Hi there! My Fiance and I just brought home our two month old Cavachon Alice and she is just adorable! I found this website before we brought her home and I have found it very helpful so thank you for that. So far she is settling in nicely, she’s been home for a week and has done pretty good with housebreaking. We bring her outside to the same spot several times a day and she does her business almost immediately. Theres been a few accidents but that is to be expected. I know she is a puppy and this is to be expected, but she is really nibbling on our hands quite a bit, sometimes to the point where we can’t even put our hands near her. We tell her no, take our hands away, and put a toy in her mouth and that works sometimes. I know she is playing but I’m worried to bring her around kids for fear that she will get too rough with them. I don’t want to keep her away from young kids because I want her to get comfortable with them!

I guess basically what I’m asking is when do they typically stop that habit? She is the first puppy for my Fiance and I and we just would like to see a light at the end of the tunnel! Also, she gets pretty bad tear stains on her eyes. We were told to rub that area with a wash cloth which we have been doing but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. Any advice? Thank you again for this great site.

Thanks,

J.

Hi J.,

Puppies are tough to raise and it gets very frustrating at times. You are doing the right thing with her biting though. The only thing I would add is to give her a very stern, sharp “NO BITE” at the same time you are distracting her from biting you with putting the toy in her mouth. They hate feeling they have displeased you as well as being startled. If you can get her interested in a rubber type chew toy, that would be good. She is biting so much because she is teething. That will go on for a few months, but she can still learn that she cannot bite people, only toys. Praise her if she starts biting the toy instead of you. You also have to make sure that your guests do not let her bit them. Often times they do because it does not really hurt. If they let her, though, she will be getting a mixed message. If the distraction does not work, separate her from everyone (just for a short time) and that will also help her to get the message. To this day, once we got through that stage, Kasey has never chewed any socks, shoes, furniture, or anything else he was not supposed to. He does however destroy his stuffed toys. Oh well, I’ll take that over the other things!

As far as Alice being around little kids, explain to them that Alice is a baby and sometimes she likes to chew on hands a little bit. You are working very hard to teach her that that is not OK, but in the meantime they should be careful not to put their hands by her mouth. You don’t want to scare them, yet you do have to warn them and let them know it is just because she is so young. I would suggest holding Alice while she is being introduced to kids and holding a toy by her mouth as well. Kasey was always good around kids like he automatically knew better, but you cannot trust that and I never did. It is funny, because he never jumped up on little children but still jumps on “big people” to this day. We are still working on that……..again, part of the problem is that people let him. Even though I say I don’t want him to, they’ll always say “Oh, it’s OK.”

Lastly, the tear staining. I have never heard that just wiping with a wet washcloth would work and I don’t think it would. I have heard that wiping around their eyes with distilled water helps, but, honestly, I did not have luck with that (I used a cotton ball.) It is cheap, and worth a try. I did resort to buying the “Angel’s Eyes” and that worked for us. I hated giving him an additive like that, but I had checked with our vet first and he said it was OK. When Kasey was about a year or so old, he seemed to have grown out of getting the tear stains.

Hope all of this helps!

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