I have a 7 month old lab pup who isn't very good at chilling out. He's never been good at sleeping, ever since we got him - he'll rarely sleep with us in the room and never sleeps outside of the kitchen. He gets over excited very easily and by everything (people, dogs, new clothes, shopping bags) and literally bounces off the walls and kitchen units throughout the day when not in his crate and will manically dig and chew at sofas and carpets. He will rarely calmly sit anywhere in the house, despite being given kongs, chews, toys etc and a few beds around. He'll wander around panting and even when he's tired and we crate him, he'll often whine and wind himself up rather than go to sleep. He never puts himself to bed. I worry he doesn't sleep enough during the day as we can barely keep him awake past 9pm most nights. He does at least sleep through the night until 5.30/ 5.45am (though I would love a lie in at some point!) We've had to shorten his walks recently as well because longer ones were resulting in humping and biting towards the end of the walk but we do lots of mental training with every feed. Is this usual? And will he calm with age? I worry i am expecting too much of him but sleeping and being calm around the house doesn't seem like a big ask...
I think he sounds very normal. 7 months is a very full on age, and challenging. Meg at that age would only settle really after a good off lead run, or training outside the home around distractions. Decreasing his walks will only make things more frustrating for him. He sounds a bit bored maybe, chewing sofas and carpets. They don’t really know how to entertain themselves at that age. Could you get to an obedience class, they are back up running near us. It was the best thing every we did. At 7 moths she was the worst in the class, we persevered and she did her bronze and silver awards on her first birthday. We had training exercises to work on all week which wore her out and after the class she slept like a log. There was also a big focus on how to settle your dog, which in a class full of other bouncy dogs was a challenge, but we got there. That would help him be calm at home. She was a different dog between 7m and a year, but it took a lot of work and perseverance. Good luck.
Thanks so much for your reply - nice to hear this isn't totally abnormal and with some work he will calm! I think we've just struggled a bit with how full on he's been and it's hard to know what's normal at this age as he's our first pup. We've been lucky enough that our local puppy classes run in an outdoor field so we've been going to them since he was 4 months old and we plan on continuing with them for as long as we can - we've just signed up for another 6 weeks. They've really helped with some behaviour, we definitely weren't doing enough mental training and games to start with so incorporating those into meal times has made a difference and help him chill a bit but more work is definitely needed. We had a 121 with one of the trainers and she suggested keeping mostly shorter walks for the moment and building up his heel work again as at one point, every walk involved him jumping up, biting and humping us which was stressful for all involved. We try to run him around the garden with a ball as I was worried we weren't physically tiring him out enough, but maybe we could start increasing his walks a bit and start doing more training out and about to alleviate some boredom. Thanks for the advice
It is very normal for pups to need a lot of attention at this age/stage and I agree with Edp that digging at the carpet sounds as if he is bored. I suspect the jumping up and biting on walks is a way of gaining interaction with you. Obviously it is an inappropriate way so I would think about ways to make walks more interesting and interactive. Think less about the distance you cover and more about the activity you do. A few ideas: Take a bag of toys and play tug or fetch - just a few minutes for each, not repetitive ball-chasing. Get a length of bungy cord and tie a sock to the end and play 'flirt-pole' games (easier to carry with you than a flirt-pole and works just as well). Drop a toy on the ground and send your dog back for it. Throw a small handful of kibble into long grass and get him to search it out - or hide a toy in undergrowth for a search. Teach him 'paws up' on low objects such as tree stumps. Teach him (by luring inititally) to go out around an object and back to you. Teach a hand touch - dog's nose touches the palm of your hand - and then offer the hand in different positions. You can then put a post-it note in the palm of your hand for 'touch it' and when he's got the hang of this you can put the post it note on different surfaces and ask for a nose-touch to it. (This is one of my dogs favourite games). Hope this helps.
I am A bit late to the thread but teach some brain games too. Mine lives 'find it' and has since about that age. You can hide an object anywhere in our house or yard and my boy will track it down at lightning speed.
Is there guidance someplace on the web on how to do this? Oddly enough, I have a vivid memory of doing this with an aunt and uncle's Lab when I was around 8 years old... But now we have a Lab of our own, I'm not sure how to go about it! (Our pup is just over four months old).
