Venting Sesh and Questions + Dog Park??

[Laura and Angus]

Okay, so this is partly because I need to vent and also looking for ideas...

Angus will be 19 weeks on Friday and he's an adorable little madman. Currently he is teething like a fiend - we think he's cutting some of the bigger back teeth based on how he's kind of sucking on our fingers and pressing down toward the back of his mouth and he's getting his adult canines (which we can see). However, we can't find anything that seems to help him and he's doing a lot of barking and gnawing on things - obviously not the 10 million toys we have, but our furniture, clothes, and body parts. Last night we put some ice cubes into a doggie rag and tied them and that seemed to help/keep him occupied for a while. Any other suggestions? He does not seem to want to chew frozen rags...

He is also chewing and biting his leash. This happens when he gets excited - so only at certain times on our walks, but any suggestions for how to stop him from doing this? We typically wait until he calms down, say "drop it" and then have him sit for a treat before we continue. Any other ideas on how to stop leash biting? 

And good heavens the BARKING! Yesterday afternoon I took him for a long walk and when we came back inside he ate dinner. After that he proceeded to bark on and off for like an hour! I tried playing with him, but he was too mouthy and was jumping all over me. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to help him through his teething and decrease the barking? Ignoring does not seem to work right now because he is a very vocal pup to begin with (he whines a fair amount and sometimes sounds like he's bark-talking to us) and he's clearly uncomfortable right now.

On another note - we would like to take Angus to the dog park, but I'm a little worried. I want him to get time to run around and jump and play with other dogs, but don't want him getting hurt. What have your experiences been with taking your puppy to the dog park.

Thanks everyone!!

[Cindy and Olive (Ollie)]

Rip definitely aged out of this... (plus I ignored or made nothing of his attempts to lead, and just kept going, calmly...) another thing I did to calm his energy was a tip from Doggy Dan: I sat next to him, facing the same direction, and held loosely his collar by the tag area, palm up. I didn't talk nor look at him, nor touch anything but the collar. Think zen. It really switched off his excitability and calmed him! Magic. patience is truly a virtue :)

[Laura and Angus]

Oh interesting! We do try to ignore - we tend to just stop and stand there silently until he calms himself -- sometimes this takes a couple minutes! But I'm going to try the calming technique you mentioned!