We have had our yellow Labrador puppy almost 3 weeks - she is now 11 weeks. Thought we had planned carefully but now realise hadn't really prepared myself for this. We already have a 10 year old black lab who is the most gentlest loving dog. She has not taken well to new arrival (won't stand up for herself and waits for us to 'rescue' her) and at the moment, we are keeping them separate - puppy in kitchen, baby gate at kitchen door. I feel so guilty about this and with the demands of new puppy have made myself quite ill. Husband is laid back, hands on and says all will be well and we are doing all the right things but I am not so sure. We are in our sixties (he 6 years younger than me). I am retired and he works from home but does have to go out when necessary. Think I have got myself into a ridiculous negative state. Puppy eats well, is becoming toilet trained but some days we have a lot of accidents and also at night. She is responding to early training and I have her and I booked on a training course beginning in 2 weeks time. Has anyone else felt like this and how do I pull myself together?
Hello and welcome to the forum. It's perfectly normal to feel like this. Just have a look through the puppy board to see the lamenting wails of everyone who has brought home a puppy, whether for the first time or not. You can't expect her to be anywhere near toilet trained at 11 weeks. Think 6 months or more for that. I have a new arrival, too - Luna is 17 weeks - and my other two Labs don't like her much at all. That's fine, we just keep them separated when they can't be supervised. Every now and again, we get a lovely game of bitey-face, but most of the time, it's a little edgy. It's resoundingly better than it was, though, and I know it will sort itself out in time.
I'm sure you will shortly be inundated with responses echoing very similar feelings. I know I felt exactly the same, I thought I'd made the biggest mistake, he was terrorising my lovely kind springer who behaved exactly the same as your older lab, so we stepped in, they were only allowed to be together when closely supervised or when he was asleep and we had to take over teaching how to play nicely with her. I felt things were never going to improve and this wasn't made any better when I went to my gundog trainer who made me feel I had a hopeless case of a gundog and that I was just as bad. I resented having him and even secretly wished I could give him back, thankfully I too have a very relaxed laid back husband who took over for a bit, things improved quite quickly after that. He soon settled down with my springer and now 2 yrs later they are devoted to each other. The biggest change was finding a trainer I was happy with my whole relationship with him changed, in fact he's more my dog now than my husbands I wouldn't swap him for the world but I really do wish I hadn't wasted all those months feeling ill with worry over him and just got on with enjoying my puppy. It will be OK.
Thank you for replying so quickly. I am heartened to hear your two dogs are devoted to each other now. I suppose if we had crystal balls, we could stop ourselves from worrying. I just hadn't expected to feel like this and I feel like I am losing the plot. I seem to go from feeling positively to total negativity in a second!
Thank you for telling me this feeling is normal - it's such a horrible feeling. I need to take on board that all will be fine.
It will, honestly puppies are despotic little monsters. They are just young but the older quickly. I'm on number 3 lab and considering number 4. Its either they are wonderful dogs or we all have Stockholm syndrome . welcome from me and my 2 labs Moo who,s nearly 14 and Rory just 3
I am suffering too! Look in my history and you'll find a huge puppy blues thread I started a while back. I'm here to read all the encouragement because I'm still not out of the woods yet. Still struggling quite often.
Bless you xx Eleven weeks old is a very normal time for the excitement to have worn off and for the puppy to have become a total crocodilian nutcase! Fear not, this phase doesn't last long. Whatever works for your older dog is fine, they don't think like we do. My Tatze (3 years old) is currently happlily sleeping in her crate safe from the crazy 20 week old nutty puppy - tea time is her WORST time by far! And Welcome to you from Mags (also 60), Tatze and Mollie from Manchester UK Tatze is my pet dog, a black Lab and she's three years old. Tatze means 'paw' in German. Mollie is my fourth Guide Dog puppy, a black Lab who is a five month old looooonatic! ...
I doubt there is any one amongst us who cant say, hand on heart , that we haven't had that sinking " what have I done" thought ! Especially when adding number two, three or even( in my case some years ago ) number five ! Things do improve , and yes, it is very normal indeed !
Hi there and welcome to the forum. As you can see, you are 100% normal There is even an article about this on the main site - http://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-beat-the-labrador-puppy-blues/ Keep us posted on how things go - it should start to improve over the next week or two
Interesting, that you have 2 Labs with more or less the same age difference. Did you get Rory as a puppy and did you experience difficulties with the two?
Hello and welcome, I had a 9 year old dog (malamute) when I got Meg. He was not impressed at all...he was very grumpy with her....I really had my doubts they would ever be pals. Now she is 3 and he is nearly 12...they are besties and hooly around like pups together. I swear she keeps him going/young. It took a while but she knows now when to play and when to leave him alone. Your dogs will figure it out and get there in the end. The puppy blues will pass...promise just give it some time...best wishes, Emma, Meg and Jasper
Hello and welcome. It's easy to look back at all the lovely puppy photos and forget the lack of sleep, the anxieties and the feelings of "What on earth have I done!" Things will settle down in time, but meanwhile you just need to get through the next few weeks. It sound as if your puppy is already doing well, but she's still very young. You don't mention whether she has a crate. I've found that crate training a puppy so that it has somewhere safe and secure for a bit of down time (and sanity-saving time for its humans too!) is really useful. Older dogs too often enjoy just chilling out in their crates too, though don't necessarily need to be shut in! Do keep us posted. Some photos would be good too!
Hello! Welcome to the forum My boy Stampy is almost 16 weeks, and I've had him for a little under two months. He is my very first dog, and my last pets were some easy, relaxed birds about 10 years ago. I'm still dealing with a lot of ups and downs with Stampy (a lot of downs, as you can probably see by all my previous posts), but I can easily tell you it's already so much better than a month ago. So it does get better, slowly. All you can really do is persevere, day by day, trust your instincts, and take lots of photos!
