12 week old Lexi growling

[Caseymelinda82]

Thanks!

Quesi, thanks for the advice. It is sensible. She's a great dog, but we have kids in and out of my house all the time. They all need to/and I expect them to respect her. We've started trying to correct it, by making sure Lexi knows Sam is incharge too. (Sam is doing the feeding, and we are having Lexi sit before she gets things...to go through a door only after Sam. having Sam lead her. She wasn't acting in appropriately with the dog, she just was sitting next to her and reached over to give her a scratch. I don't want her to pick up the dog, not because she couldn't, but mostly because Lexi is long enough that she could twist and get hurt. We would never hit her. I am just worried that she's on a path of trying to show dominance over the kids. She's started pushing some with us as well. Not coming when called, running the other way outside. I've had lots of dogs, infact our border collie/lab is so well trained and behaved that she opens the door when she's ready to come in, and lives with my 80 year old grandmother as her companion (long story how that came about)...I realize a dane is much more dog than many others...but we put a lot of thought into it before getting her, she wasn't just a hey I'd like a big dog choice. I'm just feeling nervous and questioning what I'm making for choices with her.

[Greenmagick]

Keep in mind too...a growl is just a form of communication. Qcumber was a growly pup. When all his littermates were together, yes, they would growl and push at each other in piles etc. When he came home, sometimes he would growl when the kids would plop next to him. I started watching him closely, the rest of his body language. He was not tense, he was not staring at them or really even seeming to notice them. I did a little bit of work on desensitizing him, he started recognizing them as humans, not pups, and it went away.

All of these things you speak of are normal puppy behaviors. Its not dominance.

[Caseymelinda82]

That makes me feel better!!

[RottenVonSpotten]

Quesi, thanks for the advice. It is sensible. She's a great dog, but we have kids in and out of my house all the time. They all need to/and I expect them to respect her. We've started trying to correct it, by making sure Lexi knows Sam is incharge too. (Sam is doing the feeding, and we are having Lexi sit before she gets things...to go through a door only after Sam. having Sam lead her. She wasn't acting in appropriately with the dog, she just was sitting next to her and reached over to give her a scratch. I don't want her to pick up the dog, not because she couldn't, but mostly because Lexi is long enough that she could twist and get hurt. We would never hit her. I am just worried that she's on a path of trying to show dominance over the kids. She's started pushing some with us as well. Not coming when called, running the other way outside. I've had lots of dogs, infact our border collie/lab is so well trained and behaved that she opens the door when she's ready to come in, and lives with my 80 year old grandmother as her companion (long story how that came about)...I realize a dane is much more dog than many others...but we put a lot of thought into it before getting her, she wasn't just a hey I'd like a big dog choice. I'm just feeling nervous and questioning what I'm making for choices with her.

It's great to have children involved in raising the dogs, but I think you need to forget about the alpha/dominance stuff. It really only harms your daughter's relationship with your puppy.

For the first bolded part: My opinion is that it's more dangerous to have a dog wait for a person to go through a door than to let the dog out first. That doesn't mean they go bursting out though. I teach the dogs to go into a down when I approach the door and I then release them through it and follow them. That way I have complete control over the situation, whereas if I go out first, I'm in an awkward position and can't enforce the down stay. Plus, teaching the down stay from the inside with control over the door, helps teach impulse control.

For the "not coming when called" part I bolded:

Your puppy is 12 weeks old, I think you are expecting too much from her Training is dynamic and constant - it never ends, even into adulthood, and should always be fun, short, and often times random. A good dog is always shaped and molded throughout the course of his/her life. Recall is definitely one of those commands that you will always work on if you want it to be 110% reliable. My Doberman had an excellent recall, but it was something we worked on from 10 weeks up until he was 12 years old.

[RottenVonSpotten]

Let me preface by saying a couple of things: one, we are first time dane owners and first time inside dog owners, and secondly that we have no idea what we are doing and thus is why we come here and ask questions.

But, Lola Kate's 3 months birthday was today. We have encountered some of the same things I think and I even posted about it a couple of weeks back when we started to see it. Lola likes to talk back primarily when she is asleep and needs to be moved, whether that is from the couch to her kennel, couch to big people bed, or just moved over in the big people bed so that there is some room for one of us to lay down. It isn't the normal sweet puppy want to play with you and chase you around the yard growl, its like a deep chested angry rumble noise. No snapping attached, just a very plain warning. We did some looking into what we should do and ultimately made the decision that this was one of the egregious offense that results in her getting thumped. It has seemed to help over the past two weeks, though it still occurs. She still has not snapped at us, but seems to now know that her growling in that way is not appropriate or accepted. We are always open to other suggestions, but that is what we came up with and we Just wanted to put it on the table for you to kick around as well. If you come up with something else that seems to work please let us know.

She has only done it once, and it was over the very first raw beef bone we gave her about a week ago. She got thumped, and it never happened again though we have intentionally taken the bone many times now to try and prevent any resource guarding behavior.

We learned a couple of days ago about the "leave it" game with a high value treat and low value treat and we are going to start that tomorrow. I think it also might work in the same sense for moving her or whatever else but we will see.

As far as ear and tail pulling, we implemented the suggestion from the very good "K9 boot camp" article. As frequently as we think about it we will roll her onto her back while she is in our lap or on the couch and began pulling each foot, her tail, her ears, rubbing her belly, touching her nose, etc, and saying "this is my foot, this is my belly, this is my nose, this is my tail" etc. I believe it works, as we have not had any negative reactions to her being pulled on or messed with other than the aforementioned sleeping thing. (She's quite the diva when she's asleep)

If she continues to growl or rumble from being moved off of high value resting areas, why do you continue to let her on them? Rather than thumping her, don't let her on the bed or couch.

I highly recommend picking up Jean Donaldson's book The Culture Clash. She addresses a couple of your concerns - "talking back" and handleability.