At a loss - kinda

[Ronda Businda]

So our Willow is now 6 months old and still the sweetest pup everrr!!!

To date - yes, she chews.....EVERYTHING!!!! Not a problem, we just 'chew-proof' whatever room she's in and give her appropriate stuff to chew on. Sometimes we miss it and when we do, its hard to stay mad cause we're mostly stunned with, "how in the world did she do THAT"?!?!? Lol!!! She loves roaming outdoors and the 'Labrador' in her is certainly coming out. So here are some questions and concerns.

• Are doodles always clumsy??? - hate to use that term but I've seen her fly off of 4 foot walls, no problem but sometimes it seems when she wants to jump UP somewhere (while she's running) she can take a tumble or hit it head on.....she just rolls right out of it, not phased at all but should she be...clumsy? 
• She is STILL jumping and nipping, sometimes biting us! Not in an aggressive way at all. For instance, took her on a great walk and other than being severely distracted by flying bird, grass blowing, she pretty much walks alongside of me. Not alot of pulling. So our walk was great, she 'sat' on command afterward, I gave her a treat and released her with 'all done' and what does she do? She starts jumping on me and nipping as we're headed back inside the house!!! I turn away from her, pull my hands in with a stern "off", "no jumping". As soon as she's still and I walked, no lie - she ran behind me and bit me in the butt!!!! I got mad then and couldn't pull her to me fast enough to put her in her crate! She is SO fast that its like she's a 'nip & run' dog now!!! It's gotten to the point my 8 year old doesn't like playing with her cause Willow will hog the ball and nip at her (playfully) if she tries to play with her. And then, I get tired....SO tired of telling her "off", "down", "no bite"...geez - she may think  its her name!!!
• Oh - I took her to 'manners class' and I could....not...believe how she barked at the other dogs!! Again, wasn't aggressive, but what a bark!!! Yep, my girl (& I) were in time out....quite a bit!!! And she seemed very distracted there too, skeptical about going back, not knowing if she'll keep her attention on me

That's about it. We plan to buy her a life vest in a month as we take our boat out and hopefully, she'll get some good swim time in, too!!! 

[Leslie, Yogi & Maci Bear]

I don't think our pup is clumsy. Not sure what everyone else will say. A couple of thoughts though after reading your post.
1. I really think you should keep going to the classes with her.
2. Be careful about putting her in the crate for punishment if your angry ( at least that's what I've been told)

Good luck, she is still just a puppy ;-)

[Ronda Businda]

Thank you so much!!!

I'm trying to communicate that her behavior is unacceptable by putting her in the crate, a "Time Out", if you will. Just got off the phone with my trainer who also encouraged me to keep her in class. She also suggested that Willow might believe that I'M a toy too, since I play and run with her in the yard. So I may have to 'play' with her differently until she matures more and realizes that I'm not a toy. Good stuff I'm learning! Thanks AGAIN for your encouragement and input - I love my Willow Girl, even when she bites my butt and ticks me off!!!! :D 

[Ronda Businda]

Oh & one last thing on the crate/time out - IF I could catch her, that was my intention, LOL!!!! She's SO freakin' fast!!!! I literally, cannot catch her, at least out in the yard!!! And I know she's just smiling and having a ball with it!!!! 

[Gem's Jewel]

First, sending hugs, one can never have enough of those when going through challenges. Keep going to classes, try taking her to Petsmart, Petco, Home Depot, Lowes, the school, etc. every chance you get because the more you take her, the more used to things she will get. Yes at first it will be a mess...keep focusing on the outcome. You have an over energetic teenager who is trying to play with her buds...a month of consistent rewards & tough love will help to at least curb it to tolerable until she outgrows it. Hang in there!

[Deb's Yarrow and Schatzi]

I agree.  I take Yarrow to a local outdoor café where she is exposed to people of all ages, other dogs, babies, skateboards, bikes...   I'm trying to 'bomb-proof' her.  The main reason why I do this is because our back fence is completely see-through to the alley and the forest behind.  That alley is a main artery for dog walkers, kids on bikes and joggers.  By exposing her to more of these things while I sit and enjoy my chai latte with Yarrow laying at my feet, she is much less reactive to people passing by the fence.  It's working!

[Abigail *George & Juno*]

I want to encourage some structure. I don't know how much time willow spends in her crate or outside, but our trainer told us that if the dog has been outside playing or home with people all day, they will start to blow you off. "I've been doing whatever I want all day, I don't need to listen to you" whereas if we've been at work and she's been in her crate, when we get home and we're the MOST interesting thing of the whole day. She will do ANYTHING we ask. And I've seen proof of what she has told us. So as a rule in our house, unless we are specifically playing with/ feeding/ messing with George, she is in her crate. And then when it's time to do something with her, she does it our way. Everytime. For reference, George is just under 6 months. So I understand the abounding energy. :)

Ohh! And George is clumsy sometimes too. ;)

[Ronda Businda]

Thank you, I totally see your point. The only issue I have with crating her the entire time I'm home is that...we live on 6 acres, almost 2 of those she just LOVES to roam about and hey - she's a dog!!! I hate to see her crated during a beautiful day where it's safe for her to play. She has no problem going straight to the crate at night and does great with that. 

But again, point taken, perhaps I'll need make some changes. :D

[Abigail *George & Juno*]

Believe me I know how you feel! George is usually crated about 4 hours during the day. And if I'm home THAT is hard to do. I was very resistant to our trainers suggestion at first, but she really does much better with structure. And it's nice to not have to worry about her if I'm cleaning or doing laundry, and be able to really enjoy her and have her listen well when she is out. It was definitely hard to do at first, she has never torn up ANYTHING of ours. We felt she had earned the right to roam the house, but it really went to her head quickly. Now she seems to "value" us more. :)

[Yvette & Emma]

Emma is 10 1/2 months now and she still nips and bites at times. But she has gotten much better lately. I am very lucky she still has not chewed one unauthorized thing in the house. She will stay in her pen even if the door is open if I put her there. For the most part she is very good girl.. but like you I feel like I spend a lot of time saying .."No", "Down", "Off".

She LOVES watching TV and used to be so cute when she was looking at pups on TV. Then one day she saw an elephant on the TV and went completely berserk. Ever since then she watches TV intently looking for every commercial or show with a dog or elephant in it and barks loudly. So that has been a WIP to make her stop doing that!
I have now employed that tactic of the water bottle. She sees it come out and knows she is definitely doing something undesirable and with one spritz of the water it seems to derail her thought process and she usually stops.
I love her so very much and she is such a part of our family and I know with time and patience she will be the good girl we love all the time.

Oh and she isn't exactly clumsy but more just over zealous at times and over runs the door, or turns her head and smacks the door and she sometimes sounds like she is falling down the stairs as she races the other pups we have down stairs.

[Deb's Yarrow and Schatzi]

Yarrow still stumbles on her way up the stairs to the bedroom.  I have to try and slow her down on the way up.  I figure it's because her body just keeps growing and, as her legs and body proportions change, the stairs seem to change for her.

As for the rest, after watching hours of Cesar 911 lately, it sounds like Willow is in too high a state of excitement and needs to be practicing to be calm, submissive before she is rewarded.  I'm having some issues with this at walk time with Yarrow.  The solution I've found requires a lot of patience, I don't put her leash on and open the gate until she is in a calm, submissive state.  Yarrow will be 8 months old in 9 days and she is very good but still very much a work in progress.

Just this morning as we returned from our walk, Yarrow didn't want it to end and grabbed the bottom edge of my sweater in her teeth and looked up at me with a slight pull and a grrrr.  She hasn't done that for ages.  I knew that she wanted me to play more.  I just gave her a firm 'leave it' and she let go.  We've been doing a lot of work with the 'leave it' command using hot dogs and pieces of cooked chicken.  'Leave it' is a very important one with Yarrow as she tends to pick up and eat all sorts of horrible things she finds in the woods.  I am happy to report that she is finally listening really well 98% of the time to my command.  I don't want her to get sick.  (My last dog died because she ate something she found.)

I believe she's just hit her more challenging 'teenage' stage and has started running off and not coming when called.  We live on the edge of the forest and we always go running through the trails.  Usually, as we return to the neighborhood, it's time to leash up.  But she's suddenly decided that she'd rather go charging through the neighborhood even stealing things out of people's yards and running home with the ill gotten treasures.  Luckily the folks around here love her and are patient. 

[Julie and Max]

Max is very clumsy, he runs into things, bumps his head, falls and does somersaults, but none of this phases him. I would be careful about how much time Willow spends in her crate, they really aren't learning to socialize properly if they are spending most of their day in their crate (not saying you do this). Another thing you could try for the outside nipping/jumping/running away from you, is keep her leashed. If she starts the bad behaviour you just step on the leash far enough down that she cannot jump/nip/run, and ignore her. (This was from my trainer) they get bored pretty fast with that, and this way you aren't wrestling with her/getting angry, you're just waiting her out. Once she settles, you let her up again, they quickly realize that it's not fun, and stop with the bad behaviour. The nipping is pretty normal for that age, it's pretty annoying I know, but they do get through it. I found at that age exercise was the key, lots and lots of it. I agree about keep going to the class. Sounds like you're working hard with Willow, just keep in sight that it does get better!

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

Sounds like Willow is hitting her difficult adolescent stage. Lucy went through a very similar time at that same age. She was just so willful and naughty! A big thing with Lucy has been (and this has taken me a very long time to fully appreciate) that she views EVERYTHING as a game. Correcting didn't much phase her. She was in time outs a LOT as a youngster. As far as training classes and getting Willow's attention, try higher value treats, like PureBites freeze dried liver treats. Most dogs love those, even non food motivated ones. BTW, Lucy is now nearly 5 yrs old, and is long past 99% of that difficult behavior. Good thing she was our first dog, because we didn't have a clue how much easier other dogs could be (which we learned after adding Oscar, our gentle, mellow giant who is almost 2). Oh, and Lucy is super agile and was never clumsy, even as a young pup. She's beautiful to watch during play as she's so graceful and perfect when she jumps. Oscar was and IS still clumsy. Just the other day he wasn't watching where he was going and stumbled off the curb of the sidewalk. Took a chin dive. He's like a bull in a china shop, especially when he runs downstairs. He hits half the steps as he goes flying. Its a wonder he doesn't tumble head over heals!