Hi everyone. We picked up our black lab Freya on 20th December, she's now just over 10 weeks old and settling nicely. Toilet accidents are few and far between and she's coming along nicely with basics like sit and come when called, we even started some loose lead work in the last couple of days as she'll be ready to be on the floor outside next week. When she's inside she does seem to want to try to eat everything (sofa, carpet, coffee table, skirting boards, etc) so she's been spending a lot of time in her playpen (in the living room with us) so we don't have to spend all our time coaxing her into chewing the right things. Are there any problems with this? We're almost always in the room with her and she comes out either for a play/training or to the garden for a mooch every time she wakes up.
My puppy is ten weeks and spends most of her time in the pen, sleeping, as my other dogs aren't overwhelmed with love for her just yet. When she's awake, I'm interacting with her, either in her pen, or she comes out and we go into the garden or a different room to the adults. I'm happy with this arrangement for now, until she's a bit bigger. If your puppy is spending a lot of time awake in the pen, then I'd say that's more of a problem, though, and you should try and spend more of that time playing games with her (which can be training, too). This can be in the pen, or out of it. For those times where I need "me" time, but she needs engagement, I use a snuffle mat, a stuffed kong or a reward bone (I got one of these for each dog as a gift for Christmas and love them! https://www.battersea.org.uk/product/battersea-reward-bone) . Luckily, puppies sleep a lot!
Thanks! She spends probably 95% of her time in the playpen asleep. When she wakes up we do training/play inside or outside. The problem seems to be that when she chews on one inappropriate thing redirection escalates into a game of "I'm not chewing what you give me, I'll run off and find a different thing", which ends up with her back in the playpen after I've been nipped a few times! Maybe I'm doing something wrong there?
I think it's fine to have a puppy in a play pen a fair bit - so long as there is enough play, training, things to do, cuddles etc. as well. It's better to keep a puppy away from things that will cause the puppy to get into trouble or be nagged. Betsy, at 8 months, is still in her (massive) crate while I work during the day because otherwise she constantly nags my older dog to play. She comes out when I've time to supervise them, or when she is more likely to settle down etc. It's fine. Certainly better than both me and my older dog being annoyed at her all the time. Puppy proof the room, and close the doors (or use barriers - play pen panels are ideal - if you have open plan). Puppy proofing a room means you pick up everything. Put barriers around wires and so on. Make sure there is pretty much no way a puppy can get into trouble. Then let the puppy out, and reward for what you want the puppy to do. Engage with you, or settle down, whatever. Just remove or restrict access to the things that your puppy can't have.
We started with this idea, but it would involve taking all the furniture out of the room or putting her in a different room where there would be less time with us. As a compromise I ordered a taller (I reckon she'll be able to jump out soon) and larger footprint playpen so she'll have a larger share of the room that we can spend time in and play games without any distractions. Maybe I will have to spend my evenings watching TV from inside the playpen until she's older and wiser I'm glad to know there's nothing inherently wrong with her spending a lot of her time in the playpen so long as she's something to keep her occupied in there, and she spends most of her time in it sleeping because she's pooped from all the play and training!
Sounds like a plan! What does she do with the furniture though? You are going to have to get her used to leaving furniture alone, or she'll be in the play pen forever!
She gnaws on the bottom frame of the sofa and pulls threads out of it (it's fabric) amongst many other things! I think we'll have to keep some of her food for after dinner to reward her for not chewing. She had been finishing her daily supply at 5 as I've read that's a good time to finish, but she's at her worst for chewing between 7-8 so maybe it's worth keeping some held back!
Train 'leave it' - properly. Train leave it to mean leave it forever (not just for a bit). And once you've made a good start, train her to leave the sofa by giving her food rewards.
I've just got out of Luna's pen, having cuddles (AKA fending off the crocodile) with the TV on in the background. Nothing wrong with that at all. I even had a glass of wine in there with me, balanced on top of her crate. The only problem being when I had to step out when she started biting too hard and couldn't reach my glass! DISASTER!!!
I looked at these snuffle mats which I think are a great idea. I managed to find a "make your own" kit on eBay which I've had great fun putting together today!
Our puppy has only been out of the puppy play pen probably the last 3 or 4 weeks or so (so about 6 months) - before that you'd have to watch her constantly for what new 'toy' she could find. She too just hassled the older dog too much to play as well. We now have baby gates so we can restrict access as needed too. She's only just had the crate put away at night too replaced with a dog bed and access to several rooms at night. But dont feel bad about them being in the play pens a lot - just get in there too to spend time with them. Once the puppy is too excited and too bitey get up and leave often they have got tired and need to sleep. And it may take some time to graduate to having room access with the play pen good for over tired/excited puppies to have a time out to sleep and calm down again.
