Me and my husband adopted a neutered 26 week old Black Mouth Cur Mix over two weeks ago. We were told that he has some reinforced bad behaviors like jumping and pulling on his leash which are ok as they are trainable behaviors.
He was such a good boy on his first day at our place. On the second day, he learned potty training and sit. We also took him out for an hour walk in the morning, dog park for an hour in the afternoon, and another hour walk at night and potty breaks in between. During the night walk, he showed unacceptable behaviors like pulling and biting his leash. Oh, and he started to use our clothes (limbs area) like his personal tug of war toys inside the house and outside during walks. The next day we switched to a metal leash and it worked out great. At first. He now jumps up and down to grab the leash handle, and when he can't, he proceeds to bite our jackets, particularly on the wrists when he can't get the leash. It seems that he starts to bite our jackets once we get close to the house. Whether it's a 5 or 20 or 45 minute walk. I realized we took him to the dog park too soon, and that we were walking him too much. I feel the need to overcompensate because we don't have a fenced backyard for him to run around in and I know the breed needs a lot. We've changed to shorter walks but more often and have stopped going to the dog park to play with other dogs. He now gets more sleep but the limbs and leash biting didn't stop. We also tried to go "awww" or "ouch", we have tried to redirect him to his toys or chews but it seems that we have reinforced it more. We tried not pulling and immediately leaving his room but we can see on the camera that he just goes to play with his toys. We would go back to the room after a few minutes but he'd go right back to playing tug with other clothes. It's been over two weeks and nothing has changed. He did learn potty training, sit, paw, and down pretty quickly. I'm currently working on leave it and off. Because of the fast learning, I'm sure that the bad behavior is a learned fun exciting game.
Returning him isn't an option. He is currently enrolled in the MSPCA level 1 training and had gone to one class. We're trying not to spend a lot of money on professional training but we do have a 4 year old Morkie who can't stand hyperactive dogs and a sweet 1 year old cat. Their safety and comfort are our priority. We're doing slow introductions so we keep the puppy in his own room with a crate, but have taken many walks with the Morkie and have been alone at the dog park. During walks, the puppy tries to initiate play with the Morkie and gets frustrated when he can't so he bites the leash and our jacket. He's only seen and sniffed the cat behind his gate and no signs of hunting behavior so far. I want the puppy's negative behaviors to stop before we can be comfortable in giving him more access to other rooms and unsupervised interactions with the resident cat and dog.
I'm hoping people can give me advice from their own experiences. I'm not sure if I should do board and train for him. Maybe a private trainer, but they all cost thousands with no guarantee.
Please help. What has worked for you?
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