I had a pup from a good breeder who didn't bond with me and bit me. The breeder took the pup back, but I'm wondering where I went wrong.

Dear Ed,

Hello, I've been a member of your message board for years but haven't visited in a very long time. I'm writing because I've searched your site and cannot find the answer to this problem. I no longer own this puppy I'm writing about but I want to know the answer to this as it plagues me and don't want the same thing to ever happen again.

I was bitten by my 16 week old standard poodle puppy. Here's what happened. I wanted to show standard poodles and sought out a breeder that had quality dogs to purchase a puppy from. I felt like I had found one in the breeder I got J from and was really excited to get my puppy from her. Seeing pictures of the litter online I had picked a black bitch but after meeting her and seeing how aloof she was to me the stranger and knowing that she was absolutely horrible on the grooming table for this breeder that was also a professional groomer, I changed my mind to a blue male. She wanted to wait until a professional handler had the opportunity to go over the litter first before sending my puppy home to me. So she had this handler go over the litter and I ended up with a male that neither of us had looked at for me but one I felt was very nice in conformation. I was very pleased with the puppy I picked up, he was 12 weeks old when I picked him up. Things seemed fine when we came home. I had some issues with him housebreaking from the start. I could gate him in the kitchen and he would pee at least 2 or 3 times in a 30 minute period of time even after being taken out. I introduced him to the standard that I already had and he peed on himself. I had issues brushing him, touching him on certain areas of his body and disciplining him at all as he would cringe away from a brush or turn away from playing if you touched him on the back of his legs. He would cry out if you touched him or grabbed him too quickly. Example, I had my older male on a leash and the puppy was just free to be out with us in the yard. The puppy was jumping on my male (puppy had a habit of obsessively licking my male on the chin to show submission) and I had to grab him away so my male could urinate and when I did that he cried out as if I had hurt him.

The day he bit me was a Sunday. I tried to keep up with my grooming on Sundays. I put him on the grooming table and shaved his face and then put him up in his crate to have breakfast before finishing. After breakfast I went to get him and he wouldn't come out of the crate. I reached into the crate to pull him forward to lift him up. When I had both hands on the upper part of his legs he started to cry out as if I was hurting him. I let go of one of my hands to look down and see if he had gotten a nail caught in the crate and he reached down and bit me on the other hand (a strike that left 3 puncture wounds on my hand). All of this happened in seconds. I still groomed him afterwards. After this happened the breeder wanted him back. She felt like I had no desire to keep him and she ended up placing him in a family with an autistic child and she claims he's doing wonderfully to discredit me. She felt from the time I told her about the situation, that I had done something to cause this puppy to bite me and make him fearful of me. I had a friend that knows how to temperament test puppies come by and take him away from the house and temperament test him at 16 weeks. He scored mostly 2s. He wouldn't follow her, showed no interest in chasing an object, and shied away from any contact with her. In her observation there wasn't much bond between the two of us and he didn't seem to care whether he was interacting with the humans in the room or not.

Anyway, I want to know the reason this puppy bit me. He was 16 weeks at the time and had been living with us for 4 weeks. If it was my fault, I want to know what I did to cause it. I have never had this happen to me ever and want to make sure it doesn't again. I now own a new puppy that doesn't have this submissive type behavior and has been a good puppy to deal with so far. I look forward to hearing from you and learning more about this situation from a true professional that I respect a great deal.

Sincerely,
Kristy