# 13 week old vizsla starting to intimidate me!



## Jenmull506

Hi,
Targa is a sweet 13 week old, great personality, healthy, and just an all around great puppy. Every evening around the same time she becomes insane. She runs around the house and on the lead so fast that I'm truly afraid that she is going to hurt herself. She slams into things head first and slips and falls. The worst thing is the jumping and biting.  She lunges at us and tears our clothing and bites us. The worst is for my 9 year old son who is really starting to be afraid of her. I read the books and it says to turn away from the dog and ignore the behavior. That doesn't stop it. Last night she shredded the blouse I was wearing from behind and will also bite you on the backside and backs of your legs. From reflex I've pushed her away with my leg and have even held her snout closed and held her to the ground while saying "no biting" this only makes it worse. The behavior will usually subside after about an hour and then she goes to sleep.

I fear that she isn't getting enough exercise. We always have her on a leash because we are afraid she will run off. We try taking her for walks but mostly she will just lay her front end down and refuse to go. She loves retrieving in the house which we do as much as possible. She isn't fully vaccinated yet so I can't take her to puppy daycare or obedience training. I think she is bored.

Can anyone offer suggestions of how to reign in this behavior? I know she has exercise to burn but the lunging and biting is getting scary as she gets bigger.
Thanks,


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## texasred

It's the witching hour. Where a tired puppy will act like a fool. I put mine in the crate at that time. 
Even though she can't go to a puppy class yet. You can still find things to do with her. Some of the hardware stores, let you take dogs. Some restaurants have dog friendly patios. 
Try to find open fields, or unused baseball/soccer fields. Put a puppy checkcord on her, and let her run.
Puppies love working for treats, and can learn a lot. Just about anything you want to teach can be started at this age.


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## pez999

The biting and craziness sounds familiar..too familiar. Bandi and I think all other V pups do that at that age. Those sharp little teeth can be painful. If she got over hyper and crazy, we would ignore or anytime she's biting, replace it with a toy. They'll get it eventually. I know some people even use spray bottles with water.

As for exercise, they sell check cords and other leashes that are 30' and you can walk in an open area and let her have some freedom and explore the smells outside. We don't have a backyard but more of a bit of open grass area the size of a backyard but not fenced. When Bandi was younger we would let him run around because he was too little to run away and too scared to anyway. If you don't trust her, just use a longer lead and let her move around outside. 

For inside you can do some training that'll occupy her mentally, which can tire her out too.


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## texasred

You have to weight the pros, and cons on socialising a puppy before fully vaccinated. While I don't take mine to places where a lot of dogs gather.
I do take them to a lot of other places.
My daughter carried June around Bass Pro shop as a tiny puppy. Although she was never put on the floor, they took pictures with the Easter bunny. She went with us for the family gathering on Easter.
She went with us to visit friends, and be sure to invite friends over.
Plenty of running dragging a check cord behind her, in out if the way, off the beaten path places.


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## Heather Lannom Henkel

in your same boat. I just posted. Our pups are the same age and having same issues. Evening is rough and I just put Wyatt in his crate for settle time. He doesn't like walking much either. the struggle is real sister. I am hoping some people on here can encourage us through this and that our pups will stop this at some point.


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## karendm

When Amber did her worse biting was when she was exhausted. I didn't understand it at first, I thought she was frustrated and needed to do more exercise but I figured it out eventually and realized she needed a lot more sleep than I thought. You read all these things about how much exercise these dogs need but a 13 week old puppy gets tired very quickly. They need sleep and then activity constantly through the day and that is why you can't get anything done around the house!!! 
I would highly recommend getting her socialized and taking her out even before her shots...Vizslas can be a little more cautious than other breeds and if not socialized properly can become fearful and you don't want that. You just need to pick the area carefully and talk to the people before she meets another dog and make sure they are ok with puppies.
Finally, you can do a lot of training at home and this is not too early to start! It will tire them out more than a walk! Make it fun and keep it to 10 minutes at a time. Sit, come, stay, lie down, go find. Lots and lots and lots of repetition! Good luck! The puppy stage was hard for me as I did not expect it to take as much energy as having a child!!! The good thing is that it goes by a lot faster, maybe 3 months before you have a somewhat normal puppy!!


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## MikoMN

At 16 months our dog still does this at about seven/eight PM. We take him out to go to the bathroom for the night, and he will get in his play crouch, tail up and wagging, then enter zoomies. He also will sometimes do it when people come over and he gets too excited. Usually in those cases we send him to kennel for a few minutes and he snaps out of it. But it usually happens in that late evening hour.


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## tamer

Jenmull506 said:


> Hi,
> Targa is a sweet 13 week old, great personality, healthy, and just an all around great puppy. Every evening around the same time she becomes insane. She runs around the house and on the lead so fast that I'm truly afraid that she is going to hurt herself. She slams into things head first and slips and falls. The worst thing is the jumping and biting. She lunges at us and tears our clothing and bites us. The worst is for my 9 year old son who is really starting to be afraid of her. I read the books and it says to turn away from the dog and ignore the behavior. That doesn't stop it. Last night she shredded the blouse I was wearing from behind and will also bite you on the backside and backs of your legs. From reflex I've pushed her away with my leg and have even held her snout closed and held her to the ground while saying "no biting" this only makes it worse. The behavior will usually subside after about an hour and then she goes to sleep.
> 
> I fear that she isn't getting enough exercise. We always have her on a leash because we are afraid she will run off. We try taking her for walks but mostly she will just lay her front end down and refuse to go. She loves retrieving in the house which we do as much as possible. She isn't fully vaccinated yet so I can't take her to puppy daycare or obedience training. I think she is bored.
> 
> Can anyone offer suggestions of how to reign in this behavior? I know she has exercise to burn but the lunging and biting is getting scary as she gets bigger.
> Thanks,


My Lucy is about 4 months old and she started to do the same in terms of the little bites here and there and the chewing of stuff including furniture. Someone here mentioned a water spray. Well, I kinda tried to hit two birds with one stone and started by using puppy/furniture friendly fleas & ticks spray. it worked like a charm. she gets her ticks treatment while at the same time learning to behave. to avoid spraying too much, I wind it down to water but now I don't do it as much. I use this technique to correct her behavior on other things like pulling or trying to chew through her leash as well. now she knows that whenever I pick up that spray, she runs to her crate (which was hard to get her trained on in the beginning).


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## Jenmull506

Thanks for all the tips, I did get a check cord but she really doesn't venture too far away from me so unless I run too, which I don't  so she still doesn't get much exercise. I have found putting her in the crate when she gets like that does calm her down. She usually will settle down within a couple of minutes and come out at least 50% calmer. I have signed her up for obedience classes starting in about a week and then once she gets her rabies vaccine I'm putting her in a doggie resort a couple of days a week just for fun. She loves to play with other pups that I've had her around so far.


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## Brianbr13

We just returned from our first puppy kindergarten class. The instructor specifically mentioned dusk as being a time that dogs typically get the zoomies and act out (it’s true for us). She recommended the crate until it’s full dark. Bo is four months and has passed out of the biting/attacking phase, but it was highly frustrating. Not much other than crating until calm seemed to work. Good luck.


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## Starrpath

Jenmull506 said:


> Hi,
> Targa is a sweet 13 week old, great personality, healthy, and just an all around great puppy. Every evening around the same time she becomes insane. She runs around the house and on the lead so fast that I'm truly afraid that she is going to hurt herself. She slams into things head first and slips and falls. The worst thing is the jumping and biting. She lunges at us and tears our clothing and bites us. The worst is for my 9 year old son who is really starting to be afraid of her. I read the books and it says to turn away from the dog and ignore the behavior. That doesn't stop it. Last night she shredded the blouse I was wearing from behind and will also bite you on the backside and backs of your legs. From reflex I've pushed her away with my leg and have even held her snout closed and held her to the ground while saying "no biting" this only makes it worse. The behavior will usually subside after about an hour and then she goes to sleep.
> 
> I fear that she isn't getting enough exercise. We always have her on a leash because we are afraid she will run off. We try taking her for walks but mostly she will just lay her front end down and refuse to go. She loves retrieving in the house which we do as much as possible. She isn't fully vaccinated yet so I can't take her to puppy daycare or obedience training. I think she is bored.
> 
> Can anyone offer suggestions of how to reign in this behavior? I know she has exercise to burn but the lunging and biting is getting scary as she gets bigger.
> Thanks,


It sounds to me like she is overly tired which turns into overly stimulated. I'm hoping she is crate trained because when the behavior starts is when she should be placed in the crate for nap time. Just like your child will get grumpy and act unlike himself, so will she when she's tired but she can't tell you.
Just as your bedroom is the place you can go to relax and unwind, the crate is the safe haven for a pup. If you haven't crate trained yet, please begin...for your sanity and the sanity of your pup. 13 weeks is still a very young puppy and holding her to the ground can be detrimental to her and have little beneficial result.
As others have suggested, exercise her. There are lots of things you can do in the home to give her mental and physical exercise. Hide treats (like cookies) for her and let her find them; tell her what a good dog she is every time. Put her on a long lead, 10-20 feet, and roll the ball for her. When she chases it and picks it up, give her a tug at the same time you say "Come." Reel her in if she doesn't come, soon she will happily respond to the come because you're going to praise her and toss the ball again. This will give her exercise and teach her recall, which will be valuable for the rest of her life. When you see she's getting a little tired, place her in the crate, tell her what a good girl she is and let her sleep. Upon taking her out of the crate, immediately take her outside to do her business. That also sets up a nice protocol.
Good luck, we call her actions the zoomies and those sharp little nippers are called shark teeth!


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## TexasBirdDog

Brianbr13 said:


> We just returned from our first puppy kindergarten class. The instructor specifically mentioned dusk as being a time that dogs typically get the zoomies and act out (it’s true for us). She recommended the crate until it’s full dark. Bo is four months and has passed out of the biting/attacking phase, but it was highly frustrating. Not much other than crating until calm seemed to work. Good luck.



I'm really curious about this. I've trained a few dogs and I've always steered clear of using the crate as a time-out or punishment. I was taught that so the dog wouldn't have any issues with going to their crate under normal circumstances like when you leave the house, during the night if you crate for bed, etc.

Do you see any adverse results from using the crate as a time-out option to calm your pup? I ask because I'm getting my pup in about 3 weeks.


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## texasred

Just putting them in the crate when they are overtired, and sharky isn't a problem. 
Just do it in a calm, normal way. 
The only way I see it being a problem, is if you are getting on to them and crating at the sametime.


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## Brianbr13

We have not seen any negative consequences. Our breeder and the trainer both recommended using the crate for time outs. We never make a big deal out of it.he goes in for ten or fifteen minutes until he settles down and then comes out. Fortunately we have passed through the biting/attacking phase. He still has a tendency to zoom around dusk, we let him run and play it out and he’s usually good. Seeing a big increase in the Velcro/love.


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## GracieGirl

Our 13 week old Vizsla is the same! I take her for a short walk in my street, big play outside with frequent breaks to lay in bed with toy to ‘re-set’ her. Then she comes inside and starts again! I redirect her to a big bean bag which she can wriggle around in safely and prompt her to chew on her Nyla bone, I find the chewing winds her down and she gets me sitting with her as an added bonus!


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## Kpl

I know your post was a long time ago, but can you update? At what age did your dog “calm down?


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## QueenTilly

Kpl said:


> I know your post was a long time ago, but can you update? At what age did your dog “calm down?


We had this exact same issue with Tilly when she was around 14-16 weeks. We decided to do a lot less training with her and really focus on providing a lot of rest time. This helped immensely and she calmed down so much. We are trying to teach her that even when she’s awake it doesn’t mean something will always be happening. Cutting down the training was the biggest win I think - we were doing a bit too much in fear of her not learning things. When we reduced this to one or two little training sessions a day she got a lot calmer and her zoomies at night disappeared. She’s now 18 weeks and don’t get me wrong she’s still crazy but not in that same way anymore!


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