Hello, I'm new here and did search the forum before posting this. We adapted an intact female chocolate lab (sporting breed with the narrow-longer snout). She turned 2, 3 days after we got her early Oct 2017. When I was younger I had an English, male Chocolate lab with the short snout and stout head, he was absolutely amazing. Well she has what I think is massive separation anxiety. She is constantly under foot, to the point of constant tripping over her when were up. She whines to go out, which is fine, but can not stay outside on her own for any length of time. She whines at the back door excessively and very, very loudly. The only time we tried to leave her in the backyard when we ran a quick errand a neighbor called about 10 mins later saying she got out. When I got home I saw she dug a hole and chewed the fence apart so she could get out. She circles the dinner table when we eat so we started putting her in the crate she came with but she whines the entire time and so loudly it hurts our ears. She does good with commands (ie. sit, lay, roll over, go to sleep, etc) but we can't figure out how to stop the whining. Its to the point where everyone in the house is ready to get rid of her, even my 5 year old son who adores her. Any help before I can't win the, lets keep the dog battle anymore, would be appreciated. TIA, Jason
Many dogs do not enjoy being outside in a yard alone - it is boring and boredom leads to issues like barking, digging, pacing. My dog only goes out alone to pee and is right back at the door asking to come in, and she doesn’t have any separation issues. I would build up alone time inside the house when you go out, starting very slowly, just a few minutes at a time. A routine can help - our routine before leaving is outside for a pee (or walk depending on time alone), a few treats and a frozen Kong. My dog whines (almost no barking) and usually it’s because she is bored (wants a walk), her ball is under the couch or she needs to pee.
Leaving her in th those when were gone isn't an issue, we put her in the kennel. She whines for a few mins but stops. If she is in it when were eating she doesn't stop whining and does gets super loud.
Given that you adopted her as an adult (do you know her history at all?) and the amount of distress she's displaying, I'd be inclined to call in a behaviourist - they'll be able to observe her and give you a plan to follow that's best suited to her needs. Not all behaviourists are created equal, though - you want one that's force free, uses positive reinforcement, doesn't advocate the use of shock/e-collars etc. Are you able to leave her alone (inside) for any amount of time during the day, or does she absolutely need somebody with her 24/7?
Have you tried giving her a tasty frozen Kong in her crate while you’re eating? It might distract her. Good luck - it’s difficult to know what triggers the whining when she probably had a rough start in life.
I work full time at a dog shelter and whining is sadly picked up from other unhappy dogs for whatever reason are suddenly in a kennel and cut off from freedom, siblings, or their past owners. I would suggest that you get her tiered. How is your walking schedule? Do you just take her around the block? Get her tiered, take her to a big field where she can run, or get her to jump in a river, etc. and retrieve- if you have this resource. Just get her tiered and let her exercise. Before you eat, walk her and try what Granca suggested and give her a filled Kong. If she is tiered and hungry she should be happy. Honestly, I am sorry to hear that you consider giving her back because she‘s annoying your family. No one is perfect.
She was never in a kennel and lived with a family her whole life. She doesn't act like she's ever been hit or beat. This is WAAY beyond just an "annoyance" to the family, its a quality of life issue, or lack there of. We can't enjoy anything at the house with her here. She jumps up and eats food off the counter or table while the kids area eating. If anyone is walking with a lollipop or anything else the dog will eat it from their hand, she acts like she doesn't eat. We feed her 3 cups in the morning and 3 at night. We try to take her places with us but she just whines really really loud the entire time. We have a very large fenced yard she can play in but won't stay outside at all. We do take her to the park on occasion and through the ball with the chuck it. She is great with retrieving it and brining it back. I even through the ball out into the Puget Sound so she swims to get it. She will be absolutely exhausted but whines the second she's back in the Tahoe to go home. Back at the house its all the same stuff.
Are you saying the whining is literally constant or just when she wants something? Has this been on going since day one or a relatively new thing ? Have you had a vet do a full check on her ? Thorn in foot, toothache etc. Also, not sure what you feed but 6 cups a day seems like a very large amount of food. We feed just over 3 cups a day to a 35kg/75lb intact male.
Have you checked for things like thyroid problems? Is she coming into season or had a phantom pregnancy? Taking to the park on occasions might not be enough. Most dogs enjoy structured exercise everyday. 2 is very young still for a lab and she sounds more like a younger adolescent with no real social skills. Is she left alone to her own devises a lot it does she get attention during the day? Has anyone every taught her not to jump up or steal things? Has she had any training not to do this? My dogs like to be with me and stay with me labs love people and I can imagine she feels lonely on her own in your yard. She sounds very insecure and worried. It sounds very difficult for you I would just go back to basic training for a younger dog start at the beginning a try to build up her confidence and trust in you. You sound very stressed,. Could this he making her worse?
The dog food bag, Whole Hearted (beef and pea), says to feed two and a half cups twice per day for her weight, 60 lbs. She acts like she's still hungry so we added a half cup per meal. When we first got her we took her to the vet and he said she was 100% healthy. We mentioned the whining to him then and he said it may just be the change in family that is causing it. That obviously isn't the case 7 months later. For the jumping I've tried giving the kids food and standing close, when I notice the dog nosing toward the food I tell her no. When she backs off and looks at me I do positive reinforcement, pet her, "good girl" and a treat sometimes. I got a second Kong yesterday and froze both with some PB on the holes and stuffed the inside with layers of wet and dry food. I put her in the kennel when people arrived and she was quiet and focused on that. I was so happy, but after about 20 mins when she had eaten all the contents the whining started right back up and really loud without stopping. I finally had to let her out because it was so loud and non-stop. She whines when she isn't getting constant attention. She comes up and nudges my hand or sits on my feet. My wife is a stay at home mom, my 5 year old son is in preschool 4 days a week for 2.5 hrs per day, I have a 2 year old also and I work nights so I'm home during the day, so 99% of the time there is someone home. If she goes in the crate its for an hour-1.5 hours while we go run errands 3-4 times a week, so not long or often. I was thinking today that maybe she would benefit from having a second dog with her to help comfort her and help that pack mentality.
I still think you might benefit from a good behaviourist, and she might even need some anxiety medication to help her along, but I'd see how you go without first. She whines to get attention because it works. If you were to ignore the whining it would get worse, just like a toddler having a tantrum (why isn't it working? I must whine harder and longer etc to make them notice me), but if you stick to your guns it would get better. Rewarding her with delicious treats for being quiet is a great start. Does she have regular, daily exercise? At least one big walk (1 hour) and some play (games, footy, tuggy etc)?
Here is a short video of her outside, this is literally right after closing the door. She wasn't even as loud or persistent as she gets because she could see me standing there. It is much worse when she can't see us or she is in the crate. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=346774759164465
I don’t think my dog would be happy with those situations to be honest. He’s pretty chill but if I was stood on one side of the door and he was on the other and couldn’t come in he would get frustrated. Same as if we had people round, he would not like being shut in his kennel and missing out so he would bark and whine. It sounds to me like an attention thing that’s maybe being rewarded. The louder she barks the more likely you are to come because she doesn’t appear to do it when you’re not there. As @Xena Dog Princess says is she getting enough exercise? You’re looking at least an hour+ a day with a Labrador - proper exercise, not a run around the garden.
Also she can see that the cat's inside with you.I'm sure our dog would whine under these circumstances.( Not that we've got a cat!)
I absolutely wouldn't get another dog to fix your current dog's behaviour. I have three dogs, one of which can be a bit of a whiner. The other two being there doesn't stop her whining. If you get another dog, you will have less time to give to her, and you're obviously already time poor. Whining is a good indicator of your dog's emotional state. Most dogs don't whine on purpose, it's like an outlet for frustration, fear, pain or excitement they are feeling. So your job isn't to stop the dog whining, but to address that emotional state. If it's frustration, then you have to build her frustration tolerance. If it's fear, you have to make her less afraid. If it's pain, you obviously need to get that sorted. If it's excitement, you need to teach her to lower her arousal levels. All of these (pain aside) come down to you training her to be calm. Rewarding calmness, starting with very short periods of the things she finds difficult to begin with and gradually building it up will help. The book "Treating Separation Anxiety In Dogs" by Malena DeMartini-Price is obviously about SA but the same protocols in it will really help with fostering calmness for a frustrated dog, too, and even an over-excited one. You're teaching your dog to be alone and remain calm for increasingly long periods. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00JV9ZSJ4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Hi @jasongind , first of all I must say your lab is beautiful, what is her name ? As you, I am a second time lab owner, and so there are many people here much more experienced than I, and a couple have already participated in your thread, nevertheless I would like to tell you my short experience. The first lab I had came as quite a shock, I never in my wildest dreams could have thought a dog would be so very demanding upon my lfe and habits. I had had many dogs whilst at my parents house, and I just remember them as hanging around the house quite content with their lives just being dogs. Well, Leão, Lion in English, was a yellow show lab, our first dog as our own family.. and was such a handful, he really destroyed our house (ate our through our back door, our kitchen, etc etc etc) and he came to us as a baby, at 2 months, so no trauma there to be dealt with afaik. It came to such an awful place that we just felt like running away from him, and thought about rehoming him. We had no time or patience for this dog. We were both working full time and had a 3 year old son, so quite enough to do. I have never told this story on the forum. We did eventually rehome him, he was one year old. I packed his bag with his hair brush, kibble and dog plates, had no toys or bed as he'd always eat those. He was a nuisance. His new owner came to fetch him in a rather small car, and I just watched the car go down the road with Leãos big head next to the driver seat. I see this in my mind to this very day. I did not feel relieved at all, for some strange reason. Actaully we spent the day in tears, my son and I, and I also came across my husband crying. Well, long story short, we called his new owner the very next morning after an awful night of missing that damn dog and pleaded to get him back. The person was not very pleased, as he had children of his own who were very much in the liking of Leão. I could have lost my doggy forever. Finally, he was given back to us, and continued the same: a destroyer, always under our feet, if I ran in the corridor he would run too When I was having a bath, his head would be there in the shower and whilst I tried to get dressed, sitting on the bed to get my socks and underwear on, Leão would be sitting against the bed so that I had no space except for on the bed itself to get dressed on. Leão passed away last year unexpectedly at the age of 7 with a gastric torsion. He had become the best dog ever along the years, his being everywhere I was and then disappearing leaving all those spaces he used to fill in our lives empty was just the worst feeling. We have lived without him since December 2017. I love him dearly. We got a new lab in February. I am hooked on labs. The love you give them is the love you get a thousand fold. My advice would be, bond with her, try not to see her as the nuisance she is, don't shut her off from your life and goings on as a family, rather include her, go places with your family and take her with you, spend time just being with her, don't close her off alone in the garden looking into your house and you through the glass door. When you realize you love her, you will want to do all these things and more because they will make you feel better than trying to get rid of her or tryng to make her bugger off on her own accord, and stay sit whilst you live life. It wont work that way. Then, if I were you, more than a behaviourist I would get her into training even if just once a week, so that you learn how to control the counter surfing, the stealing of food, etc, and just general obedience, I also find training very useful for my own mindset, we learn so much and everything just becomes clearer in our heads and actually all those things we know in theory just become easier to put in practice. Good luck Jason, if you love her, and I guess you do as you are here asking for advice and help, give it a serious go, it will be less harder getting engaged with her then whatever you are trying to do now as obviously looks very frustrating to you and she is coming across a a sad anxious little girl trying to desperately to get attention. Engage her in your life and heart. It will be hard and I guess you must be up to it. So I am going to use Boogies' saying which is true differently, like this : None of my dogs have ever wanted to be in my life without me - why should they ? Good luck.
I am also going to share a little video of Leão with you. It is on his petsitters facebook. God knows how much it hurts to see him, and I avoid it, the looking at pictures of him, but I hope it may somehow help you feel differently about your lab, as I finally did about mine. He was one of the best things in my life. I miss him so much, and would have done so much better a second time around, but I don't have that chance now. He is just gone. And ym quality of life is definitely not the same without Leão - it is (maybe surprisingly) much less. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=769075706568774
Here. Might as well show this one too. My dear boy. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=623176541158692
