Puppies and Punishment

I was playing a game of chase with Zuni in the living room and she was having a blast, tearing around with her peanut toy in her mouth and playing keep away. She jumped up on the couch and I came up to her on hands and knees, preparing to do the "gotcha" part of the game and then have her chase me and the toy. At that moment though, I saw her body languange change. She froze for a moment, stiffened, backed into the corner and rolled on her back, mouth clamped down on her nut, not wanting to give it up but at the same she was very frightened that I was angry. I've seen this in dogs before and it breaks my heart every time it comes up.

Zuni is a typical teething puppy - everything goes into her mouth. That means it is the humans in her home's job to clean up after themselves and not leave anything within puppy reach that they don't want destroyed. For some reason though, people just don't seem to understand that these babies aren't born with a list in their brain of what they can and can't chew on. So they grab the leather shoe or a childs favorite doll and off they go for a good chew. Often a chase can ensue with the human getting more and more frustrated and the end result can be very bad behavior on the human's part.

Someone has cornered this gal and taken things from her and then punished her. Of course she had no clue why she was being punished, just that her human has inexplicably become loud and scary again.

Yelling, shaking, nose flicking, smacking, or pinning a pup to the ground is not training. It's bullying, it's detrimental, and most importantly it is just plain wrong.

In this case I waited until Zuni's body language started to relax a bit, and then I just gently stroked her belly while she held her peanut in her mouth. Eventually she relaxed and realized I wouldn't take her toy if she wanted to hang onto it. She got a massage while she chewed and then, realizing that nothing scary was going to happen, it was game on again and off she went tearing around the room with her beloved peanut.