Charles,
I'm just a pet owner, but ALL my pups (pitbull, cane corso, black russian terrier, boerboele), and dogs have had what I term as a "puppy freak out"
They run around in circles and growl and get very excited. My Black Russian terrier also loves to get air! so he'll leap around me too! AND snap at the air around me. For me, it is equal to a kid out at the playground for the first time in a week! Play!
I agree that you may need to get your pup to a park or what have you on a long lead and let her do her puppy thing.
For my pups, when I'm done laughing, I just hold on to the long line until they are done, then give a couple of OB commands and restart our walk with structure. As they get older, they need permission from me to play that particular game.
19 weeks is young! Have fun too.

Good stuff, thanks. I'll try the building drive and focus dvd next. The times I've grabbed a toy or stick for her to get when she's going nuts makes me feel like I'm giving in and encouraging her tough-to-control behavior.

I think The answer is in between both opinions I agree that the pup needs to be corrected for the misbehavior however a prong is a little too much right now. A good pop on the flat collar to snap her out of it like say a level 5 to 8 plus a correction word and then when she comes to attention and stops the behavior move into redirect with maybe a toy to build drive or something of the like. I agree with you that if you go right into redirection some dogs figure out to throw the fit earlier so they can go right to the game part in essence yes, you may be rewarding bad manners. However a correction that snaps her out of it even for a second or two then followed by a redirection says "I get that your bored but the fit is unacceptable so stop" Once she stops even for a second or two then redirect. This is what has worked for me for going on 15 years of training working pups. IMHO...

You want to grab the toy or stick before she goes crazy. Walk for a little bit, focus, play, make things fun! Let her carry the stick around. Animals (most people included) are pretty habitual- once they've done something once it becomes easy/more natural to do it again. So you want to get her out of the habit of doing this, without reinforcing her, by giving her something to do before she gets frustrated to the point of going nuts.

I find playing fetch with my dog before a walk, and then letting him carry the stick around, makes him feel a bit better about having to walk on a 6ft lead at my boring human pace. He'd much rather be running along side a horse or something, it must suck, lol.

She doesn't sound like she's trying to defy you, but it's kinda like taking a really energetic, vibrant, athletic, smart 15 year old and making him sit at a desk and practice his ABC's. The pup's just trying to liven things up a bit, lol.

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 Quote: scott garrett

The Theory of Corrections says to start with an extremely low level correction and Ed's always saying "prong collars are power steering for dogs".

That may be so, but this dog is not pulling on the leash. She's expressing boredom or frustration (or both) after walking in a straight line for 20 mins.

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From there, I'd start to look at things like is the walk boring for the pup, etc..

You're suggesting that he skip the step of teaching the dog how to walk nicely on a leash using positive reinforcement and go directly to the prong collar? How will the dog know what the prong collar means unless he shows her what the proper behavior is as well as how to avoid the correction? IMO, it is an error to skip these steps.

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Referring to the pack drive vs. obedience correction, this seems like a pack drive issue that should receive a correction. I'm not saying the pup needs to have its head yanked off but, it does need to learn that that is disrespectful behavior.

The behavior may be disrespectful, but that's just the symptom of the overall problem of frustration and/or boredom. A prong collar won't solve that problem.

Also, "pack drive" is a term typically used to describe the dog's affinity for its pack. I think you mean to use the term "rank."

Please don't put words into my mouth. Thank you.

I'm suggesting that he correct this behavior, not that he skip every other training step. I'm actually quite fond of marker training and taught my 10mo. old high drive pup how to walk on a leash the way Ed shows in the Basic Ob DVD. In fact, almost all of the training I've done with this pup has been from information bought or gleaned from Leerburg including the Building Drive and Focus and Your Puppy 8 Weeks... DVDs. I watched all of the Michael Ellis series in the newsletters along with many of the other videos. I recommended the prong collar because my own puppy takes a significantly lighter correction with a prong than with a flat collar. It just makes it easier to control him and is only as cruel as the person using it.

Yes, he should play with the puppy before it gets to that point. Yes, the pup needs to learn how to walk on a leash politely. I never said otherwise. I just answered his question about what to do when the pup does act like that. I only had to give my puppy two level 3 corrections before he got the point that biting the leash wasn't going to be tolerated. He's never tried to bite the leash again. I found that taking right hand laps around my car while saying "walk with me" and giving a light pop (the way Ed shows) works great and teaching the pup to walk with you. I kept my sessions to around two minutes, twice a day. On walks I give the pup several sessions of just running around and being a puppy, then he has to walk politely by my side in an extremely informal heel. Sometimes I'll toss my walking stick (a piece of pvc) and have him bring it back to me, just to give him something different to do. Now, I'm suggesting something as far as training.

And I mean "pack drive" the same way Ed uses it in the DVD I keep referencing. If you'd prefer rank drive or pack structure, more power to you. Arguing over semantics is kind of annoying, don't you think? It's fine that you disagree with me. I'm happy with how my puppy is trained and he seems pretty darned happy, too.

geez...the drama. It's ridiculous!!!

Charles:
Keep a close close eye on your pups body language right before she goes into this "crazy" mode. You need to catch and re-direct before she even gets into that mode.
she is more than likely giving off signals that she's about to grab the leash and jump around and that is when you would re-direct, not when she's already at that point. If she isn't in the mode when you give her a toy, you aren't rewarding her for the unwanted behaviour, because she hasn't started it yet.

I wouldn't worry about it at all. It's called excess energy.
No, I would not correct the dog at all for it. No, it is not a pack or rank issue. No, you are not rewarding the dog if you have him do a known exercise before you start the game, you'll be rewarding him for his attention at that point.

With pups in that 'zone' heavy handed correction does nothing but weaken bonds, keeps trust at a distance and teaches the dog what an unfair correction means.

If you miss the mark, let him run off the energy until you can get his attention. Have him sit and start the game and SHOW him the way.

If my dog isn't learning, I'm doing something wrong.
Randy

Steve Strom hit the nail on tne head. I think she is frustrated and bored. Field bred labs can be nuts. I've had 8 from FC lines and now one from hunt test parents. Lucy is only a few notches less crazy then Dixie who was out of Snake Eyes. (if you are familiar with any of the older dogs) These were dogs who could take heavy handed (cruel) training, had intense drive, and it was all you could do to hold them back.
If no one else said this already-
At 19 weeks the dog needs some very intense fun and exercise for about 10 min before you try to do anything. Let her whip around,tail tuck, chase something. Don't try any obedience you cannot enforce.(just watch your hands and forehead) If you haven't had a forehead collision yet you will. Then you learn to potect yourself. After the fun get her a drink put her on a leash and take your walk. Then you can do some sitting, heeling, recall as you walk but break it up. I never put up with the leash biting. The growling at you is different and if she still does it after some energy is burned off then I'd get after her. Remind her who the leader is but it has to be swift and meaningful.Then get right on some activity. At about 16 weeks Dixie did some off leash biting and pulling at my pant leg to kill it I guess.Id grab her by her scruff, tell her "no" , she quit eventually growing out of that I guess. NO biting the person who feeds you. Funniest thing was she'd tail tuck around the yard looking back at us and ran into the corner of the house. Stunned she got up, shook it off and took off again. By 5 Dixie had her Master Hunter and was nearly perfecta and very stylish. Exercise and busy busy training is the key. The bad news is it takes a lot of energy to train these dogs, the good news is they are hot retrievers late into life. Keep her lean and she'll be fun into her early teens.


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So why do that silly scruff of the neck thing if the dog eventually grows out of it, you guess?

It does nothing constructive except give one latitude in relieving your own frustration. But does nothing for the dog at all except tell the dog you have no appreciation for what he's about.

And that 'bites the hand that feeds you thing'. Gawd, I thought that went out with the Model T. Is he biting you WHILE you're feeding him? If not, you're again misunderstanding what the dog is about and how he views the world.

Being Alpha means providing LEADERSHIP, and that does not translate to heavy handed dictatorship.

If my dog isn't learning, I'm doing something wrong.
Randy

Eh, I guess if a level 3 correction and using the methods that Ed shows are heavy handed, I'll continue to be heavy handed. If I said the sky was blue, I bet someone would argue with me about it.