I'd like to preface by saying that this is my family's third dog, with the previous two being a Chow Chow and Akita, both dogs known for their stubbornness and otherwise general disdain of anyone not family. But our new lab puppy Remy (he is currently our only dog), is completely different than our other two at this age. There are some days when hes this sweet pup, wants to play and in general is just good. But other times, he gets these zoomies where hes barking a lot, snapping his teeth, trying to bite and lunge, running all over the house and he wont stop unless we some how corral him and put him in his crate. In which is calms down, behaves and then repeats the cycle. We take him for long walks 2-3 times a day, we play with him outside for 30-45 mins a few times a day. It's not like we aren't giving him attention nor enough exercise. We've come to realize that some of this barking and attention seeking is for when he needs to go outside to do the #2, which we had already taught him to ring a bell when he needed to go out. My parents and I are just a tad unsure on whats normal behavior, what can be done, etc. Couple environmental tidbits: 3 Adult household Remy is in a crate for about 7 total hours during the day with ZERO accidents. Since we all work in near our house, we take turns coming home at lunch for about a hour to be with him.
My girl can be quite a challenge at 8 months. Can I ask if your dog is crated at night as well or just 7 hrs per 24? My girl sleeps in a crate at night in our room, but when I leave her for work for around 6 hours I don’t crate her as that’s too long. She’s in our kitchen (made as safe as possible) with toys, food dispensers and things to chew on. Could you find an alternative to the crate perhaps?
Is it possible that shes getting too much activity/physical stimulation?? How is her behavior during these times? I can’t remember where i read it but theres quite a lot of info about how doing high excitement (positive stress) activities generate the stress hormones that stay in the body for up to 72 hours, so if i play ball with a ball crazy dog every single day, my dog would be on hyper crazy stress emotion every single day. And so maybe i should try only playing ball once a week etc. people reported the same thing with dogs attending dog parks and getting hyper every day etc. that would explain the zoomies because thats usually overtired overstimulated acting up! I think Jo Laurens has these article links actually this is ringing some bells... Can you try frozen kong toys and snuffle mats and calming soothing licking/sniffing/chewing low energy activities outside the crate during the day and reduce some of the active active stuff? Just some suggestions it depends on how your dog is but hopefully theres something interesting or possible to try here that sounds like it matches what you’re experiencing!!
SianMJ, 8 hours at night then another 8 hours during the day, so i guess thats where we fall short. Usually hes out of his crate from 5:00-7:00am, 12:00-1:00pm and then 4:00-10 or 11 PM. My mom is the only one that is against leaving him out during the day, but at some point we will have too. The crate we have for him, while rather large, will get small considering hes still growing. HollyBerry, huh, i never thought to look for an activity that causes this type of behavior. Definitely the first step to seeing if it helps. We are definitely on top of the frozen toys, he loves them! and then gets bored and wants your attention. I appreciate the advice and thoughts from you two!
Perhaps for your mum, the more crazy behaviour outside of the crate the worse she feels about him being uncrated! But it would probably help if (through using your best friend frozen kongs) you could explore him just hanging out with the family out of his crate in the evenings perhaps on days when hes already set up to suceed displaying calmer behavior? And yeah the more practice he gets at calm hanging out around the house now the better he will he when he’s older! Good luck let us know what works for you guys!!
I built up the time gradually leaving my pup alone, perhaps you could do this? Perhaps start with being in the crate for the morning or afternoon only or for an hour alone out of the crate? Plus when I leave her good things always happen and leave her with her breakfast in kong wobbler, kong, kong bone, lickimat etc . Plus we have a camera linked to our phones just for peace of mind, it wasn’t expensive. She is good when she is on her own with only minor misdeeds infrequently. My pup does have the zoomies and still has plenty of silly bitey moments at 8 months and can be wound up by very small things! I have a few posts on here about it, I just feel that there is a limit to how much time she should spend in her crate irrespective of her behaviour and I feel the night is enough. Think there are a few posts on here and article in puppy care written by Pippa, suggesting few hours is enough. They are hard work these pups!! All the best!
By 7 months our pups were seldom crated or penned. They all had the run of most of the house and the back yard (dog door) With Tilly and Cooper we were home most of the time, but they were not penned up when we weren't here. We did block of some rooms at first, but now everything except storage rooms are open.
