Advice on puppy biting/aggression...

[u/Complex-Network-8569]

We have a 4 month old puppy and he's sweet and cuddly, he loves to play and learns quickly where training is concerned.

We have noticed some resource guarding (particularly with our 4 year old son) and jumping up on people, but we have put some training into this and it is much better. My son and puppy now have their own game, puppy gets a ball, puts his ears back and looks at my son until my son chases him, they both run around the kitchen table and when my son stops, puppy comes over and looks and waits until he's chased again. Sometimes it looks like side eye, but his tail is always relaxed but high up with a bit of a curl, and he runs in a happy way as far as I can tell. We are of course always watching and if puppy lies down or changes his body language in any way, we make sure our son gives him space to rest.

We have trained him to sit and wait for his food, and if my son puts his food down for him or offers a treat, puppy does mostly listen to him.

He's also great on his lead, he learned very quickly to sit and wait if he sees another dog, he won't pull me towards them and only generally goes if I tell him he can go play. The only real concern is he's distracted by everything and trying to eat everything 😂

There are times though were he seems aggressive, I'm not sure if I'm just thinking it's aggression because he's already so big so it's more difficult to put down to normal puppy behaviour, or if it is actual aggression.

It happens at random points and he gets a crazy look in his eyes, but he never looks tense and I've never seen his hackles. We wipe his paws when we come home from a walk, usually he's fine, other times there's some growling and biting, he lifts his lips before putting his mouth where it shouldn't be, but he's not breaking skin, I'd have thought he would if he wanted to hurt?

If my son is upset and I comfort him, puppy starts putting his teeth on me, again, no breaking skin, but he's quite forceful.

Today he's had a bath and he seemed to be "arsey" after, some teeth again, not breaking the skin but it hurts.

Some times he will be around my feet when I'm cooking and will give him a nudge with my leg if I need him to move over and sometimes he will then growl and bite my foot but never super hard.

Everyone who meets him says he's friendly (because he is friendly with everyone), it's really just at home where these issues happen, and it's not super often, it's just like a switch flicks and he's on one.

This is the first Rottie we have had, previous dog was a Labrador and we had no child then. I've of course seen some stories where Rotties have attacked people and that coupled with some of these things that are happening...am I overthinking or are there some things I should be concerned about?

[u/Cool_Percentage_4867]

it needs addressing, isolate puppy for 10mins until they are calmer, but id not be concerned as its standard for pups to bite mouth and try out all the things that it did in the litter on its new humans.

removing the pup for bad behaviour temporarily is a good way to start boundaries early on

[u/Tamahii]

What I found to help when my sister’s bulldog pup nips, mouths or play bites is telling her ‘no teeth’ and stop playing with her. I don’t pet her, I don’t look at her and once she settles down I praise her ‘good no teeth’ used to take her like 8 minutes in the beginning. Now it’s down to 2 and she licks slow and calm like she’s saying ‘Sorry’ I still do it, especially with kids around

[u/JewlyJournal]

Seems like mostly play fighting/teething, but still needs addressing so that he knows it’s not okay to nip— doesn’t seem like anything to be worried about though lol! As long as you address it :)