Attack of the Piranha

Zen is teething. Big time.
For the past 4 days, the view I often get of my puppy is THIS:

But usually I’m on the other side of the bars and those teeth are trying to sink into ME. Those blue eyes make her look even more fierce. And she IS pretty fierce. We’ve been feeding her from kongs and giving her plenty of chewing devices, but she is a confident puppy and has decided that we make good chew toys too.

It’s making our training regimen pretty difficult and we have to interrupt often to either stop and ignore.. or make a correction. The kids have the hardest time with this and no amount of telling them to “stop and be trees” quells the instinct inside when a 15 pound snapping inferno is charging at them.

This photo makes it look like we never let her out of that pen.. and i’m sure she’s putting that face on just to make me feel guilty.

We keep the kids and Zen separated until zen is calm. When she is, i have maiwenn work with her.. running her through her training poses and petting her. Teaching bite inhibition is going to be the biggest challenge for this inexperienced crew.. and i’m already kicking myself.. wondering what we did to encourage it. Honestly though, i think huge part is just normal puppy behavior and teething.

We are prescribing to THIS METHOD of bite inhibition training but I think it’s a lot harder than it sounds in the article. Especially when you have little kids who are not consistent and the puppy already thinks she can dominate them. I’d be really worried except we are starting puppy class next week and I plan to get help from the trainer and see what her take on Zen’s “fierceness.” Still, we’ll get it. She’s already doing better with me and Maiwenn was able to sit in Zen’s pen without getting mauled today and play with the puppy’s feet. A good sign!