Hi all, just wanted to share I seem to have a solution to our (now 18 week old) pup biting at night. We have our meal while, she is in her crate then I have been teaching 'calm on your mat' after tea. I drop a single treat on the mat as long as she lies quietly, every 15 seconds, extending the time to 5 mins. If she jumps up and waves her teeth or tries to get the treats I get up and leave the room for a minute taking the treats with me. Then start again. If she goes to the mat and lies down without being asked she gets extra treats. I don't really say anything to her, just wait for her to work it out, maybe using hand signals. On a bad night I get up 4 or 5 times and she falls asleep completely after a hour. Long may it last Will start to treat less as she gets better at it.
Great news to hear Lizzy! I'm jealous that you can get your pup to be happy in their crate during meal times! We seem to have regressed with crate training - pup seems to be less happy to be in there. She sits and looks at us when we are sitting right by the crate (she has a kong and treats in with her) and when we pop into another room she often will cry. That said, today she slept for 2 mins in the crate after crying. With my husband sitting right next to her. It’s confusing. We desperately want to her like being in the crate. Feeling a bit discouraged about it really. She likes to sleep on her bed in front of the crate which is inside her pen (she has a large pen/area). She seems to only like the crate if we are feeding her treats. And even then she stays sitting upright and alert waiting for the next treat. We feel like we need to be tackling this in a different way but we don’t know how?
Hi Gertie, She's less happy than she was, we have to eat our tea quick. Then at bedtime she won't go in unless she is convinced you are really going to bed. Getting clever!
Things are looking up for us as well! He is sleeping all through the night which is such a blessing. We've got a schedule now for when I work and he his happy to play by himself. Kongs and snuffle matts have also been another saviour. Two weeks until we can go on our first walk and I cannot wait! Thank you all for your support its really gor me through the last week!
@Skele We’ve had success this last week with crate training. We had a large bed for an Xlarge crate that we purchased. Since pup had come home we had been using a slightly smaller wire crate and placed the bed in front of the crate due to it not being the correct size. The small crate has a bed that wasn’t quite as comfy. Pup had no issues sleeping on the bed in front of the crate but didn’t like sleeping inside the crate. so we decided to switch crates and place the softer bed inside - the one that she had built a connection with. (She had played with us on it, slept on it, played games on it) anyway - since she had built an association with this bed, now that it was placed at side the larger crate (still with a divider) she has been choosing to go in and sleeping! We still have to assist her by having a cuddle first, then with a gentle redirection she walks in and lays down and sleeps. We are so happy with this! We can see progress and eventually she will use this as her night time bed. Of course we would like to eventually use this crate for school drop offs and if we need to go somewhere in an emergency. We just now have the challenge of covering the crate - she always pulls the cover off if we leave it on and she is playing in her pen outside the crate. She has now been in the crate with a kong for over 20 mins. Only just started to whine. Only checked in with a redirect to the kong once. So far so good!
Things are looking up here. Our 5 month old girly takes herself to her crate at night now, about 9.30. Shame she is still waking up before 5am, but you can't have everything
We are also having some more successes! After attending puppy day care for my two days at work pup seems much more settled (also due to her being older and our consistency with training) I think the reinforcement from the trainers at day care is really powerful. Pup is settling in her crate more and more often and is also showing more and more independence in her pen while we make dinner, tidy up etc. This of course is not all day long - and she still whines if we are not in the same room (and even if we are!) We practice ignoring her when we know all of her other needs are met. Just for short periods. Pup has had some more successful trips with us in our living area, playing on our rug and sitting beside our couches. We are of course highly vigilant and have her on leash while doing this. But we found it is successful so far. She also liked watching some telly with us too! We are going to start training her walking on the leash today. We have boiled chicken bits to hopefully gain her attention out in the world. Any tips on this would be great! She is sleeping through to 6:30am more and more after going to bed between 8pm - 9pm. So we are thankful for this too. her trips outside are more and more successful, “leave it” training is slowly improving. And we are giving her more and more off leash time (only in our yard of course). we need to work on jumping up at the play pen and when greeting people, this is going well so far though. It’s a hard one due to the excitement levels. But a “sit” command with treat and praise before engaging is helping. hoping everyone else is having some successes too. Our pup is 12 weeks now and has had her 2nd vaccination which means we can go for walks (very short ones!) which is good. (She also did very well at the vets, calm and well behaved. That was a blessing for us!)
This thread gives me so much hope. We’ve had our boy for 10 days now (he’ll be 10 weeks old on Tuesday) and I’ve had some serious puppy blues. One minute I’m sobbing, thinking we’ve made a mistake and the next I’m sobbing cos he’s done something positive and I feel so proud. I’m an actual rollercoaster! I keep telling myself this exhausting stage isn’t forever and we will have a wonderful companion for many years, but I feel like the light at the end of the tunnel is very dim. Feel bad saying this, but I truly wish I could hit fast forward by a few months!
Even looking back through the thread makes me feel better. Since I last posted 2 weeks ago, Margot is now sleeping 12 hours through the nights She is less bitey, and usually only when she's tired, so we can manage it. She only tries to chew the furniture when she wants to go to bed, and sometimes even takes herself into her crate for a nap. Im feeling much better and more cheerful, I feel even if we have teenage angst it will be fine, because I actually like her now, and can see the lovely dog she's turning into. Hang in there!!!
Yes we are also finding things easier, pup is 15 weeks old tomorrow and more settled. Much less biting! Sleeps in her crate all night from around 8:30pm to 6:30/7am. We are training her to be in our main living area more and more - challenges arise with this like everything else - but she has many many more successes than mistakes that n terms of behaviours. We have to be super super vigilant and stuck to her like Velcro most of the time but we figure if we are super vigilant now she will be a well behaved house dog sometime soon! We take her for walks (and though I am exhausted from trying to keep her attention and keeping up the “leave it” training - we seems to get around the block unscathed. My husband does most of the walking as I seem to be the house trainer most of the time... I am finding it harder on days when it is raining all day - how do you keep pup busy when you can’t be outside?
Great progress, well done. Rainy days are no different for us. We carry on in all weathers, just put more layers on. Just about to walk Meg in horizontal sleet !
Horizontal sleet! Gah! Don’t get me wrong, we are outside when it rains, just less than what we would be if it was dry. So we play tug of war in our lounge room and also fetch under our verandah and carport. We need to buy more variety of toys too I think - and pull out a new one (or one that’s been in storage for a while) to help keep things fresh and exciting for her.
How’s everyone doing with their pups? Our guy is 12 weeks tomorrow and I’m still having puppy blues on and off. He’s mostly good, it’s the mourning of my independence I’m struggling with! I know that will only get easier with time once he can be left for longer, but man it’s rough some days!
That was hard for me too. That and the biting. The biting has now stopped at 5 months, and the zoomies are less destructive. We are now needing to concentrate on loose lead walking cos we are rubbish at that Hang in there they will be perfect in 5 years!
Thanks Lizzie - i actually feel a lot better since posting that yesterday. It's very up and down (but getting more ups than downs now that I think about it) I am worried about loose lead walking too. He is great off lead - doesn't go far from you, but pulls like mad to sniff things when on lead. Def need to spend some time on that. It's so hard to know what to focus on most!
Our pup is now four months old and going really well. However she doesn’t get into kongs which is pretty frustrating when we are trying to encourage independent and maybe even alone time. She loves the deer antler we bought but we need to watch her gums and teeth. She doesn’t seem like her toys for longer than a few minutes at a time, and we tried bully sticks but she ate it up in under 5 minutes!! We have a flavoured nylabone but she’s lost interest. She slices sleeping on the couch which we are ok with, she’s getting better at the “stay” and “leave it” commands. She loves walks but she pulls and of course is so distracted she won’t even respond to treats. We’ll work on loose leash walking eventually, but taking it one step at a time (because I get overwhelmed and anxious very easily). Her counter surfing is at high pitch - we just try to stay as consistent as possible with commands and treats in the kitchen. And we work on her stay command so that hopefully one day she’ll sit and stay on her bed while we work in the kitchen. Does anyone have any suggestions for chews, kong stuffings etc that will help encourage her to have prolonged independent time? we’d also love to leave her in our back yard on her own for short periods while we do vacuuming etc. any suggestions on this one too? The worst she would do is chew up sticks and spit them out and try to find poo (possum, cat, etc) thanks in advance!
Hi gertiegoo! Nice to see you back - I was wondering how you were doing! Sounds like you are doing good. I also get worried about loose lead walking. I don't want the habit of pulling to become ingrained, so trying really hard to train that out of him, but he just wants to sniff EVERYTHING. Our wee guy hasn't quite figured out frozen kongs yet, he licks at it for a while then gets fed up and gives up. Think I might start again, but not freeze it. The one thing we are really struggling with is him jumping up on visitors. Really need to get that under control.
We also struggle with jumping on visitors, but have had a lot more success recently. Being on the house lead helps, sprinkle treats on ground, and hold them back until they sit or relax on all fours before a pat. we just had success with a beef jerky treat with pup - she chewed it for 25 minutes! I actually got to sit and have a cuppa!!! I am struggling with the afternoons with her because I am so tired and just can’t keep up the momentum. I put her in the pen with some treats and the kongs she rejected and had to ignore her (knowing she was safe) and just sat down. Eventually she chewed and licked the kings while laying on the floor and sat quietly for a while. She of course whined a little - but nothing distressing. I just have to do this in the afternoons for short periods because with can’t physically go on! It’s better when my husband comes home, but when my kids get home they’re not much chop when it comes to watching her... we’ll get there though. I did a little loose leash training in our driveway too, she did really well. We walk her most mornings and she pulls etc - we need to do this so she tires and has a morning nap (and I get some work done as I work from home part time) Do you think if I do the separate training In Our driveway and then take her on walks with her pulling, that she would eventually get it?
Also - though things are going mostly really well - I have struggled lately and felt pretty down about my freedom feeling as though it’s been lost. I’m looking forward to taking pup to day care for the next two days (it’s my work days at the office) but I’m going to take the days off work with my daughter who is sick. I will take the opportunity to rest puppy free too!
