It's been a little while since I posted now. Yalom is doing well overall. He's a friendly guy and loves training. To be honest I think we could train all day but he'd be very fat! I've been working on capturing calmness and settling, and we've signed up to Jo's clicker retrieve course whilst our AD trainer is ill so we have something structured to focus on. However our main problem is his hyperness in the evening. He just can't seem to settle. We give him a frozen kong about 7pm and he'll work on that for forty minutes or so but then he's all over the place. He has a 45 minute walk each day (only 20 minutes or so on lead the rest sniffing around trailing his long line and working on recall). We do 5 minutes of training around 5 times a day. And we also play in the garden and play find it with treats. Is there something obvious in here I'm doing wrong? It's ended up that we're putting him in his crate at 8.30 and he's almost always asleep by the time I've been to the loo, so he is tired it seems.
Hi @RuthElizabeth Even with the evening problem, it sounds to me as though you are doing a wonderful job. The retrieving will be a wonderful exercise for him to learn. Shaping is mentally stimulating and tiring. Labradors take a while to mature. Are ypu able to pinpoint any trigger for the evening wobble?
Hi @Michael A Brooks. Thanks as ever for your response. He's a great dog and training together is the best part of the day. I'm not sure if I can pin point anything. He's never been great at realising he's tired so part of me wonders if it's just over tired labrador exuberance? And whether I just need to manage my expectations at him settling with us at night until he's older.
@RuthElizabeth How old is your dog? Does your dog have a bed to sleep on near to where you sit for the evening. You might teach him mat. I suggest teaching him mat by shaping. Good for his education. And wonderful for your timing and observation. Reward for duration on the mat.
Hi @RuthElizabeth I remember now that you had enrolled in an assistance dog course. How is it progressing?
Hi @RuthElizabeth, sounds like Yalom is getting on great. We've also signed up to Jo's clicker retrieve course, so it will be great to hear how you guys get on too. Luna is a month older than Yalom but between 4 months and 7 months we had exactly the same problem with evening hyper behaviour (I think it's really common in pups to have an evening burst of energy/over-tiredness) and most of it seemed to stem from her not being able to self-settle. Luna would typically do the roomies around the kitchen, jump up and mouth. I started off by completely ignoring her and then sitting on the floor. She'd eventually work out that I was ignoring her craziness and she'd settle on my lap and lie down with her head on her paws. If she was super excited, getting on the floor would get her more worked up, so sometimes I'd need to wait a bit. Giving her something to chew really calmed her down (wooden chews really worked for Luna, but each dog is different in terms of the texture they find most relaxing), and eventually she would sigh, lie still, fall asleep, and then take herself off to bed. Sounds like you're doing a similar thing with the Kong, but maybe finding something she can physically gnaw down on rather than scoop food out of might be worth exploring? In the last few months, when she's overtired, she doesn't bomb around the kitchen as much, but she's progressed to gnawing on the kitchen table (scraping her teeth on the wood to get attention). I put a towel on the floor and calmly ask her to lie down on it, dropping kibble to her every 30 seconds or so. Eventually she settles and falls asleep, then takes herself to bed. It's been a bit labour intensive, and I've had to spend every evening for the past 3 months sitting in the kitchen doing crosswords while she settles, but I think it's slowly paying off. If she seems particularly wired, I also sometimes put dog calming music on Spotify ("through a dogs ear" is good), dim the lights and get the rest of the family to stay in the front room. My other half laughs at me and tells me I'm creating a dog spa, but if it works, frankly I don't care Good luck with it - I'm sure he'll grow out of it soon.
@Michael A Brooks - he's 7 months old, as I think you've seen from my other post, which I guess is still young for a lab. His assistance training is going really well, however our trainer is ill at the moment so we're on a bit of a break for now. Hopefully we'll be able to start up again soon! I will certainly try shaping the mat work. Thanks so much @LoopyLuna - it's really helpful to see another person who's had the same experience! Did you find any wooden chews that she particularly liked? We have a root chew but it's not his favourite thing. I'll definitely try with the using kibble for settling too. Thanks
Petstages Dogwood Sticks are awesome. They are made to taste and feel like chewing on sticks. Our dogs love them. It really helps with the chewing.
Hi @RuthElizabeth - we tried a few different ones that we bought off amazon. Coffee wood chews are good - we've bought this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/Green-Wild...46105633&sr=8-9&keywords=coffee+wood+dog+chew it has a tendency to splinter a bit at the beginning but if you keep Yalom supervised then you can take those bits of him. Ancoroot is probably the one Luna likes the best, lasts the best and splinters the least. We bought an Origins one from our local pet shop, but you can get them on Amazon. Aim for a large/extra large but be careful when they drop them on your feet (it really hurts!!!) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Origins-An...TF8&qid=1546105745&sr=8-16&keywords=anco+root We've also tried Olivewood - it's a bit harder than the coffee wood, and lasted a bit longer. Aim to get a large one of these too - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bio-Mordis...5846&sr=8-1&keywords=olive+wood+chew+for+dogs Hope some of those work for you. My favourite is the Ancoroot as I'm more comfortable to leave her with that one - it hardly ever splinters, and the bits that inevitably come off are tiny. We also tried Yak Chews which she loved, but didn't last long enough - might be worth a try with Yalom though if he's not too much of a destructive chewer. Good luck
Thanks so much @LoopyLuna - these look brilliant. He always used to try and chew sticks so I'm pretty sure these will be a hit!
