[jbseg]

So my new 9 week old puppy is adorable. Most of the time she's either sleeping or lightly playing. Overall, she's really kind and playful, but other times she plays with her toys a bit aggressively. One thing she does is grab her toy and whip her head violently while growling really loud. I'm sure that growling and whipping a toy is natural, but it seems quite extreme. Is there any way to tone this down a bit? Or am I overreacting and this is this really natural?

Here's a video of the cutie:

 

[storyist]

IMO you're overreacting. That's pretty natural behavior.

 

[parus]

lol, I wish my dog were that chill when playing. She's normal.

 

[LeoRose]

Another vote for "looks pretty normal to me". One thing you will want to do, though, is teach her to drop something on cue. Kikopup has lots of free training videos on YouTube.

 

[silk.spectre89]

Yep, totally normal and adorable puppy behavior. My adult dog still plays like that; she growls when she plays with my other dog, but it's that very adorable high-pitched voice. Your puppy is not aggressive. She's just examining her toy and having fun with it.

What you might want to do, though, is to make sure she doesn't learn to tear fluffy toys apart because then every plush toy will only last minutes. So as soon as she tries to dismember toys, take it away.

I made a mistake of letting one of my rescues destroy plush toys, and now she kills bunnies outside, which is totally unacceptable.

Basically, teach her to respect toys. Other than that, your puppy is totally normal.