# Puppy questions



## AdamFT (May 28, 2014)

Hi all,

Our girl, Autumn, is 11 weeks old now and we are having a great (mixed with frustrating ) time with her. I think we are dealing with most of the behaviour ok, house training is going well and she slept through the night in a crate after only 3 nights. She is starting to learn not to bite feet and will visibly stop herself when lunging at them, though stopping the hand nipping is going to take a bit longer I think! There are just a few questions/situations we are worried about and not sure what to do so I thought I'd ask the experts!

1) Growling - most of the time we can pick her up and move her around with only a grunt or grumble. However when she is sleepy and we need to move her to a more convieniant location or take her out for last toilet before bed, she will full on growl and bare her teeth. She always wants to fall asleep in our lap but this is becoming difficult as we get growled at when moving her off. I understand it is bad to discourage the growl, as she may just use teeth instead of warning us, so we talk soothingly and slowly wake her up a bit before shifting her, but she still growls. Should we be worried? Is it her just being a silly puppy? Should we take away lap/sofa privileges until it stops?

2) Room preference - for the first week or so we kept her completely confined to the kitchen, where her crate is. When we first started letting her in the lounge she went mental, so we now try to have an 'open house' to try and prevent the over excitedness about the lounge. This helped and she can calm down in the lounge but obviously at times we have to keep her confined to the kitchen again. When we do, she will cry and whine at the door to be let into the lounge, refuse to play by herself/get destructive with things she shouldn't play with and whine for our laps. She will play alone just fine in the lounge and always carries toys and treats through there if she can. Long term the kitchen will be her confinement zone, so obviously we want her to feel happy in there and be able to play by herself. Thoughts?

3) Leaving alone - At the moment I'm out of work, so im able to be at home all day with pup and I'm worrying that this is making her overly dependant and when I do go back to work it will be difficult. At night we get 8 or 9 hours most nights where she is shut in her crate, alone (before she wakes up and howls the house down to be let out). In the day, unless she is sleeping she hates not being with us. As a trial last week I toileted her after a short nap and left her in the kitchen on her own, hoping after a short amount of crying she would take herself back to bed. After 45 minutes of howling I gave up....She likes her crate enough to take herself to it, but if shes not sleepy then she will go crazy if i send her in it and shut the door, even if its filled with stuffed Kong and other toys. Suggestions?

Sorry for the long winded questions, just thought it best to outline the circumstances best I can. Also, thank you for the contributions from members, it has been a great resource in the build up and first few weeks of owning our furry duracell puppy.


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## mswhipple (Mar 7, 2011)

Hi, AdamFT, and welcome to the forums! 
Autumn is such a beautiful little girlie!!

It's been a long time since I raised a puppy, so I'm hoping others will offer you more advice, but here is my two cents worth:

You should not be too worried about the growling. She is just a tiny baby, and most of her previous interactions have been with her littermates. Don't encourage it, of course, but don't worry too much about it either. 

Room preference and leaving alone... First and foremost, remember that dogs are pack animals. You are now her pack, and she only wants to be with you. A big reason why dogs can live so successfully with humans is the fact that they can make this transfer and consider you their pack. 

Her behavior is perfectly normal for a baby dog.


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

If a dog, or even a puppy growls and bares teeth at me when tired, I would not let them go to sleep on me. Sleeping on you is a privilege, and not all dogs can handle that privilege. 
I don't believe you should ever alpha roll a puppy, but if she were mine I would have shoved her off the couch for baring teeth. No emotion, or punishment afterwards, just quick and then its over.
She may just be a puppy that has to work toward the reward of being on the couch with you. If the problem continues, or becomes worse please contact your breeder, and a behaviorist. 
There is a good chance that is just a stage that needs to be stopped, before it can take hold.


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## Watson (Sep 17, 2012)

I agree with TexasRed, you need to let her know it's not ok to growl/bare teeth. I think at 11weeks, her privileges are being handed to her too soon. 

Sofa privileges weren't given to our boy until he was about 5months old. We stayed/played on the floor with him, and I don't think he knew the sofa was something we used! If you're going to continue letting Autumn sleep on the sofa, I would lure her off with a treat or even a squeaky toy, and introduce your command (off) when she does get off. 

Autumn is still a baby, and at first she has to be taught to be alone while you are with her. Do you crate her while she can see you? You don't want her to associate her crate with being locked away from her people. She can hang out in there and watch you do things around the house. When she's quiet, you can talk to her and give her treats etc. If she howls and you let her out, she'll learn very quickly what gets her out of her crate. Teaching a velcro dog that it's ok to be alone can take a bit of time, and some patience, but it's so important to their well-being.


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## fullmanfamily (Oct 17, 2014)

Hi Adam,

We have a 13 week old puppy and it's definitely frustrating at times. We didn't let our pup up on the couch until the 2nd week we had her. It was easy for us b/c if we had to wake up early to let her out before work, we'd snuggle on the couch for a few more hours to get some sleep and at night we usually watch t.v. so she would hang out with us. Initially we started by only letting her on the couch when we called her up. 

This worked well until recently, where she has seemed to develop a complex where she thinks she can get up on the couch whenever she wants. So, starting this week we're going back to basics with her and telling her " off" unless we're in the living room with her or she gets up as a reward. She still tries to sneak around the kitchen into the living room to get up, but the main thing here is that you're the boss and you decide when and how much she's on the couch. When they're puppies, it's always fun to see how they respond to rewards. Just doing a few nights this week or more obedience reinforcement with her about when she gets to stay on the couch has helped. Now when she sneaks off to try and get up, if she hears " off" she will stop and sit down but not try and get up. We've also been able to pull her away from the couch with treats and toys which is good. 

The teeth/ growling is something you should try and break as soon as possible. She thinks she's the boss and is acting like a dominant pup. I would stop any couch time with her until she learns that it's just a reward and you have complete control over her. Have you worked on any other training with her? Sometimes doing some other training reinforces your dominance over them, especially by making them work for rewards ( treats etc). 

Vizsla pups definitely don't like being alone. Ruby finally started self-entertaining around week 10-11. She will now pull her toys out and play with them regardless of whether we're on the floor with her. Maybe try getting her some new toys to see if she'll take to them. Ruby also has a toy box now, which works well. She'll take toys out when she wants to play. I always pick up the toys at the end of the night though to reinforce that it's bedtime, not play time... Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a toy that they love! Ruby loves anything fluffy or soft. She does have some rope toys and nyla bone toys too which are coming more and more handy as she starts teeting!

Hang in there!


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## AdamFT (May 28, 2014)

Hi everyone,

Thanks very much for the replies. Any and all advice is appreciated.

Leaving her alone is improving. On a few occasions now, she has taken herself to bed after only a five minutes or so of crying.

The growling however has not stopped and if anything, got worse. I had to move her in the back of the car just after a walk this morning, so she wasn't sleepy at all and got a full on aggressive snarling grow, nothing that could be passed off as grumpy puppy! We took away sofa privileges a few days ago and have been training with her regularly for the last few weeks. I never let her growl stop me doing what I want to do with her as I don't want to think she has control. Any other advice of how to nip this is the bud quickly? Aside from the occasional growls she is such a sweet natured girl that it really takes us by surprise!


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

I hope you bought her from a knowledgeable breeder, that helps owners long after the purchase of the pup. 
The reason I say this is, its tough to play internet behaviorist. We on the forum are just other vizsla owners. We may have leaned a lot by owning the breed, but even behaviorist have to evaluate the pup in person. So much can be lost in translation, and takes a keen eye to see the pups body language, along with yours. My best advice is to contact the breeder. Tell them as openly and honestly what she is doing. Ask how they would go about handling it, and the tough question "Is their any aggression in their bloodline". Make sure they know you are not looking for a scapegoat, just answers on how to move forward. If you don't get help from the breeder, or believe its not enough, contact a behaviorist.


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## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

Ada - just a V pup Ving a V pup ! I'm old & old school - a bite - growl or show of teeth - pick them up off the ground -by the scruff the neck - into the crate & never say a word - leave the the room - come back & let them out - just like their mom would do !!!!!! this does work with a pup !!


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