# Our 5-month-old puppy is throwing scary tantrums!



## CMurphy105 (Aug 21, 2015)

Hello all! I hope you're in the mood for some heavy reading... :redface:

My boyfriend and I both come from dog-owning families, but we are now officially first-time dog owners. Last month we rescued a 5-month-old beagle-collie mix named Gracie and she is very smart. She picks up on hand and voice commands very quickly, she potty trained with very few accidents, and overall she is a happy and healthy puppy.

I feel I need to supply a lot of background information because she recently started having some behavioral problems and we are both so confused at what could have set her on this path. Bear with me as I write this novel.

We have been crate-training Gracie, so she sleeps there at night and is in there when we are at work. She is only in there for a few hours since my boyfriend and I have overlapping work schedules, so she gets a decent amount of time outside of the crate. We have created boundaries for her by closing bedroom and bathroom doors when she is out of her crate, she is not allowed on furniture, and though we aren't great at consistently keeping her out of the kitchen since it is connected to our living room, she understands that she isn't allowed in there and will leave when asked. We have a cat and she is learning how to gently play with him. We take her outside every couple of hours and she gets plenty of walks throughout the week.

Recently, starting about two weeks ago, she has started getting very aggressive when she gets excited. She is perfectly well-behaved when I'm home with her all day, but when my boyfriend comes home, she gets excited and jumps and wags and rubs on him (and vice versa if he's with her all day and I come home), which is expected especially from a puppy. He will turn away from her jumps, ask her to sit, and wait for her to calm down before petting her. But even then she gets so overwhelmed and excited that she will jump from her sitting position and start biting - no - ATTACKING him. She growls, bites, growls, barks.. I'm sure it's all in play and excitement at first, but then she gets extremely aggressive and tears around the apartment and jumps on furniture and if we try to even come close to touching her she lunges to bite and holds onto us with her teeth - HARD. Her barks are not friendly at this point, but vicious, scary barks.

We have read to ignore her tantrums until she can focus on hand signals and treats, get her to sit down, calm her down with pets... and it usually works, but it takes a while for her to stop freaking out enough to focus. We haven't seen any improvement, and in fact, now she tends to have these tantrums more sporadically. If we are playing nicely with a toy, for example, something will randomly set her off and she will get mean and start tearing around and biting again.

It might be worth noting that there are a few dogs in the apartment complex that she has met, but the owners aren't super social so she doesn't get to play with them. She loves meeting other dogs. We took her to a dog park for the first time a couple of days ago and there was only one other dog there and he really wanted to play with her. She was eager to meet him but was very timid about playing and even hid at one point. It really surprised us because she was very social with her fellow rescue pups and she goes nuts over meeting other dogs and people.

Another thing we thought about was her rabies shot. Our vet told us she was vaccinated too young (before we adopted her) and that it was basically ineffective. She gave Gracie another vaccination, and about a week later was when these issues started. I don't know what kinds of reactions dogs can have to over-vaccination, but it's just a thought.

She is still young and though the tantrums are mostly frustrating, the teeth still hurt, and I'm worried that this is a behavioral problem that will continue to adulthood. Is there something about our rules, her age, our behavior when she gets excited, that could be triggering her aggression? Does she need more attention or socialization? Any info would be helpful!


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## Dog Person (Sep 14, 2012)

Assuming she is OK per the Vet it sounds like the Zoomies to me.

She gets excited, is happy to see you , has A LOT of energy and Zooms around ... perfectly normal. Zoey does this every so often and she's 3 YO. She just did this the other day after going for a walk ... came in, took her leash off and she started play bowing hard (bouncing her front paws on the floor), growling, barking and running around .... all normal.

I really don't have an answer for you on how to stop this as I'm typically laughing hard when Zoey zooms around and waiting for her to crash into something (hasn't done that yet). She gets it out of her system, settles down and we go on from there. Maybe someone can chime in on how to deal with this better.


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## CMurphy105 (Aug 21, 2015)

Is biting typically associated with the zoomies? I will feel so silly if that's all it is. Relieved, but silly. haha


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## quintero (Aug 20, 2015)

first, I'd recommend talking to your vet about this since it might be something causing behavioral issues. 

what is her body language? what position are her ears and tail in? what is she doing with her mouth and eyes? are any whites showing/pupils dilated? 

she seems just very excited from
your description, and it might be zoomies, or something like lack of stimulation/boredom. does she have toys in her crate while you're gone? she's just excited her parents are home!!

perhaps try training her with treat reinforcements to sit by the door when anyone enters and completely ignore her when she jumps on you. another thing that helped me with teaching puppies not to bite or jump is saying OUCH! loudly and turning away to pretend you're nursing your wounds. 

hopefully nobody minds that I tried to answer!


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## CMurphy105 (Aug 21, 2015)

The whites show when she's biting and growling at us, and her ears are back. Tail is wagging at first, but I haven't paid attention while she's biting and running around. When she gets up on the furniture her butt is up and head is down like she's playing, but if we come near her she snaps her teeth and her eyes get crazy. When we so finally get her to sit her ears are perked forward and she is attentive to us.

We only allow her one toy in her crate and have been trying to be good about rotating them.

I definitely want to try the OUCH thing when she jumps, we usually just turn and ignore her. But when she's having her "fits" she totally ignores when we say ouch.. when she's gently playing she's very good about that. I can deal with the running around, it's just the crazy biting and barking that makes me nervous.

I really hope she's just excited! Maybe she gets mean because she's overwhelmed? haha I have no clue.


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## Dog Person (Sep 14, 2012)

CMurphy105 said:


> Is biting typically associated with the zoomies? I will feel so silly if that's all it is. Relieved, but silly. haha


I think it could depending on the dog or in your case puppy. Remember that until the puppy learns not to bite it uses it's mouth the way we use our hands. Actually even after it learns not to bite it may use it's mouth.

There are times with Zoey that she wants to play bite (actually mouth) us and you can see it by body language ... she gets a certain way and as you pet/play with her she'll put her mouth on our hands but she has bite inhibition being older; a puppy may just bite. She also use to lunge at my face to play whereas now she comes running and licks me.

As quintero mentioned body language can mean a lot - is she wagging her tail or are hackles up; is she snarling or is her mouth just open.

Zoey's routine with me (primary care giver) with her Kong is she comes up to me and growls, forcefully paws at me and if I ignore her it gets louder and harder, then she will bring the Kong to me and throw it down on the floor, look at me and repeats this. At no time the growling is meant to warn me or scare me. Our last dog used to greet us with a stuffed animal in her mouth and growling and her tail was wagging!

Assuming she doesn't have a problem per the Vet, I would say that's all it could be.


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

Yes they can definitely bite with zoomies. Some puppies do get just borderline "mean" when they are really overstimulated and just don't know what else to do with themselves.

One thing you can do, especially if she likes to play tug at all, is intercept her with a toy when she's coming in for a bite. Repeat it about 1000x and you can gradually turn this into her choosing to go grab a toy to present to you as her "go-to" instead of biting. If she doesn't like tug, you can still do it as a protective measure but it won't be as rewarding for her.

The other thing you can try is to put up a couple baby gates and when she gets completely zoomie-fied but you can't calm her, just calmly step over the baby gate and wait her out. At first, at the tiniest sign of self control/stopping, give a verbal marker like YES! and step back over. If she starts getting zany again, step back over the baby gate. Over time you can increase your expectation of her behavior from a tiny pause to a longer pause to stopping barking to sitting down and so on. The baby gate protects you from getting mauled while you wait her out. 

Also work on impulse control games like mat work, it's yer choice, etc. There are videos on YouTube demonstrating some of these, or "Control Unleashed" is a good book that describes some of them. Good luck, you can do it!


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

CMurphy105 said:


> The whites show when she's biting and growling at us, and her ears are back. Tail is wagging at first, but I haven't paid attention while she's biting and running around. When she gets up on the furniture her butt is up and head is down like she's playing, but if we come near her she snaps her teeth and her eyes get crazy. When we so finally get her to sit her ears are perked forward and she is attentive to us.
> 
> We only allow her one toy in her crate and have been trying to be good about rotating them.
> 
> ...


That sounds like a rude, excited puppy to me. (I do recommend checking with the vet if you have concerns. Always.) She just needs to learn how to play appropriately with humans is all. Ian Dunbar on bite inhibition.


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## Nissa M (Nov 3, 2014)

We had a similar experience with our pup when he was about that age - with guests mind you rather than each other - and it's much improved. I'm with above posters - as long as she checks out at the vet it really does sound like overexcited puppy behaviour and she sounds perfectly lovely otherwise! 

For sure running around excitedly biting at things is a really fun, reinforcing thing for young dogs. We approached this from the perspective of trying to prevent him from doing the behaviour by anticipating the times it usually happened (visitors and also toy play in the evening, sort of like your pup) and then setting it up so that he offered a different, more appropriate behaviour (sitting, waiting calmly, not losing his mind) and then rewarding him heavily for that. Specifically around guests, we'd ask them in advance to let us know via text when they were near and we'd pre-emptively leash the pup to prevent him from actually going berserk, then offer him treats (in our case they had to be really super good, because the reward of getting to meet the person was really what he wanted most), many and in succession, and would only allow him to say hi once he'd actually calmed down. If he started to amp up again we'd ask the guest to step back and ignore him until he again offered a calm(er) behaviour. 

I think the trick here is consistency. It's not foolproof but it's helped us a whole lot. With excitable dogs I'm learning it can take a long time (ours is 13 months and still requires a lot of management), but also that it's definitely worth the work


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## Nissa M (Nov 3, 2014)

sassafras said:


> The other thing you can try is to put up a couple baby gates and when she gets completely zoomie-fied but you can't calm her, just calmly step over the baby gate and wait her out. At first, at the tiniest sign of self control/stopping, give a verbal marker like YES! and step back over. If she starts getting zany again, step back over the baby gate. Over time you can increase your expectation of her behavior from a tiny pause to a longer pause to stopping barking to sitting down and so on. The baby gate protects you from getting mauled while you wait her out.
> 
> Also work on impulse control games like mat work, it's yer choice, etc. There are videos on YouTube demonstrating some of these, or "Control Unleashed" is a good book that describes some of them. Good luck, you can do it!


Nice one. Also we did this. Both the gates and the games, and a lot of them, and still do. Also really helpful!


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## CMurphy105 (Aug 21, 2015)

Thank you all so much! I am going to do more bite inhibition research and try to worry less. Seems like patience is key here. You have all been very helpful!


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

First off, I wouldn't be concerned about aggression at all and while it's super annoying it's not a behavioral problem. This is normal puppy behavior called "the zoomies". When they get totally over threshold either from excitement or from being over tired, they turn into whirling teeth monsters. This will settle with age. For now, your options are to redirect her to a toy, leave the room and ignore her, or put her in her crate for a brief time out (you can either have her drag a leash during this time so she's easier to grab, or lure her in with some kind of chewie or stuffed kong). Once she's settled down, let her out again to interact.

Like sass said, they can get almost "mean" when they get into it. My first dog directed it on us and it was painful and obnoxious, but we worked through it. My puppy tends to direct it at my older dog instead, so when she starts growling and really getting over the top I just remove her from the situation and crate her for a bit.


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

Yea I had a lot of bruises on my arms for awhile from Toast. But it gets better if you're patient and consistent and give it time. 

He still occasionally bites me right in the @$$ if he's too overstimulated to think straight, though.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

sassafras said:


> He still occasionally bites me right in the @$$ if he's too overstimulated to think straight, though.


Watson put a hole in the butt of my favorite yoga pants when he was a teenager, but I think that was the only time he's gone for the butt instead of my hands/arms.


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

sassafras said:


> Yea I had a lot of bruises on my arms for awhile from Toast. But it gets better if you're patient and consistent and give it time.
> 
> He still occasionally bites me right in the @$$ if he's too overstimulated to think straight, though.


I watched a rescue video about these GSDs rescued after the breeder died and the wife just left them to die out in their kennels. The one, a 10 year old female, thought it was hilarious to sneak up behind her foster mom, nip her butt and then run away.


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## TGKvr (Apr 29, 2015)

When my pup was a little younger, she would do the same thing... and sometimes her growling and stuff would sound super scary and aggressive, but it honestly was just play. I'd hazard a guess that's what you're dealing with as well... some super zoomies!


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

Yep. Luna gets zoomies too. She doesn't seek us out though, so I just try and stay out of the way and let her run it out.


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

Amaryllis said:


> I watched a rescue video about these GSDs rescued after the breeder died and the wife just left them to die out in their kennels. The one, a 10 year old female, thought it was hilarious to sneak up behind her foster mom, nip her butt and then run away.


It's ridiculous how mouthy they are. Intellectually I thought I was prepared but holy cow.


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## ForTheLoveOfDogs (Jun 3, 2007)

LOL. My guess is definitely zoomies. Ember is a nutcase and gets them just about everyday. She tears around the house, tail tucked, ears back, eyes wide, wild and crazy. She snarls and growls so nasty you'd think she was ready to maul someone. She doesn't redirect on us unless we engage her, but if we do (which we don't because bad idea!) she will bite us very hard. A lot of dogs will jump up/lunge/bite during the zoomies. It is completely normal young dog behavior and not truly aggressive. I agree with checking out some "It's Yer Choice" or Control Unleashed and doing some more mental exercises. Feed from a food toy. Make a flirt pole and let them go wild on that.


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## hanksimon (Mar 18, 2009)

NOrmally, I am the poster child for teaching Bite Inhibition ... And I still recommend it for this pup. BUt, do NOT try to teach Bite Inhibition during zoomies. Although zoomies aren't true aggression, a dog in zoomy mode can be a butthead and a jerk, and can very easily slash you pretty badly. They don't mean it, but they can be like a drunken teenager in a car ... 'I didn't mean to rip your arm open' ... If your pup really is as bad as you described then I suggest that you stay out of reach and do training later, as well as energy draining exercise and more training. My 70 lb pup used to get the zoomies and would try to clip people [but not slash, b/c I had already trained Bite Inhibition.] He succeeded in clipping me, knocking my feet from under me ... however I developed the magical ability  to control myself and fall on him. Kind of like a self-inflicted punishment, with me as the weapon, this method seemed to be successful in training him not to clip people. It didn't stop zoomies, but he became less dangerous. In your case, I think you can train Bite Inhibition when your dog is calm....


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## ChelseaOliver (Nov 5, 2014)

elrohwen said:


> First off, I wouldn't be concerned about aggression at all and while it's super annoying it's not a behavioral problem. This is normal puppy behavior called "the zoomies". When they get totally over threshold either from excitement or from being over tired, they turn into whirling teeth monsters. This will settle with age. For now, your options are to redirect her to a toy, leave the room and ignore her, or put her in her crate for a brief time out (you can either have her drag a leash during this time so she's easier to grab, or lure her in with some kind of chewie or stuffed kong). Once she's settled down, let her out again to interact.
> 
> Like sass said, they can get almost "mean" when they get into it. My first dog directed it on us and it was painful and obnoxious, but we worked through it. My puppy tends to direct it at my older dog instead, so when she starts growling and really getting over the top I just remove her from the situation and crate her for a bit.


All of this. It's hard to get through but they grow out of it - it just takes awhile. Peggy is 15 months old now and will still nip hard, growl, chew furniture etc when she gets too excited.


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## missc89 (Jan 20, 2015)

My 3 1/2 month old Aussie pup turns into a little butt-face when he's over-stimulated. Though as soon as I get the clicker out he is VERY well behaved because he loves to learn new tricks and I seem to be able to snap him out of his zoomies with just the sight of the clicker.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

I've seen top level agility dogs go zoomies with the best handlers in the states when setting jumps first thing in the morning. Since handler has eyes on dog reorientation got the tail untucked, the back flattened out and dog back on track. The zoomie lasted for maybe a couple strides. I'm definitely not such a handler and I'd get panicked and Sassy would zoom around the course taking tunnels and jumps and such for what seemed like hours. I'd redirect her to an obstacle if I could think fast enough which happened maybe once in her long career of zooming around on the agility course.


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## seaboxador (Sep 23, 2012)

Find an obedience school with some puppy play. No puppy owner should skip it. The site really should have a sticky about it.


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

LOL even puppies who go to obedience school and puppy play get the zoomies.


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## OwnedbyACDs (Jun 22, 2013)

Ahhh teenage puppies, my puppy is almost a year old and he still does this, especially when, according to him, I am not moving or doing something fast enough haha. when he does this, I cease all movement until he stops, but sometimes there is nothing I can do, he is too wound up. For those times, I have a rope toy I can redirect him on to LOL.


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## Dog Person (Sep 14, 2012)

OwnedbyACDs said:


> Ahhh teenage puppies, my puppy is almost a year old and he still does this, especially when, according to him, I am not moving or doing something fast enough haha. when he does this, I cease all movement until he stops, but sometimes there is nothing I can do, he is too wound up. For those times, I have a rope toy I can redirect him on to LOL.


Zoey's 3 and she just got the zoomies this morning ... she was running around the family room all crazed so I brought her outside and let her run around the backyard. I guess some dogs don't outgrow it!


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## OwnedbyACDs (Jun 22, 2013)

Dog Person said:


> Zoey's 3 and she just got the zoomies this morning ... she was running around the family room all crazed so I brought her outside and let her run around the backyard. I guess some dogs don't outgrow it!


Oh, no, all dogs can get the zoomies, mine does after a bath haha, they just get less frequent with age in some dogs.

As far as puppy zoomies are concerned, they dont call it the "puppy witching hour" for nothing lmao.


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## seaboxador (Sep 23, 2012)

CMurphy105 said:


> Hello all! I hope you're in the mood for some heavy reading... :redface:
> 
> My boyfriend and I both come from dog-owning families, but we are now officially first-time dog owners.


You've, ahh, taken the dog to obedience training, right? Rhetorical I know.


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## hollyt (Jul 7, 2017)

Hi there

Our 5 month old puppy is displaying all of the exact same behaviours you described your puppy had.. she is a collie cross breed, we think retriever, she is a rescue and most of the time is calm and social. Social with other dogs and humans. She has recently started these horrific tantrums when a friend calls to the house and she just has this crazy release of energy and runs up and down the stairs like she's possessed. It sounds like what people on this thread have described as the "zoomies" but like your post, her zoomies include aggressive jumping, barking, growling and she lunges at us and tries to bite us. It has really shaken me each time it has occured as I'm worried we have a behavioural problem on our hands. She gets walked loads and gets a tonne of attention and we've had a trainer in and we work with her every day on the training so I'm wondering what we're doing wrong?! 

I hope you see this message as I'd love to know whether Gracie overcame the tantrums? 

Thanks for sharing your story,

Holly


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## hanksimon (Mar 18, 2009)

A tantrum suggests "Anger" but zoomies is more a release of energy, sometimes related to being over-tired. It's a normal behavior for puppies and young dogs, best anticipated and managed, rather than controlled.

First, when the pup is calm, try to teach it bite inhibition. You can follow the link in the 8th post in this thread, as well as searching the Forum and the Web for that term. It won't stop the zoomies, but may reduce the damage from biting.

Next, check to see if your pup is teething. Around 5 mos, puppies tend to lose their baby teeth and start growing their adult teeth, resulting in sore gums, and the pain can make them a little crazy. Managed chewing on a dampened, frozen washcloth for about a month can sometimes soothe their gums.

Then, when she has the zoomies get out of her way. She wants to play roughly and can do damage with her drive-by slashing. She may calm down in a month, but zoomies may only reduce in intensity as the dog grows less energetic.

Some additional training things to try: when the zoomies start, have the friend walk back outside "in a huff" - the loss of the friend may stop the zoomy. If you are energetic, you can chase the puppy - sometimes increased play will give you the chance to change the interaction ... don't try this unless you can run a lot. [I used to do this in my 40s ... now not so much ;-) ]. Try tossing the pup a toy to chew and run with - sometimes all the energy will be directed at the toy, while the puppy runs. Try different toys - a ball, a hard rubber bone, a soft toy, maybe even a chew stick - each dog is different and sometimes each zoomy session is different. 

Finally, I have a 75Lb., 2.5yo Lab mix that gets the zoomies at 8pm, just before his bedtime. After I let him outside for a potty break, he will pick up a large leaf or stick and run around the backyard, travelling at the speed of light, giving off sparks and an occasional sonic boom [in addition to a continual growl-like sound.]. When I first adopted him as an adult, he ran around like a freight train, and I was terrified he would clip me, knocking me ten feet into the air, while dislocating my knee, requiring complete replacement with a fully bionic leg from the hip down to the big toe. Fortunately, he was 'controlled' and never touched me, but it still took me more than a month to finally calm down, trust him, and finish washing all my ... soiled shorts ;-) There's no way that I can really chase him [we really did clock him at more than 30MPH], but he would run rings around me, as I 'threatened' to chase him ... and that was enough. Sometimes he would run, and sometimes he would 'drop' the stick so I could grab it. All he wanted was play ... but now on his terms. During the rest of the time, he'd play fetch or tug, but now he wanted to be chased ... and so, a few times a week, especially if he has been playing 'nicely' then I will accommodate him and 'chase' him around the backyard. I can only 'run' for 5 - 15 min. and I know he can run for 30 - 60 min..... but I think even our short sessions help him to burn off that last bit of energy before he goes to bed...

If you even get you puppy's zoomies under some compromised control, you might take some videos, maybe one per month or so. I find that you can sometimes learn something for the behaviors, such as observing rapid;y moving play bows, turns, and other play behaviors.


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## hollyt (Jul 7, 2017)

hi hanksimon

Thanks so much for your response. I'll try some of your suggestions! I'm pretty sure she is teething like crazy at the moment so that might explain it. It's just those moments of biting and lunging and growling that get me worried..


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## hanksimon (Mar 18, 2009)

Good cause for worry [for life and limb ;-) ], but nothing out of the ordinary for a growing puppy. Something to chew on for teething, and Bite Inhibition to help with some of the slashing.

If you feel brave, when she lunges at you and growls, be prepared to growl loudly and lunge back ... I expect that she will backpedal at first to see if you are playing or serious ;-) Be careful when she decides that you are playing ;-)


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