting for me to say OK, and then she'll eat. but we really have to get this jumping and biting thing under control. when my father in law comes in, she goes insane and has left a few bruises on his arm. i know she loves him to bits, but she's not getting that she's hurting us, no matter how much we yelp! i don't think the time outs are working. we've been trying to sort this for a few months, but it's progressively getting worse!