[ZacAndLea]

This Saturday will be 2 weeks that we have had our little girl! It has definitely been a rollercoaster ride so far...

There are so many opinions online that it is slightly difficult to know what is correct! We are getting a feel for it but it has still been slightly frustrating/stressful.

Here is our predicament:

When we first brought our little girl home, she was 13 weeks old. She was an ANGEL for the first 5 days. She walked loosely on the lease. She didn't cry at night. She didn't bark. She went potty outside. Everything was great. Then things started to slowly change.

1. She started to not want to walk, so she would stop. We were easily able to lure her with food, but now that doens't really help. This morning she just layed down and wouldn't go anywhere. She at least peed, but that was it. I tried to lure her but it didn't matter. It is getting frustrating and I don't know what to do. Should I pull her (she is wearing a harness that doesn't touch her neck) so that she knows she is not in control of the walk? Or should I leave her to explore a little bit since she is still getting used to a new area? Could her paws be getting sore from walking about 1 hour (total) per day?

2. She learned how to bark at our first training session this past Saturday. Now she barks at various times throughout the day. I am somewhat ok (for now) with her barking when people are outside walking towards the house. She has challenged me a few times during play time as well, during those times I stand up, stop playing, click my fingers together and don't look at her. She sits there and calms down and realizes that I am serious. That only works inside and only if she isn't too excited. If we are outside and see other dogs she starts to bark. She doesn't pull or anything but I am unsure of how to get her to stop. I don't want to create and negative experience and I don't want to nurture any bad habits.

3. She nips at our fingers. When we are trying to put her collar and harness on in the morning, during playtime and when we are trying to clean/brush her at night before bed. We have made sure we don't pull our fingers out so it doesn't seem like we are playing. We typically grab one of her chew toys and replace our finger with the toy. This doesn't always work, especially after we get home from a walk and she is excited.


The good news is that she is still going potty outside and has been holding it overnight for the past few days until we go out in the morning.

We have listened to a lot of Cesar Millan before we got our pup, and we are going to clicker training for the next 5 weeks (once a week), which focuses on positive reinforcement only.

I basically am looking for a consensus - what worked for you? Is rewarding the positive ONLY a good technique, or have you found that there is a little room for correction (such as Cesar's "CH" sound and a LIGHT touch to "snap" her out of it [which honestly hasn't seemed to work]). We really don't want to let something go thinking that we can address it later and have her get spoiled, while we also don't want to go crazy and forget to enjoy our pup!