Jelly scared me today - lunging and barking

I don't know what's up with her, but this is the second day in a row of this where she has suddenly gone mental while we were playing, barking a very high pitched bark, jumping at me, lunging and trying to bite my hand. I put her in time out each time and then we make up and all is fine, but she did it twice today. Hasn't again since the second timeout.

I don't think just turning around and ignoring her will help.

What's that all about!?

We are feeding her a combo of Nature Diet and Arden Grange. I walk her about 45 minutes in the morning and same at night.

I don't know about her, but that's Loki's wild-playtime signal . As soon as he does it, I put him outside in the yard for a while. It doesn't calm him down at all lol but he does know that he won't get any playing when he's like that, so over time it should help. I mean, he still does it occasionally, but not everyday, whereas it used to be constantly, so just keep up with what you're doing and she should pick up on it that she'll get nothing from behaving that way. Odd that nothing has changed though; maybe just good old adolescence?

It sounds like playtime. Bella plays with Millie like that, high pitched barking, lunging, biting. I end up with the two of them bouncing off the chairs Any time she has tried it with me I ended playtime until she calmed down. Put her out of the room for a few minutes if I had to. She doesn't try to play like that with me now, just the occasional bark when she thinks I'm not giving her enough attention .

I also think it's just play behaviour. Just keep doing as you are and she will figure it out. Also if you are on the floor with her she is more likely to do this because she will see you as a playmate and behave accordingly

I sort of thought it might be, but it was just so aggressive this time that it seemed something different. She was backing away from me at one point when she was barking the high pitched bark, like she was scared, which is part of why it was different. But yes, everytime I went to get hold of her to put her in time out, she would put her front down and her rear up, grab a toy and go into play mode so that must have been it, thinking about it. she was her normal self otherwise. But her "I want to play!" actions are getting REALLY boisterous.

thanks for your responses

They may increase a little now as the weather is starting to cool. Suki had 2 episodes today

Sounds like what my 2 do when they get excited thru playing with my hubby.

They will kinda play bow bark and lunge to mouth his arm or hand, it's all very playful and innocent if a little rough !

I doubt it was aggression with ur lil one, if it was barking in a playful excited state she's just gone a bit ott with the moment. Aggression would be snarling, showing teeth etc... When mine get too rough with me I say 'stop' clap my hands and they both calm down, we finish up with the usual sit, down, paw etc.

Have a toy of his handy and when he does it again offer him the toy, if he persists in trying to nip or bite shove him away with a loud NO and then ignore him , its getting him to know the difference between his toy and your hand , good luck .

Bandit used to be like that, especially as a youngster. His eyes would glaze over, he'd go berserk & woe betide anything that came within reach of his mouth! I used to hold him still & gently stroke the soft skin at the inside top of his thigh. It would calm him down within seconds & he'd go all dreamy instead!

She is getting over excited, you need to stop the play before she gets to that stage because the more she does it the more she will, it will escalate. What are you doiing with her when playing? Sometimes we have to play calmer games with our dogs to stop them getting over excited. Cyril and Dolly will do this if I don't stop the play early enough.

we were playing catch, i was trying to teach her to catch a ball in the air. i held the ball back for a second and she got really excited. Maybe it was because she really wanted to try more catch because she was doing really well and i held back for a second because she was jumping up. or maybe she just wanted to play instead of train.

Olly does that when hes in mad play mode,if it gets to rough i just say NO and he stops ,it took a while to teach him , he has only ever done it to me !

You just need to be able to anticipate the 'crazy' stage & calm it down before it actually gets there!

i'll try what you did Caryll, we sort of do something similar telling her "calm" and stroking her and she LOVES the thigh thing you said - we have always done that for her, really stops her in her tracks. i couldn't even get a hand on her though, she was going NUTS, but i know she won't bite to hurt, and will only mouth really so as long as it's play i'll go in and stroke.


she's definitely testing boundaries these days!

Girly wrote:we were playing catch, i was trying to teach her to catch a ball in the air. i held the ball back for a second and she got really excited. Maybe it was because she really wanted to try more catch because she was doing really well and i held back for a second because she was jumping up. or maybe she just wanted to play instead of train.

Not all dogs learn to catch a ball, she is still a baby and you could be asking too much of her at the moment. Dogs do love to play with a ball so don't stop that. I have found the best way to teach a dog to catch a ball is to let them work it out, I toss the ball to them, they will catch it if they think they can. Gradually the catching will get better.

Balls are so exciting to a dog, you also need to teach her to sit and wait until you throw the ball, Dolly has a very high yap down my ears when I go to pick a ball up, she is so excited, I stop and don't throw the ball until she is sitting nicely in front of me.

When we throw a ball for a dog we also need to let the dog see the ball flying through the air and landing so they can go to it. Bonnie I just need to point to the way the ball went and she will hunt the ball out. Hunting for something is also a good game to teach a dog.

thanks for that, yes, we were actually doing really well with all of that, and she was really interested in catching it and getting quite good at it. no jumping around or having to get her to sit, she wasn't scared of the ball, etc. she loves learning new stuff. i think thought it did all get a bit much for her as we were at it for about 10 minutes and then she just lost it LOL

nothing since then really, i'm sure it wasn't aggression as I have to remind myself that there is teeth bearing and all sorts with aggression whereas in this case she was just barking and baying. and jumping.

i really appreciate all of your input, it made me feel a lot better about what happened

Caryll wrote:Bandit used to be like that, especially as a youngster. His eyes would glaze over, he'd go berserk & woe betide anything that came within reach of his mouth! I used to hold him still & gently stroke the soft skin at the inside top of his thigh. It would calm him down within seconds & he'd go all dreamy instead!

Ditto with Tyson. He has bouts of this type of play especially when we have rainy weather for some reason (we still walk rain or shine)

Hi everyone!

I'm new to this board - we only got our rescue staffie on Friday! He did this exact same thing with me yesterday - I got a little unnerved, as I'm not used to him. However, I put him outside and he seemed to calm down. He was pretty pumped up after I took him for his walk this morning and calmed him down before we played for a bit with his rag toy. I keep forgetting he is only 1 yr 9 months!