Confessions of a First Time Dog Owner

Sometimes I'm really genuinely scared that I'm going to screw my dog up---and not in a having bad manners by jumping up on people sort of way (which he is well on his way to right now) but in the I'm going to let serious behavior problems develop because I don't know what to do about them sort of way.

There are several examples of this. Zim resource guards a tiny bit. He also sometimes will just suddenly growl-bark toward your face in a sort of snappy way. I actually got bit this way earlier today. Now, I think he was going for my hair (he likes to chew on hair) but I'm honestly not sure and it's the not knowing that sort of freaks me out. Sometimes I really just don't know what's going on in his little head. Is this a temper tantrum that should be gently but firmly curbed? Is he trying to play and thus just needs to be shown that playing like that is unacceptable? Is this some sort of aggression that needs to be dealt with? Frankly, I don't really think it's the latter but I do sometimes wonder. What if this is something serious that I'm missing because I have no frame of reference for what "normal" puppy behavior is---normal Shiba puppy behavior, which is high idiosyncratic because Shibas just aren't a normal dog breed.

So what do I do? Well, for now Fathead and I have resolved to keep trucking along. We've been trying to teach him "give" and I think we're starting to get somewhere and as far as the other stuff goes, we're just trying not to encourage any bad behavior. If he barks instead of doing the trick asked for, the food goes away. He barks at me when he's near me, then either he or I goes away. Hell, maybe I should start putting him in time out in the bathroom when he does that. I'll have to mull the last one over. On the one hand, it's where we keep him at night so having bad associations with it isn't something I want---on the other hand he seems to have grown to hate it where he was fine with it at first so I really wonder if that can make it any worse.

Do puppies go through an ornery stage at 3 months? I know there's adolescence but I feel like I'm getting some of that now. Is it a stage? Is it that he's finally settled into to being in a new place and now feels free to be a brat and try and run the show?

Either way, only thing to do is to keep doing my best. Really, he's kind of a dream of a puppy. He certainly isn't the "terrorist" that I've sometimes heard Shiba puppies described as. It's just little bouts of unpleasantness. He'll probably grow out of a lot of it (or he'll respond to our training) and will turn into a very nice adult dog.