Щенок ещё маленький и иногда кусается, когда играет без поводка.

Here ещё means still.

So Щенок ещё маленький = The puppy is still small.

For English speakers, ещё can be confusing because it can mean several things depending on context:

• still: Он ещё спит = He is still sleeping
• yet: Ты ещё не ел? = Haven’t you eaten yet?
• more/another: ещё один = one more / another one

In this sentence, still is the natural meaning.

Маленький agrees with щенок.

The noun щенок is:

• masculine
• singular
• nominative

So the adjective must also be:

• masculine
• singular
• nominative

That gives маленький.

Compare:

• щенок маленький — masculine singular
• собака маленькая — feminine singular
• животное маленькое — neuter singular
• щенки маленькие — plural

In the present tense, Russian usually omits to be.

So:

• Щенок маленький literally looks like Puppy small
• but it means The puppy is small

This is completely normal in Russian. The verb быть is usually not expressed in the present tense.

Compare:

• Он дома = He is at home
• Она занята = She is busy

But in the past and future, forms of to be do appear:

• Щенок был маленьким = The puppy was small
• Щенок будет маленьким = The puppy will be small

This is a very common question.

Кусать = to bite something/someone
Кусаться = to bite, often in the sense to be a biter, to bite people/others, or to bite as a habit/behavior

In this sentence, кусается means the puppy bites or tends to bite. It describes behavior, not a single specific object being bitten.

So:

• Щенок кусает игрушку = The puppy is biting a toy
• Щенок кусается = The puppy bites / is prone to biting

The -ся form is often used for this kind of general behavior.

It suggests a repeated or occasional behavior: sometimes bites.

Because of иногда and the present-tense imperfective verb, the meaning is habitual or general:

• иногда = sometimes
• кусается = bites / has a habit of biting

So the idea is not it bit once, but it does this from time to time.

If you wanted a one-time event in the past, you would say something like:

• Щенок укусил меня = The puppy bit me

Because когда играет без поводка is a subordinate clause.

Russian uses commas to separate subordinate clauses from the main clause.

Main clause:

• Щенок ещё маленький и иногда кусается

Subordinate clause:

• когда играет без поводка

So the comma is required:

• ..., когда играет без поводка.

This is similar to English:

• The puppy is still small and sometimes bites when it plays off leash.

English sometimes feels lighter with commas, but Russian punctuation is stricter here.

Russian often drops subject pronouns when the subject is clear from context.

Here, the subject is already щенок, so in когда играет the understood subject is still the puppy.

Literally, it is like:

• when [it] plays

But Russian does not need to say он here.

If you added он, it would usually be for emphasis or contrast:

• ..., когда он играет без поводка

That is possible, but not necessary in this sentence.

Играет is the normal verb form for plays.

• играть = to play
• играет = he/she/it plays

Since щенок is grammatically masculine singular, the present-tense form is играет.

You may sometimes encounter играться, but it is not the neutral standard choice here. For a learner, играет is the form to use.

So:

• когда играет = when it plays
• more naturally in this context: when it is playing / when it plays

Because the preposition без requires the genitive case.

Dictionary form:

• поводок = leash

After без:

• без поводка = without a leash

This is a standard rule:

• без сахара = without sugar
• без воды = without water
• без машины = without a car

So поводка is the genitive singular form of поводок.

It literally means without a leash, but in natural English this often corresponds to off leash.

So depending on context, you might translate it as:

• without a leash
• off leash

In a dog-related context, when playing off leash is often the most natural English rendering.

Yes, Russian word order is more flexible than English, though the neutral order here is very natural.

Current sentence:

• Щенок ещё маленький и иногда кусается, когда играет без поводка.

You could rearrange parts for emphasis, for example:

• Когда играет без поводка, щенок иногда кусается.
• Щенок иногда кусается, когда играет без поводка.
• Щенок ещё маленький, и когда играет без поводка, иногда кусается.

These versions are possible, but they may shift emphasis slightly.

The original sentence is a good neutral way to say it.

Because ещё маленький and иногда кусается are two coordinated parts of the same main clause with the same subject, щенок.

So Russian normally does not put a comma before и here:

• Щенок ещё маленький и иногда кусается

But the comma does appear before когда, because that introduces a subordinate clause.

So the punctuation pattern is:

• no comma before и
• comma before когда

The main stresses are:

• щено́к
• ещё
• ма́ленький
• иногда́
• куса́ется
• когда́
• игра́ет
• без поводка́

A learner-friendly stressed version would be:

Щено́к ещё ма́ленький и иногда́ куса́ется, когда́ игра́ет без поводка́.

Stress is important in Russian, because it is not always predictable from spelling.

In normal usage, щенок means puppy, specifically a young dog.

It can sometimes be extended to the young of some other canine-type animals in certain contexts, but for everyday learners the important meaning is simply puppy.

It can also be used figuratively as an insult or dismissive term for a young, inexperienced person, but that is not relevant in this sentence.

Not necessarily. The sentence presents two facts about the puppy:

• it is still small
• it sometimes bites when playing off leash

The structure does not directly say because it is small. It just links the facts with и = and.

If Russian wanted to make the cause clearer, it might use something like:

• потому что = because
• так как = since

So this sentence is descriptive, not explicitly causal.