I have posted a few times about my little black lab Holly. She is 20 weeks old and getting bigger and bigger every day. What a challenge of a little pup she is. We were doing great on the house training with only 1 or 2 accidents a week, and then in the past day and half she pooped twice in the house and peed twice. Back to taking her outside every 30 minutes. Sigh... She is an excitable little pup and goes crazy when people come over. Working hard on the "no jumping" thing, but what a challenge. Walks are ok and she pulls some, but not bad. She is rambunctious loves to nip at us and get us to play. She barks at the cat, gets up still to the use the potty in the middle of the night, and barks at the neighbors. I guess I am looking for reassurance that others have faced similar situations and how have a well behaved adult dog. We are doing training, we are working hard, and we are loving her. But oh boy. I don't remember any of this with my previous lab (but to be fair that was about 12 years ago and time has a way of easing memories). Thanks for all the support out there. Love this place.
Oh yes - I find they are all loopy juice crazy pups and fabulous adults. My Tatze really was a crazy pup and now, at five years old, is a steady, sensible girl who can even greet people well (she has her loopy moments- but they are few and far between.)
Pfft, my youngest girl is 16 months and only in the last month has started being able to go through the night without a 4:30am poo break, whatever I did with feeding times. Probably not what you wanted to hear, sorry Excitability and jumping up is perfectly normal and can take a while to die out. Just be calm, kind and, above all, consistent and you'll get there. Practicing impulse control exercises and rewarding for calm can make a huge difference.
I have to learn how to quote from above. That is cool. I have signed Holly up just this week for a new training class that focuses on impulse control exercises, so I was so happy to read that suggestion! Appreciate the "yep, this is normal" answers. Time and patience. Sigh...
Hi Mine is 20 weeks today and the very excited, jumping, nipping, barking puppy is just what we are going through as well. What I find difficult is knowing what is just normal happy puppy behaviour that they grow out of and what could become bad habits in the future if I don't actively work on it. It is hard to know where to draw the line because I don't want to suppress the exuberance and joy of life they have at this age but at the same time as we all know this type of behaviour won't be quite so joyful when they are older and bigger!
Labbypad, I am 100% with you. Sounds like our pups are almost identical age and similar in behavior (which makes me feel a little better). I think training impulse control is good, and doesn't result in suppressing the "joy for life" as you put it too much. I think it is a matter of appropriate expression. Training the pup when and how to go nuts is probably more important than trying to get them to never go nuts. (So to speak). I struggle every day with worrying that I am reinforcing bad habits vs. just letting the pup be a pup. Just like kids, the darn dogs didn't come with a manual. Good thing there are lots of friends in the world to help.
Highlight the bit of text you want to quote and a little grey "reply" button pops up. Click on that and the bit you selected gets put into the message box. Just type underneath it and you're good to go
Yep sounds much like my first experience of a Labrador puppy Just a thought about the relapse in housetraining, Cassie suddenly started weeing in the house at that age and insisted on going no further than the doorstep to poo! It turned out that something had frightened her while out in the garden, it took a few weeks before I discovered what it was. So it might be something like that. The excitability round visitors we are still working on, at 22 months but is definitely improving. This definitely. To do a quote you just highlight the bit you want and a "reply" box pops up!
Ah but you can get the Labrador Handbook and Total Recall! I'm with you with wanting to keep the joy of life!
If a puppy/dog finds a behaviour rewarding they will continue to do it, they will not grow out of it. It really is a case of deciding what behaviours are appropriate and what aren't and train accordingly.
I am so stinking lucky! Moose is 8 1/2 weeks now and sleeps through the night. House training is going well, and we're looking on "leave it" so he stops tormenting the cat and my smaller, older dog. But my hands look like a battlefield..those little teeth are razor sharp. I'm fortunate to be home 24/7 so I can really focus on training.
Maxx is 18 weeks tomorrow and we are good with sit, wait (to eat), shake paws and he is rarely jumping up now on humans. But recall with other dogs / distractions around we are at a loss to know what else we can do! He is so determined to play. Most disturbingly, the last 3 days he has started to wee inside again after faithfully going to his pee-patch for weeks. We think it might be because he was sick on the weekend so we are going back to regularly leading him out there. He does bite a lot when he is excited, especially when he hasn't seen you for a while (e.g. 2 minutes) but the crocopup days are gone and he is actually just mouthing (mostly) Oh, and now he is tall enough to jump up with his front paws on the kitchen bench so we have spent countless minutes chasing him down with various items he has counter-surfed. He just grins his goofy grin when we say 'get down Maxx!'. No matter how many times I gently tug him down he's straight back up again. This is the same if we let him into the lounge-room. He will play with whatever toys we have given him for a while but when he gets bored he starts couch surfing, shoe searching, sock munching and/or side-table swiping. 'Leave it' training is not working one iota yet. Jojo83 gave some great advice about 'settle' training and that mostly works when he is in the lounge-room but I want him to sit quietly. He still doesn't settle for long but it is a work in progress. But every couple of days he improves the TINIEST bit so we have hope. He has slept through the night from day one for which we are truly grateful. Thankfully we are early risers though; At first he would wake us around 4.00 - 4.30 now he makes it to 5.00 - 5.30. That's fine for during the week as we are up at that time for me to get ready for work; but I wouldn't mind a sleep-in on the weekend! Hang in there is the summary
Kona is now 22 weeks and is jumping up and “biting” more and more. We are starting to have lots of broken skin on all the humans in the house (all over 18) and lots more holding onto the cats longer than before. We are giving lots of positive love when she is calm and ‘leaves it’ and ignoring most of the bites, but sometimes when it comes from behind(jumping up and nipping legs and bottoms) we give stern ‘ahah’ or no. We have been very gentle playing with her, greeting with her toys. We Keep reminding ourselves this little one is still a baby but we really don’t want her jumping ad nipping especially with people who come to the house. Thanks so much for all the posts and information on the forums and it’s good to know we are not in it alone!
Mango is 28 weeks today and he still bites when he is excited, and, this one is weird, when he cuddles. He lies on his bach, paws up and just looks for my hand, so I just stuck a toy in his mouth. He also jumps a lot, we are working on it. He only jumps up on me, my grandmother (who is 76 and he almost knocks her down every time) and the counter. The pulling went away as soon as we started training heel more frequent and more intense. The biggest problem are other dogs. I don't know how to convince him not to sit and wait for the dog to come to us and than jump full strength at him. The barking has come down to, but still barks at 2 out of 9 cats who spend time on our frontyard (we hopped they might leave when we get a dog again). He also starts barking at something only he sees. Happens once every 2 or 3 days. He hasn't had an accident in 3 months or so (knock on wood), I also don't take him out at night, but have problems keeping him in his crate longer than until 7am. As soon as church bells go on, so does he. I sometimes feel like an old person, I now go to bed at 22h and get up at 7am.
Hi Isla is also 28 weeks and it has been nice to read all about Mango to reasure myself. Isla sounds very similar, she bites when excited or frustrated and she jumps a lot! She still has the zoomies sometimes and will pinch anything we leave laying around(including very expensive prescription glasses!) She still doesn't like going in the car and she EATS EVERYTHING!! She's so cute though she melts our hearts
Reading posts by @Mango and @Saffy/isla I feel like we could have the same puppies. They are all about the same age and doing the same things. Chewie was nibbling on me this morning in excitement. He also gently nibbles when he wants something. To his credit he starts by um... rubbing his lips on me. He also pulled like mad this morning when we saw an unexpected oodle of some sort. I was walking him around the edge of the park thinking we would stay on lead and that there weren't likely to be many dogs at 6.30am... there were 3 dogs there and their owners all either unclipped their leads right in front of him or, in the case of the oodle, encouraged their dog to say hello without asking me first. Given that I'm trying to teach him not to pull, not helpful.
Sorry,I did something wrong there! I completely agree chewies mum, we are trying to train our pups and people make it so difficult. I was trying to restrain Isla this morning(on lead) walking close,when 2 complete strangers made silly noises cooing over the puppy, of course she got over excited and wanted to jump up and play, not helpful
I know that people dont realise what they are doing, but it does make me wonder how their dogs behave?! Though most dogs aren't as outgoing as our lovely labs.
Happens to me every day. When Mango looks at someone going by, they make kissing sounds and call him or tap their knees. I try to use my (according to my friends) resting murder face, and say, he'll bite. It'y annoying how they do it, but also funny the way they pull back instantly. The worst are families with children. They walk across the street, and all of the sudden they drag the children towards us. Mango goes crazy and kids start screaming and crying. And then is all my fault for not being able to control my stupid dog. So I just ask, whose fault is it...my dog is on a leash, how about their stupid kids.
