Good Morning, We just got baby Ziggy home on Fri. He is now just under 9 weeks old. I've been reading the advice on this forum about settling young puppies into their new homes and it has been invaluable, however, there is one thing I'd like to ask for advice on. After I bring him in from being out in the garden, whether it be late at night or early hours in the morning, he is crying loudly and jumping up and biting on the baby gate we have put in place. I am sitting within a few metres on the other side of the baby gate, there is a small lamp on so he is not in darkness. I know in the early stages these things are normal, I would just appreciate some advice on how to handle it. Even now as I write this, he is the other side of the gate crying and scratching on the gate. Thanks in anticipation of your advice
Are you using a crate? If not you should think about it. Otherwise the is simply trying to get through the gate to you. Plus you provide attention which reinforces the behavior. Perhaps excercise the pup before you bring in and then leave in his area to settle. Is that a part of room? Important to then ignore pup. If tiered will then fall asleep Good luck
Thanks for your advice. Yes hes got a crate. I dont lock the crate door at night though. His breeder did up until last Fri but I haven't since we got him He's in the dining room which is joined on to the living room, we have nowhere else to put hom that's suitable. I've also been taking him out a few times through the night as up until today he's had diarrhoea so was trying to avoid this happening in the house. Chris
Is there a particular reason why you're not closing the crate door at night? It sounds like he's used to being safely shut in if the breeder did it. We had a smaller crate which we put in our bedroom for the first week for night use. It worked as Harry settled well. After that we moved it to the living room and swapped it for a larger size when he was about four months old.
No reason. I just felt as he had the area gated off we could keep door open. I suppose part of it was in case he done the toilet in his crate.
I tried locking the crate door last night and he became very distressed, I suppose when he had the crate closed at the breeders he had 7 other brothers and sisters to cuddle into. I unlocked the door and we went back to the routine of him being out in his area but behind a baby gate. He never stopped crying until after 3.30. I don't care about my sleep (we've got 2 young kids!!!) and will put in as much work to settling him as it takes but I just want to make sure I'm on the right track.
Kyko cried the first few nights in his crate, for the first few nights we sat in front of it till he fell asleep and then snuck off back to bed. After about a week we apologised to the neighbours in advance (live in a flat) & let him cry it out, we knew he had toileted & just wanted attention. After 2 nights he fell almost straight asleep with no fuss, then was up at 5.30 for the toilet and stayed up then. After a week or so he slept right through from about 10.30 to 7 and has done ever since
Every time you put him in the crate exercise beforehand. Make sure he did his business. Then close the door. Sit next to crate and read something. Ignore puppy no matter what. He will learn to settle and fall a sleep a bit quicker with every time you do it. If you show any reaction or open gate you will go back a huge step. You will prevail fast. If you want add kong or similar to occupy him but at that age he should settle quickly. Important that you teach your dog to settle in the house. Fun and games is outside. Good luck
Thanks for your reply, ChrisG - I just wondered about not locking him in. If he's in a contained area where he can't do himself (or your furniture etc) any harm that's fine. Lots of people use an open crate inside a puppy pen/area. Our Harry is a jumper, unfortunately, and easily got over baby gates when we tried to pen him in the kitchen! Tee's advice above is really good and it will work for a crate or a specific area. Make his crate etc as den-like and comfy as you can. I appreciate that it's more difficult to ignore crying/barking when you've got young children in the house though. Ziggy's still very young and it will still be strange to him. I hope he settles soon. Good luck!
I think you need to read up and research crate training - why you need to do it, what it's about, how it helps toilet training and so on. Of course if you just put him in there and lock the door, he will make noise and want to get out. If you then let him out, you are reinforcing the noise. There is a process to go through to introduce a puppy to a crate - which is why it's called 'crate training' and not just 'putting your puppy in a crate' or 'crate usage' LOL! For more info follow these steps: https://thehappypuppysite.com/crate-training-a-puppy/ The skill your puppy needs to develop, is learning to relax when separated from you by a barrier - whether that is a crate or a stair-gate. Crate training will really help with this concept in general. But you may still have issues with the stair-gate. When my pups are little, they have a crate under the table in the kitchen. And the kitchen is also stair-gated off from the rest of the house. So the pup can play in the kitchen when I'm there to supervise and can be separated from older dogs. Any time my puppy is out of the crate, I am in the kitchen to supervise. How else can I prevent accidents on the floor by taking pup outside frequently, prevent chewing on kitchen furniture by redirecting to toys, prevent raiding the trash etc etc? I need to be there. When the pup is sleepy, I toilet the pup and put the pup in the crate. That is then my free time to go out of the kitchen and elsewhere in the house. So this means I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, when I have a pup. I use the kitchen table to set my laptop up in there and it becomes almost a 2nd office....
Jo is the expert, I learned a lot from her a Michael. We too had a pen around the create as you of course can not leave the dog in the crate the whole time. Equally they rest s lot too when little and there you can use crate to jour advantage. I still use it for Perci who is 8 months now. She likes sleeping in it and when we need to leave her unattended, which does happen. Issue with pen and gates is that very quickly they learn to climb pr jump out. We used pen until Perci was approx 15/16 weeks
Thanks to all of you for your responses, lots of good advice there. Jo: he was kept in a locked crate with his brothers and sisters by the breeder up until last fri when we got him and he does love his crate. He goes in on his own lots during the day and through the night (with door open).
We're now on day 8 of having baby Ziggy home. I've looked at my original post in this thread and it was after only 3 sleepless nights, in reading some of your posts I can see I've had it easy but when you're in the thick of not getting sleep and trying to work and have young kids it can be hard.What I am finding is that what I'm going through, everyone on here has went through and lo and behold have survived it and have beautiful, well adjusted labs!! A few observations, I think I was more worried about bringing Ziggy home than I was with my 2 kids and I think that's because in recent years the level of "expert advice" which is readily available is astronomical. I read so many conflicting things that muddied the water so much. Now I use this forum alone for advice/guidance and while I've found the advice a source of great support you have to figure out what's best for your own wee pup's needs. Ziggy is progressing well with sleeping on his own downstairs within his gated area in his crate with the door opened. He will sleep for 3/3.5 hours and I'll go down and take him out for the toilet, get him settled again and he'll sleep for another 3 hours or so, which I think isn't bad. He's safe, secure and happy, if he does cry it's for attention and we dont react at all. Toilet wise, he is reacting to a "pee-pee" cue most times now and although he is having the odd wee accident, he tends to know toilet is outside. (He most definitely doesn't like this heavy rain we've had these last few days and we need to fish him off the back step to take him onto grass!!) The bitey stage is well under way and we've just been removing ourselves from him when he does it. He absolutely loves chewing stones (something I didn't anticipate in garden so I need to remove them!) and digging....he's also eyeing up the washing on the line but hasn't lunged yet.... All this to say to anyone at the early stages. Read these pages, you'll see your pup is normal and he will move on from these stages....and dont despair!!!
