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Old March 17th, 2014, 07:18 PM
Longblades Longblades is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 2,528
She's playing. Most puppies play the same way. When they lower their fronts and keep their backs up it's called a play bow. It's completely normal behaviour but you don't want her to bite you. Jumping on you and barking are not great either, and the jumping especially won't be good when she's a big dog.

You are doing the right thing by turning your back. We call that a time out. You say she stops so it's working. Let her play and it seems she understands to stop when you turn your back and hopefully she will learn to keep you playing by not doing the unpleasant things.

Yes, teething could make her more mouthy. Give her safe things to chew on. I used white rope bones, thoroughly wetted, wrung out, then frozen. The cool sooths sore gums and boy, did they turn red from puppy blood. I rotated two.

There is a rule of thumb for puppy exercise. Forced exercise is allowed twice a day at 5 minutes per month of age. Forced is anything on leash, constant pace, straight line or hard surface. That's and/or. It's hard on still soft puppy joints. Free play on soft surfaces unlimited as puppy can rest, change direction and pace as she wants. I followed this rule loosely with my Lab but found I did have to limit his free play as well as he would literally run till he was gasping for breath, the silly, little nut.

I hope you are taking her to obedience classes too? Classes will teach you how to manage her, get her to pay attention to you and a fringe benefit is they tend to bond your dog to you. Pet classes will do but my preference is competitive obedience, whether you intend to compete or not, as I feel from mine that they gave me better training.

It sounds like you have the makings of a wonderful doggy companion. Good luck with her and we'd love to see a photo.
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