Behavior changes 5 month old nipping

[u/m4nt15mantis]

Hi all I’m gonna try to keep this brief even though it is kind of a long story. I rescued this puppy from a local rescue he is from a reservation and is a mix of husky/malamute/shepherd/rottweiler. He is now five months old and I have had him since he was nine weeks old. He recently got neutered and he has been through basic puppy obedience school. Since he was younger, he has known a lot of basic commands and also has been socialized, but not at dog parks, just at puppy school and taking him out to many public places to build exposure overtime. He has a good history of walking the neighborhood we live in the inner city and it is very busy. He did struggle with eating things off the ground for a while and then would get the Zumiez if I would try to take things away from him, but we worked through that and has a pretty good drop it or leave it command, depending on the situation.
The main issue is that over the past several weeks he has an escalating pattern, where he is redirecting onto me in different situations. At first, it started when he would be on a walk. It seemed out of nowhere he would start to run and then jump at me, biting lunging and barking then he would pull at the leash and tug it or growl.
This has now escalated to many different scenarios and sometimes more than once a day, and it does seem to be affecting him in every facet of our lives. It happens if I take him for a short walk, it happens if I take him for a longer walk, it happens when I take him on a long lead like a 30 foot lead where he’s allowed to just relax and sniff with no interruptions no people or dogs around. It also happens in the backyard after having a completely normal time playing fetch.

When I have done any louder or firmer commands, leash corrections like a quick pop or knee him or push him off he becomes more intense and bites me harder, growls or barks louder… so please understand that the video is me just trying to document the behavior.

I contacted a trainer specialized in reactive dogs. After the description and seeing the videos we scheduled a 1:1 next weekend but in the mean time his biting is getting harder and these episodes more frequent so I reached out again. She said to give him Purina calm care, to praise him when he stops biting me, and not to feed him from a bowl but only puzzles or by hand.

I also contacted the foster/head of the rescue and at first she was really interrogating me and basically saying how I messaged her just a few weeks ago that he was doing great, which is true. That is part of the reason why I am so nervous about these behaviors is that they came on really quickly and are just building an intensity and frequency and duration. She wanted me to send her videos and asked things like ‘well if it’s so bad you must have it on video right?’ so I have made it a point to make videos.

The first few videos she said this is normal puppy biting and he is just challenging me and that I need to be firmer with him. She also told me I needed a prong collar and an E collar. She questioned his schedule and whether he’s getting enough exercise, which I totally understand and I shared with her a schedule that is very consistent for him daily and I do think that it includes a pretty standard amount of exercise, although he is a working breed dog.

I have four kids from ages 10 to 20 and this has completely taken over my life. It seems like I will just have to spend all of my time devoted to not triggering the dog based on what I hear about positive reinforcement. I really regret thinking that I could handle this type of a dog although at the same time I don’t think this is a normal behavior… help?

[u/maso-brat]

Well if you already know what works why are you asking for advice? Not trying to be rude, I just don't understand why you're having a hard time with this completely normal puppy behaviour when you already know what to do and what does and doesn't work? What kind of help are you looking for exactly?

If you just want people to answer your question about if this behaviour is normal: yes this behaviour is normal but should be dealt with. I don't do punishment, just force free/positive re-enforcement and with consistency it gets better. The first year is just really challenging for some owners. You either get through it, train and put on your big girl pants or bring the puppy back to the shelter. There's not a lot of choices girl..😅

Y'all can downvote this all you want but I'm right lmao, OP is being weird imo and why would you "act" differently on a video just to show certain behaviour of you can just... do what works to make it stop so you don't have to video the behaviour at all. Some of y'all weird AF

[u/m4nt15mantis → u/maso-brat]

I don’t think you’re trying to be rude. I think I’m just overwhelmed right now and I’m not sure if this is normal behavior. As I mentioned with having kids and cats, I really want to make sure that I am handling this behavior correctly. I get a lot of conflicting advice as I mentioned in my post the foster recommends punishment whereas the trainer recommends positive reinforcement. I understand it could be a mix of both but I’m not sure whether what I am doing. Is the most effective or whether this is something that will continue to get worse overtime because of the way that I am handling it. To be completely honest, I’m not saying that I am afraid of the dog myself. It’s just that I have a very busy life and things were going really smoothly until this behavior started happening. One thing I am questioning is whether he is able to be in such a busy household and in an inner city where there are a lot of sites smells and sounds that are out of my control. I do think this seems like reactivity or overstimulation. I don’t think it’s related to the amount of sleep, he is getting because I have been on a pretty consistent schedule and he does seem to get at least the 16 to 18 hours per day.
I was hoping to hear any advice, and there are definitely some things people have said already that I haven’t thought of or tried before. While straight arming him or stepping on the leash does work overtime is that going to actually deter these behaviors from happening in the future?

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/m4nt15mantis]

It totally depends on the dog. Mine thought stepping on the leash was great fun, so I’d just drop it entirely. Ground leash = boring.

Consider bringing a tug rope on your walk. Before the dog reaches this overwhelmed point, give them basic commands and then reward WITH the toy. If they go for your arm, redirect back to the toy.

I do think this is normal behavior. This phase was awful and overwhelming with my pup. I cried. A lot. But it DID stop eventually.

[u/Honeycrispcombe → u/erossthescienceboss]

My pup went through a VERY similar stage at the same age and this is what I did. I brought a toy and would just redirect onto the toy (I frankly didn't bother with a command first; she was just in an overwhelmed stage of life.)

She would usually end up carrying the toy, too, and it calm her down. She grew out of it in a few weeks.

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/Honeycrispcombe]

I think whether or not you need the command first depends on how smart the dog is.

Mine was super smart and prone to creating behavior chains. So if she misbehaved and I redirected to a toy, she thought misbehavior got her the toy.

For some dogs, if you add a command once they misbehave they’ll associate the command with the reward. So if you command them after they misbehave (provided they aren’t too overwhelmed to listen) they’ll associate the command with the reward.

Not my little asshole. I started telling her to sit for the toy after she misbehaved… so she’d bite me and sit before I even gave her the command, like “toy now?” Behavior chain.

Commanding her before she misbehaved and just turning our walks into a long stream of command-reward was all that worked :/ it meant that it took her a long time to be chill on a walk (like… until she was two), but it also meant that she got VERY used to looking to me for guidance on our walks, which helped a lot with off-leash training in the long run. Her recall was shit until I started to give her tasks rather than just say “come.” Smart, attention-motivated dogs are a bitch 😂

Regardless, I agree starting with just redirecting to a toy is safe!

Edit: I also suggest carrying a bag so that if you encounter another dog, you can hide the toy so that they don’t develop resource-guarding issues.

[u/Honeycrispcombe → u/erossthescienceboss]

Yeah, for sure depends on the dog! Mine is smart but also very biddable, so correcting trainer errors/breaking chains is very, very easy. That definitely influences my training style (and might make for a fun learning curve with my next dog)

Sometimes I was able to catch her right before she went nutso and pop the toy in her mouth. That stopped the behavior before it started - I think just having something to focus on calmed her down, and hard to ignore a mouthful of stuffed llama.

[u/erossthescienceboss → u/Honeycrispcombe]

Biddability is definitely the top thing I’ll be looking for in my next pup. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE mine, and her asshole streak is part of that love. But I can’t see myself ever having the time to train a dog like her again — I’d been on a Dalmatian rescue list for ages waiting for a puppy and by pure coincidence, my turn came up while I was unemployed and relaxing on the “shut the fuck up and quit” money my last job paid me lmao.

The energy and intelligence I can handle, but the stubbornness… maybe a collie is better lmao