my dog is becoming fearful of me

[The Kira]

I got a cockapoo puppy for Christmas, and you wont believe how happy i was. I have been asking for one for the fifteen years of my life.
everything was going great at first, but now things are getting worse and worse. he bites to the point where i bleed, he shits all over the place, when i know he knows he is doing wrong, because he used to always ALWAYS go on housepads. he is still very small, three months, and i cant take him out because there is snow up to my knees every day.
but recently the biting has gotten so bad that i dont know what to do. occasionally i scream at him, but he only acts more agressive. i have tried caging him as punishment, but as soon as I let him out he becomes more agressive.
i really dont know what to do. i really love him alot. I give him all of my attention, we play all the time, and my mom plays with him too.
but i am even beginning to regret getting him
and because I get fo frustrated, i scream at him and he is becoming fearful of me, and that breaks my heart, because i am the only one who takes care of him.
today he as acting out extra bad and i kept scolding and scolding him, but he was simply ignoring me. and after some time I was so furious that I just stopped myself from throwing him accoss the room.
I dont want to seem like some kind of monster, I love him more then anything in the world, but I am so frustrated and angry!
what can i do???

[Discombobulated]

He's only young and will probably grow out of a lot of what you have said. Maybe try scolding him in different way and see what is effective. Pets can always be frustrating and you just have to wait it out until they are past the stage. Ask you mom for some help if he gets too bad.
:-)

[TheBabyEater]

Try to remember that he is still in that puppy stage, most definitely. He's purposely acting out to see how much he can get away with, and when you get mad at him, he'll get mad back just to prove his dominance over you. Try using more positivity to praise him while he's good, instead of negativity when he's bad. I know it's hard when your dog just ignores you while you're trying to raise him to be right, the same happens to me when I'm trying to get my dogs to come inside and they refuse to.

When it comes to biting, here is what's always worked for me. When he bites you, grab his nose and squeeze in so that his lips curl under his teeth. This way, he kind of bites himself and realized that it pretty much sucks. I also really think it might be a lot of pent up aggression, adrenaline, and just too much energy. Try to help him with this every day by running him. Not necessarily outside in the winter, as I'm sure it's cold! But somehow, someway, get him to burn off all that puppy energy that is getting pent up. Even on Saturdays or something, when you have extra time, put on a bunch of snow gear and go trudge the outside. Dogs LOVE the cold, mine do at least. He'll have a blast running around in the snow, and when you're all worn out and freezing half to death, go inside and have a nice hot chocolate cuddling with him.

Also, when you're playing with him or petting him, try putting a toy in his mouth to see if that helps. My Labrador did it one day, and she's been doing it since to keep from mouthing and biting us. ALSO, when you're feeding him, make sure he KNOWS you're feeding him. If you can, eat before him and in front of him. Or at least pretend to be eating his food or something. It will show your dominance over him, and he'll realize where his food, water, and shelter is coming from.

You may want to enroll your dog in obedience classes at Petsmart or something, they tend to do a great job there when I took my dogs. They have different classes too, from puppies, to general training, to advanced, and even aggressive dogs I think. I don't want to say he'll just "grow out of it" because if he isn't taught right, he may end up biting someone else, which could potentially get him put down.

Good luck!

[The Kira]

Thank you so much, that was very helpful

[WillO'Wisp]

Maybe he just needs time to grow out of this stage. Whenever he gets aggresive, just don't play with him and ignore him. Let him know you're not going to acknowledge him with that kind of behavior. I have a bird who plucks himself when I don't pay attention to him and makes these little screams. I ignore him because he needs to know I won't acknowledge that type of behavior. They need to know they can't get everything they want and YOU are the master in the house.
If he continues to act aggresive get a dog trainer or get him into some kind of therapy. They have that for animals.

[OMFG!You'reActuallySmart!]

I've helped train dogs including my own dogs.

3 month old puppies may do some teething and from what I've been told, they do it because having their teeth come out hurts them. You've also got to think though, the dog isn't human, dogs use a pack-like mentality. In these packs, the pups roll around and wrestle around. I'm not recommending you do this for him so instead, give him several toys he can play with. Also, in these packs, if the mother (you in this case) gets angry, she doesn't bark at her cubs. Instead, she picks them up by the scruff of the neckhair. If you do this to a dog, it will react right away but if you do it showing aggression, the dog may still react but it usually stops whatever it's doing. Unfortunately, if it's aggressive, as in a dog that will attack (yours isn't), you may get your face chomped off. For that reason, never do this when close to the dog's face. Also, staring at the dog when you're near him is a sign of a threat, so if you want to scold him or tell the dog to come yet you're glaring at his eyes, the dog's instinct may kick in which says to avoid or to attack. Most dogs pick the first however, some dogs pick the latter.

All barking does for them is hear you're doing a loud noise and perhaps may view it as playful. If you storm around and run or move fast, it's a chasing game. Try to train him and when he does something good, give him a fraction of a treat. I say fraction so you don't give him a whole puppy treat each time he obeys because all you end up with is you running out of treats and feeding your dog. You want him to just get a taste of the treat so it keeps inticing him but giving him a small piece so he knows you will give food but he must work to get it.

Keep potty training or house training him. Some dogs, like kids, will wet themselves when scared. They don't understand you're angry at them because of that. If you come into the room and you see a pile of poop on the floor so you yell at the puppy and point at the poop, you're not telling him pooping in the house is bad. You're telling him when you come in the room, he better hide otherwise you're going to hurt him. Once he's scared of you, in order to make him less fearful, you must be very very nice. At first this may confuse the dog because he'll have to re-learn that you coming into the room doesn't mean he's going to get hurt, rather it means you're going to play with him. Once the dog has re-learned this then try to keep being nice.

I recommend using a dog trainer and I say this because you're very inexperienced with a dog, and young dogs can be the hardest to train. If you know how to train dogs by yourself I'd say go for it but you have no experience so if you try, you may succeed but it'll go a lot harder. When I began getting one of my dogs trained then later as I helped train other dogs, I say a line that the first trainer said to me:

"You don't train the dog right away, you train the owner, then you train the dog".

[mint-eh]

What I learned doing the first semester of a vet assistant course is that as far as the biting goes, when he bites you yell "ow" really loud, even if it doesn't hurt. Also provide him lots of chew toys for him. Never play with him just using your hands or feet. And when he does bite and after you have yelled "ow" really loud, give him a chew toy to chew on. It might help. Try not to yell at him or spank him. It's negative punishment and doesn't always bring the best results.

As far as the potty training goes, I was taught that taking a puppy outside every three-four/five hours (yes, even throughout the night) can help. Tell them to go pee or whatever and when they do, give them tons of praises! Puppy pads are great for starting out with but it is good to show your dog that outside is better. I know that where is tons of snow outside right now (there is like ten feet snow banks where I am) but even if he goes on the deck/porch it is better than the house.

If you use a positive way of approaching your dogs' issues it will help in keeping the relationship positive as well. I hope that your puppy learns and don't regret getting a pet until you have tried everything. c: