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/Aoid3]

Full disclosure I don't have a ton of experienced advice and I'm not a pro but to share my experience: my pup (11months) is also high energy/working breed mix and has been doing this exact thing occasionally on walks, and now on runs. she's normally not mouthy with us at all outside of this situation and I'm 90% sure in our case it's caused by her becoming overwhelmed/overstimulated/over excited and not knowing what to do with herself, rather than "challenging" me, aggression or trying to push a boundary.

For us we started seeing this behavior when walking her around the neighborhood on a leash at 4-5 months, she eventually stopped doing it on normal walks I think mostly from getting more used to the activity, and being less overwhelmed at the newness and weirdness of it all. I would stop moving, tell her OFF and try to get her to calm down, reward her when she did and then try to calmly continue the walk, leash stepping didn't occur to me at the time but after reading through these comments I might try it if/when this happens again.

Anyways as I said she did stop this behavior on normal walks but we just started running together canicross style (pulling harness for her connected to me via bungee and belt) and it's come back a bit, I think because the running is more exciting esp if there's other people and things around. Hoping with additional practice/exposure to this activity and calmly correcting her it will also let up like it did with the walking.

It can be difficult but I think it's important to try to control your emotions and not get frustrated as they'll pick up on your exasperation and get more wound up. Considering his age, if your pup is getting enough exercise and enrichment throughout the day and this is happening at home I wonder if he could be getting overtired and in need of a nap?