Shiba Pup 9 Week Old - A Few Issues

[Shiba pup on his way]

Hi all,

Just starting our 3rd week with our new Shiba Inu puppy. His name is Bento.

We are crate training him and its going very well. Apart from crying most of the first night we picked him up (obviously he was missing his brothers and sisters) he has been very good sleeping through most of the night, just crying/whinging when he wants to be let out to do his business. He can sleep through til about 6:30am/7am most of the time now which is great - so toilet trained - basically - check.

Have just started trying to do some training in the evening - he's starting to get the hang of "Sit" - but only if he knows your holding a treat.

Puppy school and his second round of shots are still roughly 3 weeks away

One problem i was wondering if any others could help us with is his biting/mouthing that is starting to get quite vicious. We have lots of toys and socks that he likes to chew on or play some tug o war with.... but eventually he'll get sick of them and start trying to really bite hard.

At first us yelping out a "Ouch!" from wither of us would stop him from biting so hard, but even now it doesnt have that much of an effect. At times if he cant get to our hands when we are in bed - he will go for the nose (it made my girlfriend cry which kinda freaked him out and he stopped trying to do it, only for the rest of that night). Once he goes for the nose we put him down on the ground in the spare room where his crate is and giving him a firm "Bad Bento" and then leave him.

Appreciate any ideas/help on the matter - i know he is teething - but we dont want to become a biter.

Included some cutie pics - hope you like them:

Outside play:

Puppy dog eyes - reminds me of the Puss in boots from Shrek (a side note - i never knew red eye-lashes existed!):

Nap time on our bed after morning cuddles:

Showing off his fangs:

If he sees a jumper draw string dangling - he'll go for it:

Cheers!

[W Sibs]

I can't see cute puppies pics till I get home :rolleyes:

But, with the biting issue... everyone has gone through it if they had a puppy. There are a lot of ways of distracting your puppies, just do a search on it on DOL

With Emmy, what I found worked was... I give her a firm 'Uh huh' or 'Quit it'.. then I will ignore her for 5-10 seconds, till she calms down and shove a toy in her mouth or we have a quick game of fetch. But, she has no attention span so it was very easy for me to distract her with something else. I noticed that she gets more bitey when is she hungry or very tired.. so either I give her a little bit of food or put her in her crate (once i do that, she crashes).

With Charlie... I did the same, but also squealing in pain makes him stop too. He will actually lick my hand where he nipped me.. he is a funny little one. He was nowhere near as bad as Emmy. He had a thing for ribbons, so when he gets really bitey... I gave him a ribbon to chew on and he was happy with that.

Other things I did was, I gave them things to chew on... like a carrot, or a frozen wash cloth, their favorite was I got an old clean sock and i will fill it with either ice cubes or their dry food, tie the sock close and give it to them. They can play with that for hours (until they bite a hole in the sock and take the ice cubes or bikkies out).

good luck!!

[Nekhbet]

if he goes for the bite then thumb under the tongue and press gently until he gives in, say nothing, then reoffer your hand. If he doesnt bite praise him. Nip it in the bud sooner then later I do it with all bitey pups and they get the idea VERY quickly.

[Adza]

Going through the exact same thing, mine has hit 10 weeks. She is some days really good with me and only does it very gently or licks, unlike yesterday (was it the rain or something?) went nuts last night. If she gets a good grab on me, I put two fingers in each side of the mouth and she automatically releases.

I always try to distract with another toy or those pup chew things shaped like a bone (not sure of the name of it)

No matter how much I try to say a hard "NO" or do the "OUCH" thing like people have said, she must still think I'm playing and gets even more aggressive.

Will see how I go tonight, but she also goes for the pants and shoes too.

Anyone ever used a water bottle and sprayed? Heard that works sometimes.

[koalathebear]

Hi: my pup was a monster at first so this was my DOL thread on the issue. Lots of helpful advice on it. I wouldn't go for spray bottle until you've exhausted the other methods.

Elbie's fine now (except for attacking his leash now and then) so I hope your pup settles, too

Edited August 11, 2010 by koalathebear

[jazawayaya]

awwwwwwwwwww he looks like a little demon in some of those photos :-D

So cute!

[Nushie]

Bento is such a cutie!

With Jager whenever he bit we would give a firm 'NO' and then stop playing with him, just sit and ignore him, not even looking at him for about 10sec until he calmed down and then we would distract him with a toy that he could chew and bite. Most of the time this worked but sometimes he would still go back to biting in which case after the third 'No' and distraction, the game was over. We ignored him, put him on the floor if he was on the lounge and just gave him something to chew on but we wouldnt play with him. We did this from day 1 in our house as i didnt want to get him into the habit of mouthing us or visitors.

By the time he was 12weeks and we went to puppy school our instructor was super impressed with him.

It is just patience and persistence. Jager responds really well to 'No' and if you say it firm he will always stop whatever he is doing. If Bento responds well to something else use that instead.

You just have to make it clear that if they bite they dont get your attention and the game stops.

Good luck with him.

[aussielover]

aww what a little cutie!

Regarding the biting, the first few weeks of having Mindy were quite bad, she would grab onto our pants and try and wrestle with them which was not fun for us!

When she bit us we would do the high pitched squeal and stop any interaction with her immediately, if she persisted she got a firm NO

and was then put in "time out" either in her crate or outside (depending on the weather).

At 12 weeks she had really calmed down a lot, not sure whether it was to do with her becoming more settled generally or the above methods though!

Now (17 weeks) she is pretty good, she will try to mouth strangers still though. She is fine with members of the family though and doesn't try to mouth them.

[Nahla + Teddy's Mum]

Aw your new pup is so cute!!!

We had that problem with Nahla the first couple of weeks. They do grow out of it but all we did was a high pitched yelp and then ignore her until she calmed down, if she didnt we would put her in her pen until she did and then bring her back out to redeem herself! We got Teddy at 10 weeks so he was mostly over it by then. If they do catch us now when we are playing with them they lick our hand and put their head on our body to say sorry! Its very cute then they go all mental again!

Good luck with your new pup!

[W Sibs]

Omgoodness.. he is sooo cute!

Looks very cheeky and mischevious!

[Edenishy]

I cannot offer advise sadly....im three weeks away from getting my first ever puppy/dog.

I just wanted to say though, your puppy us absolutely adorable!!

[shellbyville]

Such a cute puppy. I have just gone through the same with my Bernese puppy. She was terrible at biting and mouthing, especially when grooming her. I just kept lots of toys on hand and kept sticking them in her mouth..along with saying 'uh uh'. When she got to about 12 weeks though, she was doing much better and now at 16 weeks, hardly mouths at all and will stand and be groomed really well.

[Jaxx'sBuddy]

if he goes for the bite then thumb under the tongue and press gently until he gives in, say nothing, then reoffer your hand. If he doesnt bite praise him. Nip it in the bud sooner then later I do it with all bitey pups and they get the idea VERY quickly.

this will stop the behaviour really quickly

[stormie]

Wow he's a real cutie!

Just a question though, why do you have to wait so long to start puppy school? You mentioned you've had him for 3 weeks and puppy school is still 3 weeks away, so assuming you got him at 8weeks of age, that will make about 14wks old by the time he starts school?

From my experience, many puppy pre schools are happy to start them from 8wks of age, with similarly aged/vaccinated puppies.

[Shiba pup on his way]

Just a question though, why do you have to wait so long to start puppy school? You mentioned you've had him for 3 weeks and puppy school is still 3 weeks away, so assuming you got him at 8weeks of age, that will make about 14wks old by the time he starts school?

You're right Stormie. my maths was terrible last night.

He was born Monday 14th June, we picked him up from breeder on Friday 30th July (slightly early as breeder was in orange but came up to sydney for that night).

So 12 weeks will be on.... Monday 6th Sept.

First puppy class is that weekend at centennial park on sunday 12th. And he'll have to get his shots and microchipping before then obviously, also hopefully he will have had time to heal from the desexing if his testicles have dropped by then.

ill try to get around to replying to some of the other posts also - but thankyou all very much for the replies... working on the biting as much as we can.

Cheers

[luvsdogs]

This is an excellent link for biting puppies. The pic is also appropriate. lol

http://www.dogstardaily.com/training/puppy-biting

[Shiba pup on his way]

friday night zoomies:

gotta wear him out before we go out for dinner and put him in his crate