Help! My puppy is 10 weeks old and gets bored of her toys in 5 seconds flat. I know it's important to play with your puppy but the only play she wants is biting me, chewing anything except her toys and picking up gravel and anything that could harm her in the garden. She's not interested in Kongs or chew toys. At my wits end! I don't know how long I should play with her every time she wakes up and I don't really know HOW to play with her given that she gets bored so quickly. Pleeeaaase tell me it gets easier! We've got 3 weeks before we can take her out after her vaccinations.
It does get easier, I promise, but not yet You can do little bits of clicker training which tires them out. I am not a believer in playing with a puppy in every waking moment! A good toy is an empty cardboard box with scrunched up newspaper in and a few little treats hidden in it. Mine loved empty plastic bottles which they could bat round the living room. You can (and should!) take the pup out to socialise, carry her to supermarkets, children's playgrounds, sit in a car park with her in the car and let her watch the world go by etc. I am sure others will come along with even better ideas.
This is completely normal. I know they are crazy crocodiles at this age - All mine have been! It's 100% normal. Take heart, they quickly grow out of it. Wear tight sleeves and skinny jeans - wellies if necessary! Here are some articles with the best advice - more importantly, it WORKS! The only tip which didn't work for mine was the yelping - that just made them even more excited. The important thing to remember is that repetition is needed - lots and lots of repetition for them to learn new skills. http://www.thelabradorsite.com/labrador-puppies-biting/ http://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-cope-with-an-overexcited-labrador-puppy/ http://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-play-safely-with-a-labrador/ http://www.thelabradorsite.com/labrador-training/
Start off with a puppy kong, and just put a bit of super tasty chicken in it (or something like that, whatever your puppy really likes and is practical to use). Make it so she can get the chicken out really easily. It's fine to have the bit of chicken more out of the kong than in! Then make the chicken a little harder to get out, but not much harder. You progress like that until the puppy gets the idea that food comes out of the kong if she tries. Then you can make it harder and harder until you can stuff the kong with any old thing and freeze it so it's very difficult to get the food out. But start off so it's really easy to get the food. It's really worth persisting with this, because kongs help with all sorts of things from leaving your puppy alone to getting them to settle in exciting places. Try to be quite structured about playing with your puppy. It helps to play specific games that the puppy can learn, not just play randomly. (It's fine to play randomly of course, but it's not much use in terms of getting the puppy to focus on something - when the puppy can learn how a game goes it becomes more engaging for them). For example, you could play to train 'leave it' which is both handy and gets a small puppy focussed. And then once the puppy gets the 'leave it to get it' game, you can play a game where the puppy has to guess which way you are going to flick a bit of kibble. Tug is great and you can start off learning the rules of take it, and let go. Training 'let go' while playing tug is great for a tiny puppy because then you can tell her to let go when she grabs at clothes etc. You can play touch a human's hand while keeping your mouth closed - that's a good one for a biting puppy too.
We played 5-7 minutes (Harley got tired quickly) of calling her. DH and I would stand about 10m apart and both have her normal kibble. We would take turns calling her, when she arrived she would get some kibble and lots of love and cuddles, then the other person would call her.
It's really important that you take her out and about to get used to noises such as cars, buses, trucks etc, but also for her to see different people/dogs. I used to sit at our local shopping centre with a nice costa coffee and have Harley on my lap so she could see and hear things. I also carried her into pets at home where she met loads of people who fussed her and also she got to see other dogs. As long as you carry her around, it's really useful to do short trips out, even if it's just carrying her around your street.
