I brought Chase home that night. He was only six weeks old and I knew what to expect as far as him feeling lonely and whining. It's totally natural for a puppy to miss his litter mates so I fixed up a bed for him in a box I placed by my bed. I dangled my hand down to rub his ears until he went to sleep. He woke up periodically and whimpered and I would comfort him until he stopped and then I would drift off again. I didn't get a ton of sleep but I was ok with it.
The next night was more of the same and although I knew it probably wasn't a good idea to get him into the habit of sleeping in my bed, I let him knowing he would feel more comfortable and we both would get more sleep. It went on for a few days without incident, i.e. he didn't crap anywhere or piddle. I would get up first thing in the morning and let him out and he would do his thing so I was feeling pretty safe. One morning, very early in the morning, I was woken up by something so horrific it definitely reinforced my initial concerns with letting him sleep in my bed.
Puppies have monumental stages they go through in their developmental cycle that have a lot to do with their mouths and how they explore and figure out their surroundings. Being weened off their mother's milk and losing their teeth are pretty big elements in this process. As they develop their baby teeth, the mother gets tired of being bit and will steer them into eating solids and won't let them feed off her. At some point the needle-like teeth fall out and the puppy grows thicker adult teeth that are more suited for their size and type of food they will eat. Chase was somewhere in between these stages where he had his baby teeth but he was still looking for mamma's teat. Did I tell you a puppy's teeth are needle-like and are razor sharp?
So about 6am one morning, before I was awake, Chase was exploring under the covers and ran into something I'm sure he thought would produce the comfort and nourishment he was missing after only a few days of being away from mamma and his other litter mates. I'm guessing I don't need to explain anymore. Let me just say that by 10am, I had purchased a carrier and that's where he spent the rest of his nights until his adult teeth grew in and he could be trusted.
This behavior was far from over though and I found out the hard way how persistent a puppy can be. I'm a guy and a bachelor and I sometimes walk around in my boxers in the morning. I'm just saying. Chase would hide around corners waiting for me to walk by and he would jump and nip at me, catching my boxers with his teeth. He ruined several pairs before I finely started wearing sweats and if I rolled out of bed a little lazy and neglected to cover up, Chase would go on the attack and another pair would be shredded.
It was months before Chase grew out of that nasty little habit and in fact, it kind of continued throughout his life only he wouldn't bight. He would take a running start and jumping on the way by, he would swing his front paw catching me in a bad way. I think he thought it was funny. He wouldn't do it to anybody else and he didn't jump up on people. He just liked giving me cup-checks I guess...
