Dutch Shepherd Forum

so we just got a 11 week old dutchie. have had him for a week now. when we leave the house we kennel all our dogs and do not let them be unsupervised. however when we let Loki ( our dutch) out of the kennel he goes ballistic he jumps up and bites the hell out of our legs. but this is the only time he displays this behavior. once we finally get him outside and play with him a little bit he settles down and wont do it again the rest of the day. its like hes trying to punish us for putting him in his kennel. when hes doing this we try giving him tugs or toys instead for him to chew on or play with and he just totally ignores them and only focuses on biting us. we try to grab him before he latches on and tell him down and put all 4 paws back on the ground but he just jumps straight back up. not sure what to do or how to fix this because its like hes lost his mind and wont listen to anything while hes in this state. it lasts usually about 2 minutes till he will finally start playing and using the leather rag to bite instead of us

Is kennel time only when you're away?

He needs to have more structure around kennel time.

Make in and out a routine of training. It doesn't have to be complex. Simple place training EVERY time he goes to kennel is one way to solve this.

Please keep in mind, he's a baby. He cannot control his impulses like an adult dog. Also, he's excited to see you when you return. Adding in structure is good as Michael suggested but don't push for adult behaviors out of a 12 week old baby.

Yep. All of that. You have to figure out how to break the cycle before it's ingrained. Like Michael said, make going into the crate, going into the crate and closing the door, opening the door and staying in the crate- make that all part of a daily training regimen and I'll bet your see some results quickly. But also, don't expect too much, and don't expect a behavior learned and displayed once or twice to be displayed every time. It's a puppy. Stick with it though, and it's all worth it!