Wild / dominant (?) puppy

[Nanda & Nelson]

Posting this for my parents whom I temporarily live with. We are a family with 3 border collies and one aussie sherpherd (1 collie and the shepherd are mine). All are best buds.  My parents got their new border collie puppy a week ago, after attempting to adopt one for three years. Rehoming in my country is popular, and thus it is actually hard to be picked!

Anyhow, got a lovely healthy pup. We picked her out from a big litter, 7 farm dogs, the mom had 12 puppies. So, busy nest. The pup has overall been great and we just started with her and everything I am asking questions for is in no means anything we see as a problem, just looking for advice on how to deal with certain behavior.

She does not like to be told no. If she does something, such as jumping up / biting something wrong etcetera and we tell here 'leave it' and distract her with a toy, she gets worked up/mad. She starts growling and sometimes even wines as if she's been hurt while no one touches her.

One of my collies is a very sweet and sensetive dog, the pup likes to bark at her at times (not all the time). It so happens that my dog is also the only one playing with her once or twice a day, the other dogs ignore the pup. But, when my dog doesn't want to play the pup starts barking at it non stop. Obviously, we don't allow this behavior and put the pup in the crate and give my dog a place to go where the pup can't go.

Overall she seems to show a bit of dominant behaviour; she bites the leash and if you take it out of her mouth she grawls and wants to bite. Or if she gets a bit wild, she tried to 'attack'. Right now, we try and make her stop with commands and reward positive behaviour.

But, any other tips? We 100% know she is a pup, she needs looooots of time before she will behave, but I also want to know right from the start how to nap the bad behavior in the butt. And also, what can we consider nest behaviour and what not?

 

Aslo she is super cute and sweet and confident and we all love her to bits!

 

[D'Elle]

It sounds to me as if you are pretty much on the right track with handling this. I would just recommend to you that you give a "time out" in the crate Every Single Time that she growls or  starts barking or otherwise in this manner misbehaves. Without exception. It only needs to be a short time, maybe 10 minutes, or until she settles if she starts barking in the crate. Make sure she is put into the crate with no corrective or punishing attitude on your part; I just like to say "uh-oh! time for the crate".  If she is out on a walk and bites the leash, end the walk and all the fun stops.  Make the walks short, not far from the house or a vehicle, and if she starts acting that way it is "uh-oh! walk over." and it's back to the house or car. Carry her if needed.

Please don't see this behavior as "dominant". It isn't. Just normal non-aggressive puppy behavior. Just like a small human child, she is testing her boundaries. You wouldn't say that a 4 year old human being was being dominant if she acted out; your dog is much the same.

By the way, we like puppy photos here. :-)