To his owner, It's like having Freddie Krueger in the house. You can hear shrieks of terror when the two of them are together. He's got her enslaved. She's afraid to go near him, to walk past him, to touch him... But he seems like a normal puppy to me so far. Mom has had a bad experience somewhere along the way, and Ninja's presence is a psychological trigger for instant torment. By the way, he's 12 weeks old. And maybe 10 pounds. He's been reported to lunge, constantly bite, and viciously bark at people. His other issues are chewing paper, plastic, fabric and wood. They were wanting reassurance that Ninja wouldn't kill the family in their sleep. I gave just that. At most he may have some corrective behaviors, but none were shown upon evaluation.

We started with puppy handling exercises alpha roll restraint, so that Mom could get some confidence and control. She was nervous at first, especially when he let out a growl from being moved, but we made her hold on to him, even though her brain was yelling, "fleeeeee!" She had the assignment of restraining him at least 3 times a day, for 5 minutes at a clip, not letting him free until he was calm and submissive. We figured out that she interpreted Ninja's barking as a warrior cry, signifying that a mauling was brewing and was about to be let loose on her. It turns out that he uses barking and other vocalizations as one of his primary methods of getting attention. A few days after this meeting, I got a call from Ninja's mom, stating that she was on the way to the doctor because he had bitten her finger when she was trying to get a chocolate bar wrapper away from him. I didn't want to assume that he was object possessive or just being mouthy. Only time will tell, unfortunately....