Hi Lab parents! I'm having some trouble with my Pup (Wuki) and I'm seeking for advice on next steps. To give you some insight, if you didn't read my intro thread, i have a 2,5 month yellow lab. He arrived home with almost 8 weeks, and till now he's been quite happy. He quickly adapted to our family, for the first 2 weeks when i stayed home. He didn't make a lot of noise at night, didn't cry too much (actually i think he never cried loudly). He sleeps in an improvised pen at our garage, a well lit, cozy, clean area, despite being a garage - it is tidy, has plenty of room, and most of all, it keeps the same temperature whole year, at around 15 to 20 Cº (one of the benefits of living in good old, always in financial crisis Portugal!). We do have 2 cars, but we separated the area of the cars from his room. We have a garden with synthetic grass, and different flowers (on a side note we found a couple of the flowers are nasty to dogs, so we try the most to keep him away from those). Wuki gradually got used to the garden as a play area and his bathroom (he goes on the grass mostly). He eats well (are there any Labs that don't?), drinks a lot of water that i keep fresh, changing even if he didn't drink it, plenty times a day, seems happy and energetic. I read somewhere Labs start develop their retrieving instincts on the third month, but Wuki already started catching - It's not a full retrieve as he forgets to give me the ball but its something right?. He already knows Come, Sit, Drop, Home and Bed (for the bed we have for him in the top floor) commands. So, all wonders right? Well... Not quite! 1 - House training derailed. While on the first two weeks Wuki started to go on some sort of schedule that even seemed compatible with my work hours, 2 days after i started working, he started doing it at odd times. Worse, going out to our garden, multiple times, to no avail, and getting back to his pen, and then going inside it. It simply makes me mad, that only five minutes later he just goes, after being at the garden for 20 minutes or more, some times, for the second or third time. In my two weeks home we tried to get him on the puppy pads... Wuki ate them, tear them apart and poo'ed wherever he wanted, so we went back to the garden and it was working well, until... it didn't! Mind that he doesn't stay home alone the whole day as I'm coming home for lunch, and stay with him, and a great deal of the days I'm even working half day from home. He's eating 3 times a day + treats for training, but he's not going at a schedule. Our vet said we could gradually try taking meal frequency down to 2 a day + treats, as it would clock his bowels better. Still it won't do nothing about wee, but it would be better than nothing i guess. Ideas?? 2 - Barking Wuki doesn't bark at night. He even does not bark during the day when I'm not home. When he barks is when i get home, or when he wakes up. For example, if come home and he see's me, he will bark his lungs out, despite being in the pen, or if i take him out, or we go to the garden. He barks, and i'm so noob, that i can't understand what he needs/wants - after giving his meal, playing a bit of tug, catch, etc. The moment any of this interactions stop, he barks for long 10 straight minutes. Or if i'm taking care of his house, he barks while i'm cleaning, despite being around me or not. 3 - Nipping, biting, running wild I guess running wild in the house, is normal because he his so happy to be on the top floor, with us and the kids. But biting and nipping are still a big problem specially with the kids (a 5 and a 9 year old). I said in the other thread my hands never hurt so much. Actually last week I've discovered a new whole level of finger pain, when Wuky ripped my little finger's skin. I really thought i would gradually get better, and frequency seems to have dropped but when he gets to catch my hands it's still nasty... 4 - Selective Deftness??? - No! No! No! or - Wuki Sit... Sit... Sit.................... Or worse, Come! Come! Come Wuki Come!!!! BAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! There are times, that it simply seems that he his Deaf, or simply ignoring me. Oh and he can feel if i don't have a treat, and simply doesn't give a crap to what i'm saying (my bad there!!!). 5 - Sleeping Arrangements... Wuki is a companion pet. No doubt there. We have no interest in hunting, and if we wanted a dog for security (other than the ocasional alert bark) we would have gotten a Rot or GSheppard. We got a Lab for the lot of reasons that we know but above all, their tenderness, family love and behavior with kids (lets exclude the fact that Wuki already bit me 1000000000000000000000 times, and the first day he got home, draw a little blood from my youngest. He's still a pup, despite a Lab!). Still Wuki is getting bigger day to day. We are considering having him sleeping in the garden inside a kennel, with a dog house, because the space in the garage will not be enough. And having him in the top floor, i don't know the result! I guess i need to have less love for the furniture and more for Wuki (don't get me wrong, he's growing on me!!!). You can see, i'm stressing this, I'm really having mixed feelings about this because my idea is that Wuki is already part of the family and family shouldn't sleep on the street - That's when my wife says "Its a freking dog" and me "It's not a freaking dog, its Wuki, its our dog..."... The tradition here in Portugal, is to have dog sleeping on leach on the garden. I think the leach whole day is worse than a kennel, but I might be completely wrong! Ideas? If i can't keep him on the first floor, or the garage, a kennel with a big wooden dog house be too nasty? BTW, the kennel would be under a stair, and would have 4m2 area, 2 m high. Anyone with happy labs in backyard kennels?? Thank's for your help as usual! MC
Hi there. Nothing you have written is out of the ordinary! Wiki is 2.5 months? So, ten weeks old. He's a tiny baby that does not have control of his bladder yet. You have to appreciate that he won't be able to start holding, or even necessarily understand he needs to go, until he is several weeks older. And it will probably be a few more months until he us completely reliable in that department. Think of a human baby. Would you expect one so small to be able to understand the signals for when it needs to go - or to understand that it shouldn't go as and when it needs? No. This is the exact same thing. I absolutely would not reduce his meals to two times a day yet. His stomach is too small to cope with that much volume of food in one go at the moment, and you'd be setting yourself up for trouble with digestion problems. It sounds as if he is attention barking. If you've ever given him any attention while he's been barking (including looking at him, or telling him to be quiet), then you've reinforced this. You need to teach him that it's not acceptable by not interacting with him at all when he barks, but giving him loads of praise when he's quiet. You can practice "coming home" by popping him in his pen and walking out, then back in the door. If he barks, go back out again, and only interact with him (remember, this includes even eye contact) when he is quiet. Biting is normal and, whilst it's not what you want to hear, will probably last a good while longer. My Willow grew out of it at 14 weeks, but it appears she was somewhat of an exception, as many, many puppies take a lot longer. I think you've already been given the links to articles to read on the main site? Deafness - again, he's a baby, learning to speak a foreign language. If someone walked up to you in the street when in China (assuming you don't speak the language!) and started repeating the same word to you over and over, you still wouldn't understand what it meant. Even if you eventually worked out that it meant, "sit", you would certainly either look for your motivation to follow the request, or have a history of being rewarded for it, otherwise you'd tell the person to rack off. I can heartily recommend clicker training, which is a fun and rewarding way for you to learn together. There are plenty of articles on the main site - I can't link right now, so hopefully someone else can point you in the right direction. Also, read up on generalisation and proofing. As for sleeping, dogs are pack animals and are happiest when allowed to sleep near their humans. Personally, I don't have my dogs in my bedroom when in my main home (we have to in our new doer-upper), but they are just in the next room, with all the things that smell of us around. We also often fall asleep together on the sofa. It's nice. I wouldn't have my dogs sleeping outside. Just because there's a cultural norm where you are, it doesn't mean you have to follow it. You may get comments or odd looks, but when you know what you're doing is right, I can live with that
Read @JulieT 's thread on her pup's biting, it'll make you feel better! Re weeing - I was in and out every 20 minutes with Xena until 12 weeks old. It was exhausting. One night I was in tears - 5 accidents in one hour. But then at 12 weeks it was like a switch flicked overnight and the bladder control improved massively. It must be hard if you're working and unable to monitor him all day, but all you can do is be consistent and not get angry. I have no idea if you can get consistent poops with a puppy - I stopped trying to figure out Xena's poop schedule, it changes from day to day. Re companion pet - Wuki won't be a nice companion for you and your kids if he's not allowed in the house. He doesn't need access to the whole house of course (Xena has kitchen/living/dining/laundry, but my house is SMALL) but he really needs access to his family. I don't know what people with lovely furniture do, maybe if they're lucky their pups won't chew. Maybe they use punishment. I've sadly had to sacrifice the corners of my coffee table and the legs of one dining chair, but although the furniture is less than two years old (sob) it wasn't expensive and well...I was expecting damaged furniture because puppy.
Haha - yes, Betsy was a horror for biting. She is much better now, at nearly 4 months - mind, she has started losing all her teeth now, and chewing is her thing....including on people. The snapping and jumping up to tear at clothes is much reduced, but her desire to put absolutely everything, including human hands, in her mouth hasn't reduced at all yet. I think you just have to do what you can to deter (without spoiling your bond with your puppy, so be careful what you do and how you go about it) and the rest is management. In order for Betsy to have her sofa cuddle, it needs two people really - one to control the mouth end with a toy, and the other person to do the tummy rub....because a tummy rub is no good unless you can chew something at the same time - obviously! It passes..... It's normal, and if you don't mind it and it's safe, fine. But I don't let my puppy tear around the house - the house is not the place for that. The garden or off lead is the place for tearing around, not the house. I have an older dog, who remains playful at 3.5 years, and I do not want two Labradors crashing round my house playing. It's not something you have to let them do. You can if you want, of course.
Hi! Thanks for your answers. I'm with you about the Kennel, but i don't want to have to decide between my marriage and keeping Wuki there... But no hurries. He's still fine in his pen in the garage, and spends a lot of time with us in the top floor. But even if he goes to the backyard kennel (which we didn't decide yet), all the time we are home, he is with us, just like now! I'll let you know what we decided. @JulieT: I really don't want him running wild in the house, specially because the kids don't control themselves and start running around again... And it turns to a vicious cycle. Anyway we ent to the Vet today, it's a clinic here that works on Sundays. There'res nothing wrong with Wuki, but we needed to take a shot for Kennel Cough. We need to go out a weekend next month, and unfortunately Wuki cannot come with us, since the hotel does not allow pets... It is a group thing, we couldn't change to another place. So, he is going to a dog hotel, for a couple of days. I'm afraid he is quite young yet, but we don't have anyone to come here those days... Anyhow... It seems that is the most transmittable disease in kennels and among dogs. Better safe than sorry. It was a very easy procedure, the vet said dogs don't like to be touched in the nose, but Wuki took it like a champ! She talked again about reducing meal frequency. I think she means to do it gradually bit i think i'll wait a little bit more, maybe around 4 months. BTW, in the vet when we were leaving appeared a 4 month old beautiful Black Lab. Twice the size of Wuki! Is it possible that he's going to be THAT size in 1,5 months??? Oh, i just bought one of these: He usually took 20-30 secs to eat his whole plate. It got up to 1:30 min. Not perfect but better i guess! Again... Thank's for your input.
Good Wuki for taking his kennel cough shot. Sounds like his new bowl has really helped..that's a decent reduction.
Wiki is still young and early days regarding his sleeping situation. Homer started off in his crate in the kitchen, and not allowed upstairs, not allowed on the sofa. At six months he was curled up on the sofa with us in the evenings and by three years old he stopped sleeping in the kitchen and chose his own place to sleep in the house. He has a bed in our room but doesn't always sleep there. By this time he was part of the family and trusted not to destroy anything. (except for socks).
Well... The new bowl helped but i discovered he ate the bowls feet! No troubles yet, just a tad of diarrhea, two already got out... Oh crazy dog! And stupid "Pet Safe" stuff that is not really THAT safe... If the diarrhea doesn't stop in a day i will have to go to the vet again...
