Bad things Max does

[Scrapper's Mom]

Good luck with Max. That sounds like completely normal Boxer puppy behavior - I think sometimes when an older dog passes, and it's been a long time since there's been a puppy in the house, we can forget how really active and even destructive they can be. After my aging (14 and 13 years old) dogs passed, bringing baby Scrapper into our home definitely was a change. And in general, IMO, it takes about two years to get a dog from puppyhood into maturity, where they have some "streetsmarts" and are more settled.

 

[Lillum]

Hi Scrappers Mom, Thanks for the encouragement, I see I only have 1 1/2 years to go:rolleyes: Except for the chewing on everything and not wanting to adapt to the lead, he is a very good pup with a lot of personality. He will actually walk beside me when I tell him to heal and slap my leg without a lead but when the lead is on, he tugs on it and wants to roll on the ground and wrestle with it. I tried the harness, but it kept shifting and one of the straps was rubbing under his front leg and getting it red. It was hard to adjust the harness to fit just right without shifting out of place.

But I am very patient and will keep trying things. Now I am just attaching a chain lead to his collar and letting him drag it around in the house to get use to it being on. I take it off when he goes out in the yard, don't want it catching on something and getting him hurt.

 

[ssmiller]

Hello to Max's Mom Lillum,
Your babys birthday must be close to ours. Max's b'day is July 2, 2003. Our Max does the thing with the tooth also. We call it "he's giving us the Elvis". Why? I don't know. This started with our 1st boxer.
Max has plenty of toys and chewies handed down from the 1st one (I could never bring myself to put them away after he died) but he does get bored quickly and needs to move on to something else. He is very hard on his toys and I have had to throw away some because of him chewing them apart. Regarding the bitter apple, it doesn't work on our Max, he actually likes it. There is a spot on the carpet in our bedroom where our 1st boxer passed away. Max is constantly pulling and chewing on this spot. I keep spraying the bitter apple on it but it doesn't work. I even tried tasting it myself and the stuff is awful!!! I think the problem will be solved when I get new carpeting installed this coming year.

Hello to Mom2Lola,
Regarding the garbage can, we keep ours in the mudroom so Max can't get to it. Since we have had boxers, it has been kept in a separate room. It is alittle inconvienent but sure beats cleaning up garbage all the time and worrying what was in it that Max ate (bones, paper, etc).

Thanks to both of you for the info. We all love our babies and just need to have alot of patience and guidance for them until they "grow up" into adults. Its a challange but well worth the end result.
Max's Mom Sandy