Ok - So my lover dog (Nuadha) was born May 5th, 2020. At 9 weeks I finally got to take him home and wa-la I got a labrador puppy! (so excited!) and for the first few months things were fantastic. I started training early on, we crate trained in the first four weeks, he was eager to treat train, and so Sit, Stay, Down, and Come were all learned by 12 weeks and nearly perfect by 16. I did feeding time as training time. All of his food was either used as treats for training, or as frozen kongs for crate time. Then things just...derailed. 1. He was potty trained from the breeder (a friend from work who was an excellent first litter mommy) he would go to the door and whine or bark to be let out if he had to go potty. Fast forward six months, he walks towards the door, waits half a second to see if I move his direction, then takes three steps and pees all over the carpet. 2. I thought I had the crate training thing down. He doesn't make a peep during the day when I leave for work, or if he is in the crate at night when I sleep, or if I crate him during dinner. Then, on thanksgiving I had to put the crate in the bedroom (rather than the living room) due to how many people were over, and he destroyed the crate (a sturdy 280$ one I was told was nearly indestructible...) wouldn't stop barking, and then DUG UP THE CARPET trying to get out of the bedroom. 3. I started socializing him early, he was playing with and being around older dogs as early as I could get his rabies vaccine at 12 weeks. But this is the biggest problem I have. HE WILL NOT CALM DOWN. He will literally pant, run, jump, lick, chase, and otherwise ANNOY the other dog until they try and find somewhere to hide and he is still going. I thought another lab that was about his age might be able to keep up, but even another labrador puppy (about 1 year) gets tired of him before he is ready to be done. If I completely remove the other dog from the situation he calms right down, and goes back to being normal, but as long as the other dog is visible at all he is impossible to do anything. He will literally go nonstop for HOURS. I have taken him away from other dogs because I think its unhealthy for him, but the longest I have let it go on is 4 hours straight. Literally. Not a single sit down, not a single lay down, not one moment of peace for four hours. He can't be happy but I don't know how to fix it. And while there is another dog his potty training is GONE. He will just pee as he runs and plays and not even make a hint of a move towards the door. 4. One word - CHEWING. I can't even begin to describe. Plates off the counter, the couch, anything but his toys. Like - there is almost 200$ worth of chew toys specifically in and around my living room but he doesn't chew on those, he finds paper and plastic and anything else but the toys to chew on. I don't even know where to start with figuring out whats wrong. I play fetch with him for 3-4 hours a day (like, I throw the ball as far as it I can probably like 100ft or more, he runs full speed and grabs it, comes running full speed back, and we do this for 3-4 hours without a pause other than potty breaks) and he eats a balance diet (Royal Canin Labrador Puppy). I am just...any advise would be welcome at this point.
I'm a complete amateur so my opinions may not be right but I think he's overstimulated. 3-4 hours of fetch seems a lot to me, I don't ever play fetch with my 10 month old pup to protect her bones and joints as she's growing, she does play fetch only in the swimming pool. I think his adrenaline and energy levels are being ramped up, try and find ways to engage his nose instead? 10 minutes of nose work for my pup tires her out like 1 hour of physical exercise would. If he's food motivated use some of her daily food allowance to work his nose with sniffing and other food based toys. Throw his nibble around the garden let him sniff and find it. When people came over you could try a stuffed kong to occupy him, or another age appropriate chew like bully sticks but a kong would be better as less supervision needed. I think you need to bring his physical activities down and work his mind and nose a lot more.
You may have an idea. I might try that. The fetch is a replacement for walks unfortunately. I have really bad knees and can't give him the walks he deserves, so I try to make sure he gets enough exercise by playing fetch. The problem with food is that while he is very food motivated when its just me at home, as soon as there are other people he doesn't care if I have a steak on the floor, the people are MUCH more interesting.
I grew up with dogs but it has been a long, long time since I was around puppies until our recent pup. I would tend to agree with Sukhpreet though, that amount of physical energy seems an incredible amount of time and so he may be expecting this level of energy from all around him. I would be tempted to mix things up a little between taking 1 or 2 walks each day, which will allow him to explore his surroundings at a more leisurely pace and some mental excercise as Sukhpreet suggested. I personally wouldn't use all the food as training or motivation either as you want your pup to realise that food is ometimes just a given at certain times of the day. I would also get an anti chew spray, wroks wonders for us. Hope things settle down for you.
This is an example of the behavior I get when another dog is around. Here, there is another dog (about a year old) who has been in the house for nearly 24hrs at this point. He played with her for about 20minutes and then she started trying to hide, so I called Nuadha back to his crate to try and give her some space to relax. He had been sitting in his crate for nearly 10minutes when the video starts, and is still panting like he ran a mile. You can see that he listens...mostly...when I call him to the crate and tell him to stay, but he is fixated on the other dog to the exception of anything else. What you can't really see is that I have a few treats in the hand not holding the phone. He doesn't even care.
Could you hire a dog walker? It's an added expense I know so easy for me to suggest. You could try a house line? Let him play then take him away when you think it's enough although he definitely seems to listen to you, he's just super excited. I'd divide his meal rations into 3 or 4 bits. For example my pup gets 70g for breakfast, 105g for dinner and 125g spread throughout the day with any left over going with her dinner. Plus some added treats throughout the day. I would definitely find an alternative to the fetch though it will help him physically in the long term. Could you throw something, get him to wait and then retrieve it when you say go? Would mean less sharp stops and some different for him to think about. If it's possible tell the other people to ignore him, it might take some time but it could help, then when he looks calmed down they can engage with him then. He does listen to you which is a good start
I was given this advice and thought I’d pass it on: when you exercise your dog you are only making them fitter and harder to tire and so you are now playing 4 hours of fetch. I was given the advice like above to tire my dog mentally - give them dog puzzles, play “find it” with their food, instead of throwing the ball, maybe hide it in some long grass, give them frozen kongs, promote calmness through licking activity through lickimats etc
You have an intelligent retriever with lots of drive, exactly what a Labrador is supposed to be. He doesn't care about the treats because he knows he can get them whenever he wants. This is one of the many problems with treat training. From the behavior you describe, he is obviously a very intelligent. Some of his behavior, like the chewing, sounds like frustration. Discouraging physical activity and not exercising a dog, especially one like Nuadha, is abuse IMO. The greatest reward you can give him is to to let him retrieve something. Good retrievers are very focused on their handler (you) and have a strong desire to please. Look up some videos on training field trial retrievers. You need to challenge Nuadha mentally along with the physical exercise. He may be more dog than you anticipated but that's what retrievers are supposed to be.
So - I thought I would give an update on here, since you guys were soooo helpful. I have a friend who does dog training and runs his own train and board, so I reached out to him for some pointers and it was a godsend. Turns out my puppy just needs more stimulation than my couch potato life is giving him. He is now going to doggy daycare three days a week (7am-5pm) which is super cheap?? (20$/day) When he comes home he is also a couch potato. so it is working out. On his off days we play fetch and I have taken to forcing myself to walk him. We don't go very far at once, but I bring a folding chair and we stop and sniff stuff and look at the leaves ect for a few minutes then walk some more. He is doing MUCH better with the combination. I think most of it was just being too ...couped up? I don't know. There is some separation anxiety that is slowly getting better with the daycare too and he still chew - but at least he is only chewing on his toys now (most of the time). So - for anyone else having these issues. MOAR EXERCISE!
