Hi all! I am a new puppy mama. My husband and I have a 9 year old son, and we adopted a Zuchon almost three weeks ago. Bo is 13 weeks old, super sweet, super cute, quite smart, and a bit manipulative. Unfortunately, we're having a hard time establishing a bedtime routine. My husband and I don't see eye to eye (I'm a behavioral psychologist and he's in finance, so he kind of thinks everything I bring to the table is hogwash and he undoes all of my efforts to ignore unwanted behaviors like whining in the pen while I am 5 feet away cooking dinner). Our pup came crate trained for night sleeping and naps, so we set up a den for him upstairs in the spare bedroom and one downstairs in the kitchen with an exercise yard. He would sleep 8:30 pm to 5:30 am for the breeder with no need to pee at 10 weeks. But when we brought him home, Bo woke every two hours or so, as we expected given the new environment. I slept in the room with his crate for the first week. When we tried to leave him in the room alone at night, he lost it and made sounds we had never heard him make. My approach was ignore, but my husband's was yell and scream and nag until I went in, which only reinforced both of them. I decided to move Bo to the downstairs crate for both day and night, and he seemed to do better in terms of volume and intensity of noise. He was still waking every couple of hours though, never pottying when I took him out, so last night I decided to start extinction trials and ignore him. He slept about 8 pm (had an unusually long afternoon and was not able to nap int he afternoon) to 3 am and then became very noisy. My husband then told me he didn't take him out right before bed (had last been out around 7 pm), so waited until he was quiet and I took him out to potty. He fought me getting back into the crate (as he always does now), and then the real horror show began. He never went back to sleep and was only quiet for a total of 40 minutes from 3 am - 6 am when I finally went down to get him because I was worried that he had to potty again and he had barked for an hour straight. I found his crate cover pulled inside and torn up, and a small poop on top of it inside his crate. I took the poor baby out and he had a good pee and a very big poop. I feel so horrible. Now I have no idea what to do because he has now had a bad experience in his crate (he has never pottied in his crate before). I think part of the problem is that we have been forgetting to take his food up after 30 minutes (he also won't eat unless someone is sitting right next to him, even when I make food puzzles for him), and I don't feel that we have a very good routine for him. I am feeling so lost, which seems silly coming from a behaviorist (albeit a human behaviorist, the principles are universal), but it's hard when living with someone who will not buy in and work with me to train our pup. I have ordered some clickers and I'm going to start clicker training him for obedience behaviors (my husband was opposed to me doing so before, but now I think he just wants me to do whatever it will take to help our pup adjust), but I am at a total loss for the sleep piece now. He doesn't fight my husband with the crate for naps, only me (naps and bedtime). I would let my husband do bedtime every night, but he travels a lot, so our pup needs to be able to do this for me too. I am thinking I need to devote time to Pippa's crate training steps before I head back to work in two weeks. Other thoughts? Thank you all so much in advance (and so sorry for the long post)!
Hi Laura, I have a 4-month-old pup so I feel your pain. Is there a reason you don't let her stay up later? That may help her. I also heard that wearing them out with play before sleep is helpful. Does she have anything in her crate to play with if she awakes? Keep in mind some of these maybe be different than what you will see hear. I am by no means an expert. My pup sleeps all night without waking to go to the bathroom, but she stays up late with me. As far as the crate, I throw in a couple of treats and she goes right in. As you know there is a lot of good info on the site. Stick with it, I notice that as she gets older her behavior is getting better. You could also try some of the pheromone calm plugins. I know Amazon has them. I used them with my cat and they did help. Good luck, Cindy
Hi Laura, and welcome to the forum. It sounds as though you have had a difficult start. Feeling lost and overwhelmed are pretty normal emotions in the first few weeks of puppyhood - even for experienced puppy parents, so don't blame yourself. Rather than worrying about any mistakes you might have made, the best thing is to focus on what you are going to do next. Where your puppy is going to sleep for the next few nights. And how you are going to tackle any protests he might make. If you have the puppy sleep in a crate next to your bed, that will give him a chance to settle in to his new home, and get over any upset he may have experienced. If you decide you want him to 'cry it out' then your best bet is a puppy playpen with a bed in one corner and some puppy pads in another. That way, if he does get so upset that he needs to relieve himself, he can do that without soiling his crate or bed.
You sound stressed. Have you been in touch with your breeder? Most good breeders will support their puppies after adoption.