So hit a new milestone today - a neighbour came round to complain about all the barking our 4 month old puppy has been doing. ☹️ Not a fun conversation. I was doing best to be apologetic and say we are trying to work on it but she was just mean and thinks we are cruel to ignore him in the crate, or to have him in the crate at all. I wonder if anyone could give some advice of how they schedule their day to avoid the puppy barking to ask to be let out the crate? Or for meals or just cause someone walked past the crate? The only thing we find that works is to have him on a strict routine of letting him out say every hour, and to wake him up if he is asleep. Otherwise if we start leaving it longer he always ends up getting more and more barky until he barks as soon as he goes in. Although he can now go for 3 hours during the day in between wees. We keep trying to have him out the crate but he usually only lasts up to 5 mins before he gets too excited and starts chewing furniture or mouthing turning to biting if he doesn’t get put in the crate to calm down. He spends longer out in the garden where he will lie for a while happily chomping little twigs. Every time we let him out we do training sessions with him in the garden. He gets two walks a day and is going to start tomorrow also on a lunchtime walk. He does pet gundog training classes on a Saturday. He is a working lab. He went to daycare once last week and is going to go once a week from next week after he has had his kennel cough vaccine. Our dog trainer said he is ‘always on’ and we should work him not let him just bumble about as he gets worked up when he doesn’t have a clear task. Any tips or other people’s experiences would be very welcome! Thank you!
Hi LabInBlack, I just wanted to give this post a bit of a bump for you. It would be helpful to know how long he is currently spending in the crate in total per day? To avoid him barking to be let out, always wait for a break in the barking before you open the crate door. Waking him up and letting him out before he can even think of barking is a good move
Sorry about your neighbor being mean. Some people are just rude. As far as the chewing and mouthing when out of the crate, something that has worked with our puppy is keeping him on a house line when out of his crate. I hold onto the end and he has learned to lay at my feet and chew his toy, away from anything he’s not allowed to chew. It’s also a good way to keep him settled down as I have four rambunctious boys running around all the time. If he starts biting and getting excited I will reel him in a little and he will lay back down and continue chewing his bone or toy. I agree that you should wait for him to be quiet before opening the crate. Have you tried feeding him in his crate? We also have a cover on Titan’a crate that my mom made. It covers three sides and there is a front flap that can either be up, or down to cover the entire crate. He did much better once we started covering the crate. I would start over with making sure he thinks only good thoughts about his crate. Feeding all meals in it (and slowly increasing the time he spends in it after eating) short intervals in the crate through the day (with you in the room first, then out of the room) Kong or something else he can chew for a while...and then slowly increase the amount of time he spends in it. I am by no means an expert, but this has worked for us. Hope it helps!
