teething puppy?

[WaterBearer]

I have a jack russell puppy who is 4 1/2 months old, he is chewing everything including me, and i wondered at what age they loose their teeth for there main set of teeth? I was also wondering when he will start to **** his leg as he is  crouching when he wees??

                           Thanx...

     

[Eels]

He is probably teething just now - try giving him chilled carrots to chew on.  He'll probably start cocking his leg when he's 6-8 months but it's variable.

[Kimmiebear]

Some dogs never learn to lift there legs to pee. Both my great dane and my mastiff still squat because they modelled themselves after the cocker spanial bitch i had at the time. Since the great dane is a guard dog (personal protector) , we didn't bother to give him a male role model and he never learned. Saves the trees anyways. As for loosing teeth, i seem to recall that most if not all of his teething should be done by 8 months. I lost a pair of blue clogs to teething last time around.... Make sure that your pup knows that it is not ok to chew on you. Although it is cute and doesn't hurt now, he needs to know that his mouth should never touch your skin. Nipping can be a hard habit to break.

[drgnrdr]

Both of the above answers are right on. As far as chewing, most dogs will chew pretty regularly until they are 2 yrs old, but at certain times they chew big time. Dogs lose their baby teeth around 4 to 6 months old,when the adult teeth start pushing thru, (aprox. 26 baby teeth to 42-46 adult teeth), and they come in loose, due to the fact that the jaw is not adult size yet. They have to chew, you can get rope toys and when my dog was young I bought 2, one for play and chew and the other when she was in the kitchen (tile floor), I took one and soaked it in water (if they want flavor add low sodium/low fat chicken broth to water and soak it in that) and FREEZE  the rope. It's like a big teething ring. I used the big white ones (color: was afraid would stain), some people use hand towels (do same thing soak and freeze) but I didn't want my dog to grab any old towel & think it was toy for her also. Also carrots have sugar in them a vet told me once, so moderation, try Ice Cubes also. Hiking leg up is a learned behavior, my girl (GSD) has a GSD playmate almost 1 yr old he still squats, but they go to the dog park and I'm sure he will learn soon from other males in park. Since you didn't ask how to train him to stop biting YOU I assume you are working on that on your own, if you need help on that front let me know...Kimmiebear is correct:  biting human skin shouldn't become a habit.

[WaterBearer]

Thankyou all for all your replies im sure they will come in handy, if you have any tips on biting anything would help!! At the moment i just look into his eyes and give a stern 'no' and ignore him.He is a very intelligent dog as he gives me his paw and sits on command he is nearly house trained (fully) he mostly bites when the house is full of people and he is overwhelmed and strangley enough when i am putting on and taking off his lead........???  crazy dog.            thanx again

[drgnrdr]

Ok, let's see where do I begin. If the stern "no" is working okay but they learn better if when they bite you issue a high pitch "OUCH" like a wounded puppy, and stop all attention , walk away- game ends, for about 20-30 seconds. Then come back, get a toy and put that in their mouth and PRAISE them for chewing on that. From now on get toy, and pet and praise them until they start to esculate to their chewing towards your hand, if they nip you GAME ENDS with a "OUCH" (high pitch, I know it's hard for guys to sound this way, if you have this problem then get a deep torturous hound bay and use that pitch see if it works) and put the toy down on floor and walk away for 20 seconds, ignore dog, then try again. As for leash make him sit  for walks, if he likes to go for walks then he needs to do for you, then he gets what he wants, put leash up and walk away, if he doesn't do what you want,  for only 20 seconds, then try again. Be consistent don't let him get away with it even once, if he does he will learn if he persist you will give up. As for company all attention stops and he gets ignored, except if he sits, only gets pets and praise when he sits for it, put some tasty cookies or biscuits next to door and tell people, MY DOG IS IN TRAINING. Then he gets cookie if he sits, if not they are to ignore him until he does. You can set up a training session by getting people  to volunteer to be "visitor" and keep going in and out and he sits each time person comes in. Let us know how it goes, you must be consistent in this, the habit of nipping and going after others will be harder to break once a dog gets older just because it becomes a habit. Most habits are hard to break, I know, I quite smoking after 21 yrs. Hope this helps...