Hello everyone,
My wife and I have a 5 month old Golden Retriever boy, who is excellent 95% of the time! The remaining 5% can be painfully frustrating, especially since we know he understands what he is doing is wrong (more on this in a moment). As a little background, he has been almost through an entire puppy obedience course (we finish in a couple weeks), has plenty of toys around the house, gets lots of attention, and has between 1.5 and 3 hours of walk/exercise time a day outside away from the house. He is currently teething (and losing a lot of puppy teeth!), and also seems to be beginning to understand his hormones are starting! He is very socialized to people and other dogs, and is almost always an "excellent" puppy when meeting new people (no biting, but sometimes jumping up). He has no phobia with us against food, toys, touching him (like ears, paws, etc) - he's even learned what a bath is and jumps in the tub on his own! He also is excellent on the leash, and understands several commands that can get him moving or identifying the world around him (come, heel, wait, look at me, look over there, listen, smell - though he doesn't always want to go/listen to them).
I would not consider him an aggressive dog, but I think he definitely has aggressive tendencies that have been around since we got him at 8 weeks (he was very bitey when we got him from the breeder). The problems are happening when there is something that he wants to do, but we tell him "no" (but only 5% of the time; the same situation/command earlier or later could have a totally different outcome). It's almost like that word gives him the largest chip on his shoulder and he just wants to be sassy right back. His sass is in the form of biting our clothing, and sometimes moving to nip at the hands or feet. He bites, but not hard enough to draw blood (we taught him biting was bad early on). Other times, it'll seem like he's just decided to start biting us because we are in the room and his toys aren't interesting him any more (his tail is up and somewhat wagging, so we've been told it's playful, though still inappropriate). We've tried so many different techniques from so many different people, but nothing seems to get him to want to kick the habit. Giving him toys when he's biting us sometimes worked, but not for long. Yelping seems to get him more fired up. Saying "no" further (no bite as well), and leaving his area with our backs turned to him seems to have the best effect - he'll lay down and become calm (even whine a little sometimes), but even after several minutes it's a 50/50 spread as to what he'll be like when we go back in the room - good or bitey. It almost seems like he's bipolar sometimes since he can be nice and laying at your feet one moment, and then trying to eat a hole in your pants the next! And the aggressive fit ends just as quick as is starts a lot of times.
So, aside from so many other questions I plan to have, I think my main question is, "Why does he want to bite us?!" What should we do to stop it? Does it have anything to do with A) he being a puppy, or B) he's teething? Is there something we are doing incorrectly? He listens so well during that 95% time-streak... what is going on during the other times? And then, most importantly, will he move out of this as he gets older? I can deal with it if I know he's going to be alright mentally and he stops this later on (like after teething or neutering).
My wife and I are just really at a loss with what to do next because we want to make the right decisions now for him later on. We are really hoping to have a wonderful family dog (he is our child right now), and are glad to do what is necessary for him to be the best he can be. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
