I was expecting my 3 month old poodle to start acting out/testing boundaries at puberty so I'm surprised to see he's doing so already, I believe.
My mother picks him up off the sofa when he tries to climb on, he's now big enough to jump onto it. When she does, he always bites her once. Same when I did it – he'd bite me once once I'd picked him up.
When I hold him back and make him calm down before greeting a guest, he start biting me.
I've seen teething behaviours on him before and this dosent seem like that because he's just biting once or twice and applying force not a nibble. It seems deliberate, like he is testing boundaries.
In the case of guest greeting, his biting me when I hold him back and ask him to sit and calm down is quite hard. Not enough to bleed but it's not playful and seems quite deliberate.
He hasn't displayed these behaviours in the past – of course teething and biting gently but not deliberate bites if he's annoyed.
Also, he has developed selective hearing. He definetly knows his name, as he pays complete attention to me while I have his food, but on walks, he ignores me calling for him even though I have a treat. He also ignores me if im calling for him while he's playing or something, or if he's hyper trying to greet someone.
Is testing boundaries this early normal? He's been with us for a month now and has gotten quite comfortable so maybe it's a normal phase? I'm quite worried about the new biting behaviour though. It does get better after walking him but he still does it when he's annoyed at me.
submitted by /u/Narrow-Lie2775
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