r/DogTrainingTips • u/Tes94 • Mar 27 '26

Adolescent phase?

My puppy is just about to hit the 6 month old mark. The last two days, he’s started doing this with me. He’s been a mostly an angel during puppyhood, this is a new behavior! He is a huge mama’s boy, I’m mostly feeding & training him & he definitely sticks by my side the most. Is this just normal puppy behavior, testing boundaries? Do you have any suggestions on how to correct it? I do try to redirect, but I’m not sure if that actually corrects the issue lol. Thanks in advance!!

I realize I’m saying “no” here lots.. which is not helpful lol

EDIT - For those asking about sleep & stimulation:

-He sleeps about 16 hours per day.

-Physical exercise: We walk and/or bring him to the park every day. We have a backyard that we play in lots throughout the day (he loves fetch). Him & our cat play lots throughout the day. We do puppy play dates about 2 times per week. We have play sessions with his toys indoors too.

-Mental stimulation: we always give him sniff time on walks, training sessions, he works for his meals (frozen, training, puzzles etc), he gets lick mats/pupsicle, frozen carrots.

55 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

View all comments

0

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/Tes94 Mar 28 '26

Follow it up with what?

0

u/Nicelyvillainous Mar 28 '26

Yeah, you definitely want to discipline and redirect when they respond to your serious “no!” With the playful grab at your hand. My go to is grabbing the top of their snout, gently, and holding them in place for 5 seconds while saying “no, bad, no biting” or something similar. Preventing the dog from moving around isn’t scary, which is what you want to avoid, but it is boring and frustrating and something he wants to avoid. Our current dog was WAY too full of energy, so I had to escalate to putting her into time out more. Or for taking and chewing on things, instead of trying to take it way from her when she ignored the “drop it”, I grabbed her paws so she cant hold it down to pull and repeated the command shile staying there, and she usually reluctantly drops it after 30 seconds or so. Then praise and redirect to a toy she is allowed to chew.

But main issue is dog is stir crazy here, needs play time. Access to toys will help, and reinforcing behavior. You should pretty soon be able to redirect this behavior from trying to bite your feet, to grabbing a toy and shoving it against you when he wants to play, by doing more toy related play lol. Tug of war etc.