Whoops! Strange that the guide dog trainers here have recommended it! Luckily we seem to be past the furniture chewing stage now so no need for it after all. We’ve instead moved on to the garden fence!
Luckily for us after one or two sniffs he left the furniture alone, he’s not chewed indoors very much at all since! He’s moved onto the garden fence now instead!
Chewie has been sleeping through the night for about 2 weeks. Last night he has to go out at around 4.30. All good. Then he didn't want to get out of bed this morning. Once he woke up he turned into a little barky demon. Apparently he was a handful with his minder during the day too, then fell into a deep sleep. Haha. Crazy pup.
Pepper has his crazy days and we’ve given up trying to work out why, his routine is much the same as other days. We just accept it and get on with life! And laugh about it when he finally clams down and becomes the cute little gorgeous boy again!
Little vent here. I'm still a bit sleep deprived (lots of 5.30 wakeups) and last night Chewie was with my husband on the sofa. I went to the kitchen to weigh out Chewies food for the next day. The puppy jumps off the sofa to investigate. He behaves quite well and I praise him for not being noisy and jumpy (his normal food overexcitement) but my attention isn't on him 100% and he does a HUGE wee on the kitchen floor. I guess in my tired state I got really upset and annoyed at my OH for not taking him outside when he got off the sofa where he had been napping, even though he would have wanted to stare at the food regardless. I had a massive cry and the puppy was trying to comfort me, which made me feel like a terrible mum... Sigh.
No need to feel like that, you're just a normal human being, puppies are demanding Thing to remember with house training - they all get there in the end. I've had enough puppies to know this , but even so with Cassie it seemed like forever, although it really wasn't. As they grow and mature their world gets bigger, they start to see the whole house as their "den", they don't want to wee and poo there. Try not to be too hard on yourself or him or OH, it'll fall into place so long as you keep doing the right thing
All understandable. Don’t dwell on it - says she who was the world’s worst last year with my young puppy . Sleep deprivation is horrible but don’t worry it won’t last.
Thanks guys. I'm just trying to focus on enjoying him and appreciating the good things. He is very sweet and affectionate. He was nuzzling and licking me when I was upset and he feels the need to give me a kiss every night before bed and in the morning when he wakes up. He actually got annoyed one night when my OH crated him before he had a chance to say goodnight to me! He also is not too bad with the biting and chewing.
Does anyone's puppy (mine is 6 months) randomly snap at you? Every so often he snaps at us. ALmost like throwing a temper tantrum?
Like snapping teeth together? My dog does this when she is annoyed...we ignored it when she was a puppy (she probably started around 6 months), but now that she's well over 2 it's part of her communication to us so we laugh (and tell her to stop clicking her teeth at us). Usually she wants to play and we haven't responded to her toy throwing or standing and staring at us. She also makes a little noise to go with it that I can only describe as a soft groan (of annoyance).
Scout will do it when we are petting him or trying to get him to change something (i.e. getting off the couch or moving him out of the way). Will they grow out of it or is this something we need to address heavily?
Not mine, you could load him up until he started blowing it out his back-end and he'd still keep going. Turning money into poop!
We out food out for him and he eats at his leisure. Some days he cant seem to get enough and some days we wonder if something is wrong because he doesn't seem to eat. The vet says that is normal.
Mine too. And he always wants what I'm eating. Especially if it's a banana. He goes wild for bananas.
Hi, just read your post with interest as I too am struggling with sleep deprivation. My Koda, now nearly 12 weeks wakes up 6am latest then 1 or 2 times before this. I am quite good at taking her down the garden with no eye contact etc and she does wee but have got into the habit of taking her on my bed and calming her down after a bit of biting so she goes back to sleep on top of my bed until 7 when I get up and she has breakfast. She sleeps in a crate the rest of the time. She is very canny and comes out of the crate and runs into my bedroom. Am I making a rod for my own back for the sake of sleep! She weeks as well in house occasionally out of the blue. I can totally get where you are coming from in your post.
Hi! First time lab owner over here! How do we break our almost 5 month old chocolate lab from waking up at 430 AM every day?? She is crate trained and used to sleep until around 6/630 but lately it’s been 430/5! We’ve realized it’s not even that she has to go to the bathroom, or that she isn’t tired anymore and wants to play. She just wants to snuggle on the couch with us. As cute as that is, we can’t be getting up every morning at that time and snuggle. We are dying over here! SOS!
Has anyone ever had their lab prefer someone else more then the other? Our 6 month old lab seems to prefer my wife and daughter over me. I shouldn't be jealous of him doing that but at times he almost seems to be ignoring me till i play with him...those two he runs after them when they get home...me he will bypass. Has anyone else ever had that and did it change later on. (I might be a little jealous)
Things will absolutely improve! We have an 11 month old lab here and a 10 year old lab. She was a totally crazy tornado (in fact we called her Captain Insano), but has calmed down so much in the last few months. Being around other dogs I think really helped socialize her too. Also I have always used harnesses and they do help with the pulling problems, although it really needs to be done from the beginning of training or at an early age.
