14 month old troubles!

My staffy is 14 months old. He's beautiful. Sits, stays, waits, loves a walk and lying on our laps. However, every day he has, what we call 'mados' where he darts everywhere at 100mph and tries to bite us. We tried crating him, isolating him, he still continues to do it when he's let out. We turn our backs and he bites our ankles. We dont know what else to do, is this normal behaviour? People keep saying he'll stop when he's about 2. We have never had a puppy before, we fostered two staffys at the age of 4! Will he stop? Are we doing something wrong?

The energy burst is completly normal and no huge cause for concern. Suki is almost 3 and will still do it on occasions like after a bath or if she gets over excited.

Welcome to the forum.

Mad excited behaviour is very typical in young dogs, especially young male dogs.

Putting him in his crate for being bad is the wrong thing to do I'm afraid

That would only make him anxious/nervous and subsequently a lot worse.

Time out's work well but only if followed through properly, when an unwanted behaviour happens put him in the next room for a minute or so, then let him out and if the problem persists...put him straight back in.

Just a few general questions, what is he fed, and how many walks does he get a day?

Here is a link that should help with the biting just make sure everyone that is around your dog follows the guidelines every time

http://staffy-bull-terrier.com/stop_your_staffy_puppy_biting

Welcome why don't you introduce yourself to us here?

https://staffy-bull-terrier.niceboard.com/f7-new-member-introductions

It is very normal. If you let us know what brand of food he's on, and how much exercise he gets daily, that'd help, but they do often have their mad moments, and when they get so excitable, they can sometimes forget the rules, like no biting. Don't put him in his crate, you want the crate to be somewhere he's happy to be, rather than him being put in it and stopping the madness, that'd make him see it as a negative thing. A time out in a safe room would be good. Personally, I just let Loki into the yard (whilst watching him) and let him burn off the excess energy.

He's fed fish for dogs, the breeder recommended that. And he's walked 1 hour and half a day, half hour on a morningnand an hour at night! We tried shutting him in another room but he chewed the room up! Lol.

Sounds like a teenage rebellion, darcy has the zoomies to, I think a lot of them do, I just distract her and play catch or frisbee.

Anna6789 wrote:He's fed fish for dogs, the breeder recommended that. And he's walked 1 hour and half a day, half hour on a morningnand an hour at night! We tried shutting him in another room but he chewed the room up! Lol.

You only have to put her in there for a minute or so tops. The bathroom is a good place as long as there are no toiletries or bleach etc she can get at.

Our bathrooms upstairs, he doesnt dare go up there haha. He's terrified of coming back down! We are trying shutting him outside lately, so can run around with a football, but he still comes back in and tries to bite us. But as we have never had a puppy before we dont know if its normal!

Otis will still have is energetic boosts from time to time. We just pop him in the kitchen for a few minutes then try again... Just be consistent with whatever method you use and the message will get through eventually.

Sorry to bump this thread, but my 20 month staffie-x is going through major zoomies, and is biting, growling and sometimes barking. While quite amusing seeing her race around the house like a dog posessed, I draw the line at the biting. She's not a small dog, it hurts, and is a little scary to see her so out of control.

It usually happens before a walk (excited) or after a walk and dinner (refuelled!). Today she leapt at me out of nowhere while I was sitting on the sofa, so I told her a firm NO and tried to pull her off me. She bit my arm, so I tried to walk away to give her time out, and she put her teeth round my calf. I held her collar to keep her still, and she kept trying to bite my arms. So I gave up on that, and left the room. She then ran around some more, knocked the armchair over, growled, tried to jump the dog gate.... she calmed down after about 5 mins, but was still trying to bite me when I came near her. Her tail was wagging though, but I know this doesn't always mean a dog is happy!

We take her on two long walks a day (on and off lead), do lots of training with her indoors, plus playing fetch and we feed her Pedigree Chum dry food recommended by Battersea Dogs Home. She's always friendly towards people, she adores other dogs, and is always up for playing with them.

It makes me feel like a terrible owner, I think I must be doing something wrong, or triggering something in her from her past life (she's a rescue).
We've not had her long, say 6 weeks or so, and in that time she's learnt loads, and seems much happier than she did when we first got her. But the mouthing/biting seems to be increasing, so I can only thing it's something that I have or haven't done that is encouraging this.

Any advice would be fantastic !

Pedigree chum really isnt the best food and could be contributing to all this excess energy. Would be worth changing gradually to a different brand to see if this helps at all

Here is a list of some better quality complete dry food
http://staffy-bull-terrier.com/dry_food

Wow, that could make a difference? I shall have a look!

It certainly can a huge difference, just make sure if you swap do it gradually over 2 weeks to void any upset tummies

The food could certainly be contributing to this behaviour especially as you've noticed it happens after dinner.

When you are out walking and doing your training, try to get her to focus on you with a strong command word and gesture using high value treats. Once you have this coming along nicely use the same word/gesture to get her to focus on you in the home. If she's expecting the same tasty treat she should stop.

I can only agree with Innez about changing her food. The likes of pedigree, bakers, chum, butchers, chappie and lots of others, use a lot of flavourings and such like to make your dog like it. It's a bit like fast food for dogs. Personally, if they sell it at the corner shop, don't feed your dog it.
Don't get me wrong, I know we all have a budget, and we don't  feed our pup the best food we could afford. We decided on James Wellbeloved ocean fish, not the best but far from the worst and we found this web site very helpful
http://www.dog-food-review.co.uk/pet_food_review.htm#.VA4BWctwbqA

Another thing you should also think about is treats. We only give natural treats or her kibble.
I'm not saying changing the diet will end all your problems but I  really do think that it will go a long way.
Pete

Try being very firm, and alot of walking, maybe even adult classes?, also toys to redirect him, you do want to try to nip it in the bud, because not all dogs grow out of it, and it cansometimes escalate to other problems, I hope things work out for you

Thanks guys, I feel silly for not realising food may be the culprit, so I appreciate all the advice.
I'm going to try some fish4dogs as has good reviews, and they have training treats a available too. Right now I'm
Using waggies and bakers (broken up into small bits), cheese, and bacon.
I try to be firm always when needed, but she tends to ignore me or barks at me. It seems to make her more excited, so I'm trying to keep calm, even when my ankles hurt from the biting!
I'll keep you posted on the new diet, and we'll see how things go. I don't want to give up on her!

Have a watch here for some ideas too. I know its for puppies but may help.

Ah yes, love Zak! I've watched this vid a few times!

Yes I think he is great, I've used a few of his techniques with Nita. Glad you found it before

Just to report, I've got a big bag of fish4dogs dry food, and dried sprats for training treats... which have gone down a storm. I'll try to ween her off Pedigree Chum over the next couple of weeks, and see how we go. Fingers crossed!

On a side note, I hid some sprats round the garden so she could entertain herself trying to find them. While she was doing that, I thought id get the garden hose out to water the brown wee patches on the grass, and before I know it, she's going crazy trying to chase the spray! I think we have a new game ladies and gentleman ^_^

goldiloks wrote:Thanks guys, I feel silly for not realising food may be the culprit, so I appreciate all the advice.
I'm going to try some fish4dogs as has good reviews, and they have training treats a available too. Right now I'm
Using waggies and bakers (broken up into small bits), cheese, and bacon.
I try to be firm always when needed, but she tends to ignore me or barks at me. It seems to make her more excited, so I'm trying to keep calm, even when my ankles hurt from the biting!
I'll keep you posted on the new diet, and we'll see how things go. I don't want to give up on her!

Please stop the waggies and defo the Bakers also these are full of additives which wont help the hyperness

Thats so good to know, thanks! Gosh it is amazing how much we don't know when we enter into this doggie world!

So glad you are giving the food change a go I am absolutely positive it will make a huge difference. Bakers is rank lol! Will be popping here to see how its going along with the training treats and great to play games ie your hiding treats as its great mental stimulation, along with plenty of exercise you will have a different dog xx

This is the site i use when thinking about food and treats, really thorough.
http://www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk/the-dog-food-directory

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. I am home with her all day as I'm freelance, and it really does feel like I'm alone with this, so it's nice to have a few people I can speak with about such matters.

We just had another case of zoomies, with barking and growling. I kept my distance this time, lol. Hopefully its out of her system now and she can settle down for a nice long dog nap!

I have this 100 mile an hour dash beaus back goes down and off she goes just runs in to every thING and everyone she doesn't snap or bite and we have herd her bark twice and she's 13 months old does any of your dog's not bark !

I think most staffies do this 5 minutes of madness
But yea put him in a room let him back in and if he is calm give him a treat so he knows that's what you want him to do.
You could also tell him to sit and do some training when he gets over excited to distract him from running around and biting.

Hi guys,

I just wanted to give you a little update on the mouthing / zoomies, now that we've had our girl for over 3 months.

We changed her over from Pedigree Chum dry food to Fish4Dogs Finest Salmon, and swapped Bakers biscuit treats for F4D superstar training treats, Sea Jerky and dried sprats. (yes, we got a fish thing going on, lol)

I had a very trying first month with her, but now she is settled and calm, its like having a completely new dog. She doesn't bite me any more (unless I get her all hyped - my fault, not hers), and zoomies occur about once a fortnight.

I just wanted to post this to give other owners a bit of encouragement! I didn't ever think her behaviour would change, but it has, and although she has has to settle in (and probably still is to a certain degree), I really do think a change in food and treats has made a big difference.

We'll be switching her to Millie's Wolfheart Salmon & Veg soon, as it is a little cheaper for us, but I shall report back if any behavioural changes occur

Thanks again, guys! <3

Over the moon for you.