At the end..

[paulina salas]

So our Cooper is about to turn 7 months and I am at the end with him. Long story short I am exusted. No matter what I do he doesn't listen to me at all. He bites me, jumps on me and everything else you can imagine. Kids dont want have nothing to do with him since all he does is bitting them. Our poor cat stays under bed almost all day because when he gets him he drags him through the house. Now the thing is when my husband is around he wont do a thing...! Is been cussing a lot of arguments between me and my husband.
And yes I walk him every day, play with him, get him bones and toys. Take him on car rides. We tried shock collar but that didn't face him at all.

What did u all do?

[Cheryl and Finnegan]

From what you've said, it sounds like your husband has established pack leadership, but Cooper sees himself as second in line, and then everyone else.  Cooper is a typical doodle puppy and he will turn into a wonderful dog with consistent work. He's also at the most difficult age. Like others have said, you need to learn HOW to train him so that Cooper understands his place in the family in addition to learning commands.  I urge you to check out Doggie Dan's website and look for a good trainer/training classes.  The real job of a trainer is to train you to train your dog and be there to give you support and advice.  I have a jumper and an ex-cat chaser :) I kept a leash on him in the house when I was around so I could quickly step on it when he'd start his chase along with a command. Now they are happy together. He's also learned to keep 4 paws on the ground. But it didn't happen overnight. A shock collar is not the answer for typical puppy behavior as you've found out.  Good luck.

[VScott & Lloyd]

Hang in there! We went through this with Lloyd too for the first couple of months we had him. I wrote in other posts that he wasn't even cute to me anymore and I questioned whether we could keep him. His nipping and biting was getting to a point that I could not handle. He had torn up so many clothes of mine and my kids. My arms and hands were scratched and bitten to where I was embarrassed for anyone to see them. I was scared he would become a vicious dog. I felt like I tried everything...yelping, redirecting, time-outs, and finally I bought the Pet Corrector which is a can of compressed air that hisses. Once I started using this along with "No Bite," he stopped nipping almost completely. I can't say this would work for everyone, but it was a life saver for us.

How is he with his basic commands? How is he in his crate? We brought Lloyd to puppy class. More than anything, I liked having moral support of our trainer. She is great and we still go to see her. We'll be signing up for her adult class and Canine Good Citizen. Training keeps going. Before EVERY meal, we make Lloyd sit, lay down, and wait until we say Go before he can eat. We enter into the house before he does...EVERY time. If he tries to go in first, we lead him back out and wait for him to sit before he gets to come back in. Any treat he gets, he must do a command or two...or three. No freebies. By no means is he perfect but he has come a long way from the time I wanted to kick him to the curb.

Lloyd is also more respectful to my husband than me or my kids even though we do more for Lloyd than he does.  I think it's because my husband is 6'2" with a deep voice. He also doesn't dote on him and doesn't always give him affection as an alpha shouldn't. All that is on my husband's terms. 

Good luck and I hope it gets better quickly!

[Dexter Doodle]

I use an ecollar (shock collar) with Dexter. It has given us the freedom of off leashing him since he was about 8 months old. I had excellent training. It is an awesome training tool if used correctly. The level I use can not even be felt on my own skin. With the happy, loving dog I have now and the freedom he gets, I wouldn't do it any other way.

I believe in balanced training. Just like with my child (who is a wonderful teenager now) I focus mostly on positive reinforcement, but both Dexter and my son know what no means.

Just my experience with e collar. It has been nothing but positive.

[Laura and Angus]

I so feel for you!! We have a doodle that was very much like Cooper at that age. He calmed down quite a bit after being neutered, but I believe that the training we received at that time along with starting consistent daycare was our savior. First of all DAYCARE! We are obsessed. Our pup would come home happy and exhausted 3 days a week. He still goes 3 days a week or else he gets all pent-up and crazy at 15 months. For most doodles, walks and playing is not enough to run out their energy. They need off-leash running and playing with other puppies to really tire them out.

Secondly - TRAINING! Specifically leadership training along with using either a spray bottle or an air spray canister (amazon Pet Convincer 2 was ours) to discourage any mouthing of any kind. You say "No" forcefully and then a spritz of water or puff of air to the back hip and then no eye contact or voice of any kind for 30 seconds. The other thing about training is "leadership training." We were taught to use blocking - this is literally blocking the path of your dog whenever they try to run in front of you in a small space. This includes hallways, doorways, and stairways. You literally put your let or whole body in front of the dog and then step back - if they try to get past you do this again until they stop trying and wait. This teaches the dog that you are in charge and they cannot just rush past you - puppy manners! This made a world of difference in our house with our hyper, strong-willed pup. We did this consistently for the 6 weeks of training and beyond and he doesn't try to rush past us or out doors anymore. He waits until we say "ok." This also works for feeding. I'd recommend that you make Cooper sit and wait for feeding until you say "ok" if you aren't already doing this. Frankly - we still make Angus "wait" or sit and wait until we say "OK" to go in or out any doors. Consistency is key. If you do this consistently for the next few months it'll become a habit. Stick with it!!

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

I second the "wait" and "ok" commands, we do that for everything including meal times, in and out of doors or the car- pretty much exactly what Laura said. When I give them a treat instead of saying just "sit" I will usually say "sit....(after they sit) wait(and once they settle and make eye contact with me instead of the treat)" then "ok" and they then gently take the treat from my fingers. With my boys if they bite or are too mouthy with the treat I will say "ouch," really loudly and let them see me put the treat back in the jar and wait a few second and repeat. This worked for them really well, hopefully it can help you too!

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Hi there! I am so sorry you are having a rough patch with your baby but it does get better! Like others have said your puppy is testing the waters and in some ways still learning rules. I went through similar things with Loki, and Moose is currently testing all the rules so I know your pain- to me when puppies push limits I feel like I have taken three steps backwards in training. I think training is a must- Doggy Dan is great and easily accessible and the thing I like about him is that everyone has great things to say about him. I am always a little cautious of trying a new dog training because I may or may not agree with their methods- that might just be me.

Couple things that I think help me: 1) a chuck it. Walking my boys just doesn't/didn't tire them out with all the puppy energy so I would take them to a park (we live in an apartment with no backyard) and throw that tennis ball until they needed a break and then go home to train. This way they have a little bit of that energy out the window and can focus more. 2) re-enforce commands they know. Even though they know how to sit and wait and lay I would/still do go over those over and over if anything so they know they have to listen to me to get what they want (they are very treat driven). 3) be careful of your emotions. I'm Italian and I wear my emotions loud and clear and dogs are be good at picking up on emotions so if your showing frustration or anger or sadness your puppy is picking up on that. When Loki, who was my first dog, was frustrating me with nipping or whatever, I would sometimes crate him for a couple minutes and just give myself a breather and when my mind was cleared I would go back to it. He always seemed more calm like he too knew this was a fresh start.

I don't have kids so I don't know how much help I can be but I think I remember seeing other people recommend that the kids need to be calm (probably an oxymoron lol) or the puppy just feeds off of their energy.

Good luck to you!

[Laura and Angus]

Oh my gosh so true about the emotions! We had a pretty tough time with our boy, Angus. He is stubborn, hyper, and suuuuper smart. Tough combination around the 4-8 month age range. We used time-outs like it was our job for the first few months we had him. If he got too crazy, excited, or bitey he went into the kitchen with a toy or two and we'd give him 2 minutes tops. This gave us a break and then he came out and we'd try to play again. Usually it took two times before he'd go in and lay down. After a couple months, he'd lay down as soon as he went in the kitchen and that was a pretty effective way to settle him. And like you mentioned, it gave us the very much-needed breather to get our emotions under control. Calm, controlled responses are key when teaching a puppy manners. Incredibly difficult, but completely necessary.

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Very! I used to burn lavender chamomile candles because I read somewhere they were supposed to have a calming effect- clearly did nothing for the puppy and for me now everytime I smell that mix I associate it with crazy puppy! Oops on my part!

[Laura and Angus]

Haha it was a good thought. The timeouts were important for us....now when Angus does something ridiculous we just SIGH loudly and shake our heads lol 

[Whitney & Brisco]

Know that you are not alone! When we first got our Brisco he was around 8 months old and his nipping was out of hand. I was concerned bc we have 2 boys 7 and 19 and I didn't want them to not get to enjoy him. Something that has helped us with the kids is they are not aloud to play with him standing up, so if they wanted to tug or toss toys in the house they had to sit on the floor. This way he has know reason to jump. We are at almost a year old now and the nipping is very much under control, but it was just thru persistence. My 7 year old also does things like feeding and training with me as well so he is seen as a pack leader as well. We also would swipe peanut butter on our sons hands and let Brisco lick it off ( i know it sounds crazy but it worked) and say good boy with lots of praises after we would correct him for biting. It showed him that not only was the biting bad but the licking was good.
I also agree with some others about off leash time if possible. We go to the dog park at least twice a week for him to really expend some energy. Our walking and play just wasn't wearing him out. Brisco's previous owners couldn't handle his energy and habits but with some time and persistence he's made huge strides.

[paulina salas]

Thank you to everyone who comment I truly appreciate all of your help. I read each one of them and I am definitely sticking to my commends. I hope to see some kinda change soon. It sounds so bad but I am glad my cooper isn't the only one! Thank you so much

[Jessica, Loki and Moose]

Have no fear there are hundreds of crazy puppy-sharks :)