I am a new owner and have an 11 week old puppy who is mild mannered and very good all day long. He is for all intents and purposes already house broken and following basic commands. However, between 8 and 10 p.m. he seems to go crazy with mouthing (biting) and jumping and general rowdy behavior. This is the time of night that my husband and I bring him into the living room while we watch tv and generally relax. We often get on the floor with him to try to calm him down but it doesn't really work for long. Any advice on how to keep him calm during this period of time? Since this is the time of day that both of us are home, we would like to not have to crate him -- also, he is sleeping through the night now and we don't want him to get so much sleep during this part of the evening that he won't sleep all night.

Also, any general advice about what works to stop him mouthing us? Or is "no bite" just something new puppy owners have to say constantly?

Any advice is appreciated!

It sounds like your pup is just really excited and happy to be with you and your husband and if he has been crated before you let him in the living room he has energy to spare.
I would take a half an hour and take him out for some play time/walk prior to letting him come in with you and then perhaps a nice chewy bone to chew on while you relax.
With our guys (16wk old GS) when they chew something inappropriate such as body parts I always make sure I give them a toy to chew on instead. If you are raising your pup to be a family pet then you can give a firm no when he bites
anything you don't want him to and then provide the toy for him to chew. The biting does get better as the pups get older!

when my pup gets rowdy like that we put some peanut butter or cream cheese in a kong for him and he doesn't even care about anything else. as for the mouthing, we put our hand in his mouth until we hit his gag reflex and told him NO BITE.

No, he is not crated before coming into the living room with us and my husband is home with him all day, so his crate time is pretty minimal. I have started taking him out to play for 10-15 minutes prior to our time in the living room and we give him a chewy bone that he eats on while we are eating dinner, which is helping him to stay occupied longer. We do still get that crazy time in there though.

I will try letting him stay out longer before hand.

thanks

hahahahaha.... I call this "the witching hour", or "hours"... my dog is the same way, he's mellowed out a little now that he's 18 months old, but when he was a younger pup, he would drive me absolutely insane right around 7pm every night if I took him into the living room. He'd run around stealing coasters off the coffee table, tugging at the rugs, stealing pillows off the couches, anything to get your attention. I found the best thing I could do was to chase him around the living room, yes he'd go insane - but if he's running he can't be chewing! I'd stare at him, then run at him, n he'd jumps up and run circles around the coffee table.

If you have a fenced in yard, just chase him or her around the yard for 10 or 20 minutes. I don't have a fenced in yard so it wasn't till he was older and good off leash before I could do this with him, but every night I play "tag" with him. I try to chase him and tap his thigh, then if I touch him, I turn around and run the other direction, if he catches up to me n touches me, I chase him again. He loves it, it wears both of us out, and it means he lays down with his beef bone instead of running around tugging at the rug.

He'd also behave like that alot if he had to go poop, so take your dog out and see if that's the problem.

Hi Mike, sounds like you and your dog have a great time, something I was wondering about though I was told that under no circumstances should you ever chase a dog always let him chase you because this will cause avoidance and effect your training later on? True or false? Anyone?

I've often thought about that myself. In fact I was considering it just last night, but I think a dog reacts more to body language rather than how you play with the dog. Dog's naturally chase eachother around during play, he doesn't see me as a threat, he just jumps around like a ferret trying to get me to chase him, and he adapts his response to how I move my body. If I start running away from him backwards, he comes right at me, if I turn and run he chases me, if I run towards him, he runs away - this is his play time. When it's time to work and he's working with my helper, there is not a single moment where he's not running or pulling TOWARDS the helper - I have never seen him try to run away from the helper.

I could be way off, maybe I shouldn't be chasing my dog, but I sincerely think a dog can tell the difference between play time and work time and what's expected of him. Perhaps down the line when we start adding real pressure to him, perhaps then I'll be proven wrong, or maybe he just never had the nerves to do it and it had nothing to do with our playtime.

But it's a valid point - anyone else want to share their view?

Chasing your puppy is a bad idea. It will not cause any advoidance or fear in the dog toward you, but it will cause other serious problems. The chasing becomes a big game to the puppy. The more I run away, the more this idiot chases me and I get to play. So basically running away gains success. This is the exact opposite of what you want the puppy to think. You want your dog to be velcroed to you. Make it so being around you is the best place for the puppy to be.

Think about this for a second. You are walking your dog and suddenly the lease falls from you hand or it breaks. Now what would you rather have the puppy know to do, begin a game of chase where he will run away from you and possible into the street infront of a car, or know that being around my owner is the best place to be.

Your dog likes to be chased because it is a game and he is having fun, but think about the worst case senerio and what habits you want to form in your dog.

Jake, I understand your point, this is a problem I had when he was younger, he wanted to play keepaway when I wanted to go back inside, but I addressed this problem with off leash obedience and working obedience during the chasing in the front yard. If anything, working his obedience while he has this mentality may have been a positive thing for him since he learns that no matter what he's doing he has to return to me when told. We can be in the middle of play or he can be in the middle of chasing dragonflies, I tell him "stop" and he stops dead and waits for me to give him further instruction. He's been taught he's not allowed into the road unless he's specifically told to, my neighbors are always commenting on how he knows his boundaries even though he was never formally taught. Maybe this isn't enough, maybe I should stop doing it, but when my dog is in this drive his obedience is flawless. Now, 7 or 8 months ago this wouldn't have been the case, after working with him on an e-collar to get rid of his disobedience during this he's become almost perfect. If I drop the leash he stays beside me regardless of the type of collar he's wearing. If I want him to stop what he's doing I simply tell him "stop!" and he stands still.

I understand your point though, but if the dog is solid on obedience, and will break his play to come to you at any point in time, wouldn't this counter the negative side effects of the game? I also like teaching him that just because he's told to do something, it doesn't mean the playtime is definately ended, it means either a new game will start, or he can return to the old game - for example if I tell him to "go home", when he gets to the front door, I might open the door and send him inside for a drink then come out, or I might stay inside, or I might not even open the door and go straight back to playing a game, either the same game or a different game.

Mike,

What your talking about is something that cannot be done with a puppy. You have a mature dog and you have done extensive OB work which is great. You have a well trained dog but a lot of the proofing has come from corrections. It would be stupid to work a puppy like this. You want to keep everything motivational and the earliest you would ever put a e-collar on would be 6 months. You have set limits with your dog by administering correction which you cannot do with puppies.