My puppy is mental :/

by Gibby
(cambridge, England)

Hi i have a 7 month rottie called Bella and she is the most beautiful rottie ( so much tan ) but she is off her head! She is constantly hungry, i feed her more than recommended amount but i only feed her the best puppy food and only give her treats when she is being good or i’m trying to teach her something.

She won’t stop jumping up at people or just jumping for that matter. She won’t stop having happy wee’s when ever she gets any attention – i just want to chill out and have a cuddle with her but obviously don’t want to get wee’d on 🙁 and she won’t stop chewing on EVERYTHING she has her chew toys and all sorts of things she can chew and i always make sure i give her loads of praise when she plays with her toys and when she chews other stuff i.e the walls, table chairs, EVERYTHING i send her to her bed of put her in her kennel/ run (massive kennel/run with heating, fan, and radio)

This all needs to stop as my missis is pregnant and we have 4 other children between us and if i ain’t got her sorted by the time new baby gets here she’s going to make me get rid of her 🙁

please help

cheers
Gibby

Hi Gibby
You’ve got children, so you might be able to appreciate this…. your Rottie pup is a pre-teen, and she’s going through regular adolescent ‘stuff’. This can be a challenging period for parents (whether it’s a human child or a canine one!) and it’s important to stay patient and to consistently enforce house rules, expect good behavior and keep order with loving discipline.

However, if you haven’t trained your pup yet (and I mean taught her to stop jumping, to listen and obey when you give her commands, NOT to chew on your stuff etc. etc.) then you’re at a disadvantage and so is she. It will take her a bit longer to learn these things now, than it would have done at 8 – 10 weeks old, but it can definitely be done. You just need to be consistent and patient.

She is obviously very energetic and I’d guess that she needs more exercise than she’s currently getting – plus she should get lots of socialization and some formal training. This will all help to settle her down, wear her out (physically and mentally) and help her to learn some self-control.

The ‘happy weeing’ is submissive urination and it’s something she can’t help at all. I’d recommend reading this webpage which will give you all the info. you need on this and explain how best to handle it.. Dog Submissive Urination.

Your pup is still very young and I she won’t learn how to behave acceptably if you don’t show her in a way she can understand. It takes time, repetition and patience to train a pup but it’s well worth it.

It sounds as though your Rottie is a lovely girl with a great temperament and it would be terrible for her to lose the only home she knows because you haven’t taken the time to train her properly, and that’s what this boils down to. She’s not a bad dog, just an untrained pre-teen pup who needs understanding, guidance, training and firm but LOVING discipline.

I’d also suggest checking out this website as it is designed to help puppy owners train their pups effectively… successful-puppy-training.com It’s my newest site and although still very much a work-in-progress I think it has a lot of information that will help you.

Best of luck with your pup, I hope you manage to work through this.