Puppies' Behavior & Personalities - How to Make the Most of Your Relationship

Puppies are like children – they don’t just differ in shape and size, but also in their personality or predisposition. The easiest way to start making sure you and your puppy can have a pretty peaceful coexistence, is to pick the breed that most suits your own personality – and then go from there.

But puppies behavior is not only defined by their breed – you’ll have a large part to play in shaping that personality into something you can live with. So here is a short list of the main puppies’ behavior problems you are likely to encounter as a dog owner. Be prepared to deal with each hurdle, be patient, and you’ll be rewarded with endless love, fun and hopefully a few obedience tricks you can use to impress your family with.

1. Nipping – this is a natural phase puppies go through – it is meant as a game, but sometimes it can be painful, and frankly if not addressed in the beginning can turn into biting and so on. When this occurs in nature – the mother teaches the puppy not to do it. But if your puppy came to you earlier, and his mom didn’t teach him not to nip – you’d have to deal with this.

2. Excessive Chewing – This is a common behavior trait of a dog. Teething is to babies as chewing is to dogs. Dogs can’t help it, they chew on everything in sight because their gums become itchy. Unfortunately there’s no telling if your puppy will ever grow out of it, so you’re better off instilling some rules in that department. A word of advice – instead of trying to stop this behavior you’re likely to be more successful at diverting all chewing to your puppy’s own chew toys.

3. Compulsive Barking – Barking is a very normal dog behavior, but it can strain your relationship if your puppy is barking day and night for what seems to be forever. Excessive barking can mean that your dog wants your attention, he’s hungry, ill, or that he feels you or him are in danger.

The best way to decide on a solution is to first decide on what’s the cause. Check what’s bothering him. If he’s hungry or ill, deal with that in the obvious way. If however, he’s barking to get your attention, you need to apply a few training techniques to end this puppy behavior once and for all.

4. Coprophagy – This somewhat common puppies behavior of eating their own (or other animals’) feces may be caused either, boredom, lack of sufficient nutrients in his diet, or stress. This is a hard habit to break and can lead to other sickness if you do not stop him from doing it early on.

Check that you’re feeding him the right type and quantity of food (your vet can help with this). If that’s ok, the next step will be to address his boredom, and stress. If he still persists, you’ll need to take him to the vet for further help.

Puppies behavior can vary greatly, depending on above all, how you treat and take care of him. The key to having a peaceful relationship with your dog is to treat him with love, consistency and care.