Me and my wife got a 12 week old Retriever 2 weeks ago called Chester. My wife had a couple of dogs growing up, and this is my first dog. We have two cats who are slowly getting used to him, but no growling or hissing from either when they interact. Hes had his 2nd vaccination, and his third is a bit away. We live on a 5 acre property which has the occasional fox at night passing through looking for food, and the vet recommended keeping the puppy inside, not even letting him out to grassed areas, as foxes carry the parvo virus. We have an area inside the house sectioned off just for him, which he has plenty of room to move around and play, and daily i run him up and down our long hallway getting him to chase me and play for 10-15 minutes. I was really keen to get him started on going to the toilet outside and teaching him to go outside, but the vet said not to let him outside. At the moment he is peeing on puppy training pads, but probably 20% of the time he just goes wherever, and his poos are pretty hit and miss on if its on a pad or not, especially when weve been away for part of the day, or we come down from our bedroom in the morning. Always a decent mess of pee, especially as he likes to walk in it after hes done it and walk it all over the tiled floor. My wife also got him a grass pad which he does use, but still heavily uses the puppy pads, and we try keep them fresh once hes had a few goes on them. Im trying to crate train him too but hes really hating that, despite the positive reinforcement and he still pees in it when its just left open. Has anyone else been in a similar situation?
He also gets very bitey at times and has hurt both me and my wife. Its playful but he gets a bit over the top and starts going at our feet, legs, shoes, socks, whatever is on us, and ive tried following multiple methods I had found through forums and videos and nothings works. No matter what you do, he will just keep fighting it for minutes until you let go and he starts biting again. If we give him a toy and play with him with that, he still tries to bite our hands holding the toy, and if we give it to him seperate from us, he gets bored of it and comes back and goes at us again. We don’t want to be whacking him, and weve tried multiple methods that arent physical that we found used by others with no luck. Hes also started chewing handle knobs, cupboard corners and even brick wall corners, despite having a plethora of chew toys of different styles go hell. And you show him them, but doesnt take much interest
We have alot to learn. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much
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