[DiamondLucy]

My daughter is 3 and my son is 1 1/2. I am working with the kids on telling the pup "no" and redirecting her, but they are very young so you can imagine it's difficult for them to do this properly.

As for the pup, she loves chasing the kids around - jumping on them, grabbing their clothes with her mouth and not letting go. Of course she is just playing and the kids are her new pack, but I have read to not let your dog do this or there could be dominance issues.

So how in the world can I keep her from grabbing the kids clothes (and jumping on them for that matter)? She is only 7 weeks old.

TIA for any advice!

 

[Nikko_Peeko]

Something I found that worked quite well is to pinch their cheek and sharply say no (you may have to pull or give a quick jerk on the cheek until she stops chewing).

 

[Guest]

thor likes to pull my husbands pant leg when he walks.  he doesn't do it to me because he can knock me over.  it's their little ritual that is allowed. i  also get on the floor every night to wrestle with them and allow thor to pull my sweats pant leg.  he'll flip my leg all over the place and thinks he's so tough!

those are the only 2x he is allowed to tug at us.  all the other times he would try, we would redirect his tug of war urge to a rag toy that he could pull.   it takes a bit of time as with anything with a new pup.  because the kids are so young, you'll have to stop and redirect his tug urge to a toy that is allowed.  maybe you can show the older one how to play tug of war with him.

i'd only allow it in short spurts of a minute or so, because she is going to grow faster than them and will knock them over winning the match!

 

[Cocosmom]

Try yelling "ouch" and turning around and ignoring them when they do it. The kids have to seem more dominant than the dogs. This is what the alpha dog in the pack would do. Once you yell "ouch", ignore them and they stop, you can give them praise and a treat.

Hope this helps!

 

[DiamondLucy]

Ok, well when we got back from the vet today she got CRAY-ZEE. More so than I've ever seen her. She was WILD. Running all over the place, pulling and tugging on the kids' clothes, trying to bite (mouth) DH's hands. We kept trying to get her to stop but she was just way too "in the zone" to listen. There was lots of growling which I am not used to. I have been reading up and I guess this is normal for boxers to be very vocal when they play.

It actually scared me a little and we probably didn't handle it appropriately. I am going to try little time outs for her and have the whole family ignore her when she gets this crazy and see how that goes. She was seriously out of her mind - like when we would go to remove her a little from the kids she would growl and get more mouthy. I *think* she was just in a super excited state so perhaps simply removing ourselves and ignoring her might send a better message.

Oh, and she did respond well to "OUCH" and finally chilled a little, which I think is a good sign.

 

[Piper08]

Looks like you experienced your first "Boxer Burn"!!!

Welcome to puppyhood!!!

 

[samsonsmom]

Puppy time outs Don't crate her but put her collar and lead on and tether her to a door knob for a couple minutes...It will be hard as your kids are really young, but you know what, they can learn as you teach Lucy..Get them involved in any training...The pulling on clothes is soo annoying, Flick has been doing that and I have been very firm with him and it's starting to work..Be consistent, I know it's hard for the kids to do that, but definitely you and your hubby need to be on the same page with any training...

"Ouch" works real well, I also like to use hand signals with mine to stress the point..I point a finger, which of course Flick tries to chew :roll: It's a work in progress..When Lucy starts to pull on the kids clothes, don't make it like a tug of war, then she will really think it's play time..Get down on her level, tell her to let go, and gently remove the clothes from her mouth..If you try tugging the play just continues...Flick got ahold of a blanket today and was doing that and I realized I was going about it all wrong, tried what I just told you and it worked!

 

[Guest]

yes boxers are very vocal!!  i was actuallyl scared of thor when we first got him at 8 wks.  i thought those puppy growls were ferocious and he was going to bite me!!