Looking for Training advice for my 11 week old puppy
im a first time dog owner and got him around 8 weeks old. He knows the commands ’Sit, lay down, come, paw.’ he’s almost 12 weeks old and getting his next vaccination. he doesn’t have a crate/ play pen because we are waiting for our family member to pass down these items. So he’s been pretty free, though the first two weeks he was strictly downstairs. till my uncle taught him how to come upstairs so he knows to come up and down aswell as knowing where to pee and poop though he has a few accidents but not bad.
For the most part hes pretty good but he’s very curious and wants to chew on things he shouldn’t like under the sofa (which has some black fabric that rips so we’ve had to take it away from him a couple of times) he’s also tried to dig the baseboard (I think it’s called, it connects from the floor boards slightly to the wall) and was eating the residue. hes only tried to get my wires a couple of times Surprisingly.
I know this is a stage of teething so we have frozen washcloths and frozen carrots, we often give him that if he’s going crazy. But the issues I’m worried about mostly are resource guarding, biting and only listening when he wants to.
Resource guarding: as I’ve mentioned he’s got a lot of freedom so the first few times he came upstairs he’s taken a liking to socks from the laundry basket and …underwear. Im pretty sure he knows he’s not supposed to have it since he darts off when he’s gotten it. I often have to do the trading method with a treat and have been teaching him “drop/drop it” which is somewhat successful. but when he hides and sits down he does that low growl that indicates resource guarding I believe and don’t want this to be a bad habit in the future. He’s also vomited kibble in a few long logs before and he guards it. I swear that’s the most possessive I’ve seen him. but after the items are taken away , he’s always back to normal.
biting: I know it’s normal for puppys to nibble and hes not biting down , but oh boy his teeth hurt 🥹 Ive searched up a few things like trading, pushing them back firmly, putting your hand in their mouth and if they gnaw push your hand down , or a method where you ”pop the grape” but I have no clue how to do that. hes gotten better at doing it less however he has his moments where he doesn’t want toys he wants YOU. but the leaving the room method works well I’d say, but I’m wondering if theres something else I can do?
listening when he wants: I think this is normal Samoyed & puppy behaviour, but he normally listens to ”sit” “lay down” “paw” really well without needing a treat. however the command “come” and “stay” is 50/50. With stay, during feeding time I always get him to sit and stay which he’s really good at. But if I’m moving around the house and ask him to stay he’ll run off if I take my eyes off him or I’m taking more than 15 secs, but it’s not perfected and he’s doing well at it, though I’ve been doing leash/harness training with him and I definitely would rather him do commands all the time rather than not, YouTube videos don’t really have much Samoyed training videos but as I post this , I’m looking at more videos!
— bonus mention: bad habits:
as I’m a first time owner , despite research I feel clueless at times. I’ve also mentioned my uncle here who has a very oldschool way of Training His dogs. He talks of establishing dominance and scuffing them if they’re biting or doing something bad.
He mentioned this the first time he visited my puppy which was also around 8 weeks, and my older sister uses it alot when he’s got the laundry. However I have two issues with this. 1. A few sources have said samoyeds or even any dogs don’t do well with this type of authority and it does more harm than good. 2. I’m a teenage girl who is on the shyer side and I personally have had issues with this same kind of teaching method growing up so I dont agree with it. If there’s any more kinds of kinder correction methods people have found useful I’d really be grateful to know. I’ve also found it that this only works well with my uncle. My siblings and my mom dont have the same effect as him.
other than that, id really appreciate any other general advice, id really love to know! I want to love my puppy as best as I can and truly have good intentions.