Hi Rita, and welcome to Boxerworld
Shelby sounds so cute even if she does use you as a chew toy! At least she is a perfectly normal puppy - they can drive you a little crazy at times. There are a lot of previous threads on biting and crate training on the forums. Click here to search
http://www.boxerworld.com/forums/search.php? and type in biting or crate where is says 'Search by Keyword' - you might like to search just the behavior forums, but you can do a full board search as well.
There is some good info on puppy chewing and biting here
http://boxerworld.com/links/Training_and_Behavior/Puppy_Biting_and_Chewing/
In the meantime the following might help (copied from previous threads).
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Extract from
"Culture Clash" by Jean Donaldson (thanks to Tulsa-Dan for painstakingly typing this out a while ago for another thread
):
"Dogs are animals who are able to kill, tear apart carcasses and crack bone with their jaws. They are also highly social. IF they are to live among others with this kind of weaponry as standard issue, they need some means of preventing serious injury to each other during altercations. This is where ritualization comes in. A key ingredient to ritualized aggression is bite inhibition. Dogs are not born with soft mouths, but they are wired up to easily acquire the ability to bite softly, if conditions are right. The right conditions means: plenty of feedback about bite strength. To ensure that puppies get plenty of feedback about bite strength, nature has made puppies into veritable biting machines with needle-like teeth. Normal puppies can and should play-bite continually in social interactions. Play is an extremely interesting behavior. In encompasses rehearsal, bonding, opportunities for feedback and sheer fun. Of high concern to dog owners is the fact that puppies are removed from their litters early in life and often placed in a relative social vacuum. This is greatly compounded if the puppy is forbidden from play-biting its owners.
Supressing puppy biting too early means the puppy doesn't get the repeated doses of feedback on his jaw strength; the puppy grows up with a hard mouth. This is a serious squandering of a critical line of defense against dog bites.
So, smart puppy owners allow some puppy biting in order to give the puppy information on his own strength. Puppy biting is such a valuable thing, in fact, that puppies who do not play bite should be actively encouraged to do so in order to develop a soft mouth. Start off by targeting harder bites. Let the puppy chomp away on your hands, and monitor the level of pressure. Although puppy teeth are sharp, puppy jaws are undeveloped, so this will not be unbearable. As soon as the puppy bears down a little harder, screech "OUCH!" as though it hurt much more than it did, look at the puppy like he's a little ax-murderer and leve the room for a minute or two. This time-out is a clear refusal to play consequence with the "OUCH!" as the condititoned stimulus. Many puppies also have an innate understanding of the screech, making the system work even better. After the minute or two has passed, return and resume play. He may be more prudent temporarily and he may not. Be prepared to repeat this procedure over and over, so the trend emerges. Puppy learns that if puppy bites too hard, puppy plays by himself."
Dunbar also offers some good thoughts on this:
Puppy Biting - More Than Bad Manners
by Ian Dunbar PhD, MSVC
Puppies bite and thank goodness they do! Puppy biting is essential for your puppy to develop a soft mouth. Puppy biting seldom causes appreciable harm, but many bites are painful and elicit reaction. The pup learns, its jaws can hurt and therefore, begins to inhibit the force of its biting before it acquires the formidable teeth and strong jaws of an adolescent.
Completely curtailing puppy biting may offer immediate relief, but the puppy will not have sufficient opportunity to learn that its jaws may inflict pain. Consequently, if ever provoked as an adult, the resultant bite is likely to be a hard one, Certainly puppy biting must be controlled but only in a progressive and systematic manner, whereby the pup is first taught to inhibit the force of its bites, before puppy biting is forbidden altogether. Once the puppy develops a soft mouth, there is plenty of time to inhibit the frequency of its now gentler mouthing.
It is not necessary to hurt, frighten, or punish the pup to teach it biting hurts. A simple "Ouch!" is sufficient. If your pup acknowledges the 'ouch' and desists, praise and resume playing, but in a calmer fashion. If your pup ignores the 'ouch', emphasize "OUCH!!" and leave the room. Your puppy has lost its playmate. Return after one or two minutes time-out and make up by having your puppy come, sit and calm down before resuming play.
Once your pup's biting no longer hurts, still pretend it does. Greet harder nips with a yelp of pseudo-pain. Your puppy will soon to get the idea, "Whooahh! These humans are super-sensitive. I'll have to be much more gentle." The pressure of your puppy's bites will progressively decrease until biting becomes mouthing, or slobbering.
NEVER allow your puppy to mouth human hair or clothing. Hair and clothing can feel neither pressure nor pain. Consequently, allowing a pup to mouth hair, scarves, shoe laces, or gloved hands etc., inadvertently trains the pup to bite harder, extremely dose to human flesh!
Once your pup exerts no pressure whatsoever when mouthing, then and only then, teach the pup to reduce the frequency of mouthing. Teach the meaning of "Off" by hand feeding kibble (see the SIRIUS Puppy Training video), so your pup may learn gentle mouthing is OK, but it must stop the instant you say "Off" At this stage, your puppy should never be allowed to initiate mouthing (unless requested to do so). Please refer to our Preventing Aggression booklet for a detailed description of the essential rules for bite inhibition exercises such as play-fighting and tug o'war.
By way of encouragement though, mouthing-maniac puppies generally develop exceedingly gentle jaws as adults, since their many painful bites have elicited ample appropriate feedback. On the other hand, puppies which seldom play and roughhouse with other dogs, puppies which seldom bite their owners (e.g., shy, or fearful pups), and/or breeds which have been bred to have soft mouths, may not receive sufficient feedback concerning the power of their jaws. This is the major reason puppy class instructors go to great lengths to encourage shy and standoffish dogs to play in class. Should a dog ever bite as an adult, both the prognosis for rehabilitation and the fate of the dog are almost always decided by the severity of the injury, which is predetermined by the level of bite inhibition the dog learned during puppy hood. The most important survival lesson for a puppy to learn is: Bites cause pain ! And of course, the pup can only learn this lesson, if it bites, and if the bitee gives appropriate feedback.
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Regarding the barking - where abouts and when is she crated exactly?
Looking forward to hearing more about Shelby
