[dlassell]

My boy Rookie is 4 months old and awesome the majority of the time, however, lately he's been testing me. I'm the one in our family who takes care of him the most along with the training, exercising, etc...:uhoh:
What he's been doing about twice a day, completely out of the blue, is he comes up to me growling, barking and snarling. I don't walk back, I usually walk towards him and try to get him to back down but he'll then nip at my legs/knees. Time outs help somewhat but I would really like to get at the bottom of what might be causing him to do this. Any suggestions?

 

[FlyingQuizini]

Why not give him an alternate behavior for which he can be praised?

"Eh eh! SIT! Good dog..." Also, I bet if you study it, it's not out of the blue. Look for common themes - time of day, after exercise, etc. and then when you can predict when it's likely to happen, get involved ahead of time and get him thinking about something else -- basic obedience, for example.

At 4 months, your pup is still a baby and you have (literally!) a couple years of solid training time ahead of you.