06/10/2023
Do you have a little land shark puppy ?🦈
Check out the top tips below to make this stage in your puppy’s development much easier on both you & them 😊🐾
💥OUCH! What have you gotten yourself into 🙈, you might ask yourself as a puppy hangs, quite pleased with itself, from your clothes. 👕
HOW DO YOU GET THROUGH THIS STAGE? WHEN DOES IT END? 😩
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Puppies go from this adorable, innocent fluff that has slept 💤 for hours and hours to anti-cuddle, feisty and fierce land sharks. 🦈 This transformation can be overwhelming 🥺, frustrating 😤… and sometimes, scary. 😨 Where did that adorable, sweet, quiet puppy go? 🥺
1️⃣ You are not alone. 🤗
2️⃣ This is normal behaviour and will vary in levels of intensity. It will get better. 💟
3️⃣ Your response can help shape your puppy’s choices so that biting becomes less and less. 💪
4️⃣ You can change the game through kind, effective and consistent management and training. 🎉
5️⃣ There is hope & you’ve got this! 🙌
WHAT ARE SOME REASONS THAT YOUR PUPPY MAY BE BITING 🦷 YOU?
⭐SLEEP DEPRIVATION ⭐
As our puppies mature, their activity level increases. It’s very natural for us to instinctively ramp up their activities in an effort to end the day with a tired puppy. Surprisingly tired isn’t necessarily a good thing.
An overly tired 😴 puppy that hasn’t been able to achieve the 17-20 hours of sleep 🛌 they need, on average, becomes a very cranky puppy. 👿 That’s when they default to those sharp milk-teeth on our skin. Much like a toddler throwing a tantrum after a busy, nap-free day, they are struggling to cap their arousal. They don’t have the skills yet. Encourage more sleep and you’d be surprised just how much calmer 🧘♀️ and receptive your puppy can be!
⭐OVERSTIMULATION & TOO MUCH EXERCISE 🏋️♀️ ⭐
“But we walk 🚶♀️ for miles… We play for 45 minutes 2-3x a day and sometimes we’ll spend time running back and forth with him in the garden until he’s exhausted. Yet, he still seems to want to go, go, go!”
It’s so counterintuitive to consider that exercise can contribute to overstimulation and over arousal 🤯💡, so much so that when our innocent, sweet puppy begins to have the zoomies in the evening or consistently tries to shred every article of clothing we own, or better yet, taste our fingers with less than careful snappy, growly and sometimes frightening sharky behaviour, we can feel that the next step is to increase the exercise to combat 💪 the chaos.
When, in fact, it’s the exact opposite that would ultimately achieve the results we’re aiming for. Consider the kinds of activities that your puppy is participating in - are they higher arousal, high intensity or is it coupled with lower arousal, lower intensity play and exploration opportunities. Balancing your puppy’s physical exercise requirements with lower arousal, mental enrichment activities like setting up a sniff 👃 adventure in the garden by planting treats in various locations and guiding them through the setup, is a great way to get a content puppy that is learning to regulate ⚖️ their emotions and behaviour.
⭐IS YOUR PUPPY AT THE PEAK OF TEETHING? ⭐
Did you know that puppies acquire 42 teeth over a very short period of time? 😮 Imagine that! We take up to 12 years… and yet, for a puppy, it’s only a matter of weeks. 📆 Teething is uncomfortable and frustrating. During teething, activities like tug, should be avoided as with loose teeth, you don’t want your puppy to associate any pain or discomfort they’re having with play with you or toys. 🥎 A puppy may struggle with remaining cool, calm and collected during the teething phase so giving them appropriate, proactive redirection to chews 🦴 or frozen stuffed kongs can help them to self-soothe. Calm Mats are great for this!
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⭐IS YOUR PUPPY GETTING VITAL DECOMPRESSION TIME? ⭐
The world is massive 🌎 and often our puppy is taking it all in, while forming life long bonds with us 💘, as well as learning 🤓 all of the human rules, maybe even multi-dog rules in a mult-dog 🐕🐩🐕🦺 household, and more. Puppies are expected to process so much information in a very short period of time. 🕰
In a family home 🏠 where there are children 👶, visitors coming to meet the new puppy, as well as various opportunities to explore the world, interacting with strangers and whatever else the puppy comes across on their adventures in and outside of the home, it can be so much to process and taken in.
As a result, a puppy can struggle with the overwhelm and whether it’s communicating that they don’t like being handled so often, pet so often or having things taken from them, using their teeth to say “Please stop!” ⛔️ can become a default when other, much more subtle requests are ignored.
Let your puppy decompress and establish rules with everyone in the household that when the puppy is in their quiet space that they should be left alone. 🚫 It shouldn’t be in the busiest space in the home, but somewhere, out of the way, that allows the puppy to recover from the day’s amazing and wonderful adventures. 🏞🏖🏙
WANT MORE TIPS, TRICKS, HACKS AND INSIGHTS?
Pre-order our massive (400 pages!) Puppy Handbook! 📖
http://absolutedogs.me/gameonpuppy
Make training fun and manageable for you and your dog with positive games-based concept training 🐶
