Tomorrow we get our new yellow lab puppy. This will be our first dog. She will be inside and 9 weeks tomorrow. Any advice to start off on the right foot?
I'm just a puppy-voyeur so can't help - strictly adults only here. Good luck with your new pup - does she have a name?
Hi and welcome. I highly recommend The Happy Puppy book as it advises you through coming home, dos and donts as well as the first few months.
Hi and welcome - how exciting for you. Just read as much of the advice on the main site as possible - be prepared for the little cutie that you pick up to cry, wee everywhere and bite more than you think possible - but know that this is all completely normal and there is plenty of advice both on the forum and the main website to help you. Oh and take pictures, lots and lots of pictures as our puppies are only small for such a short time.
Thanks for all the great advice. Our puppy's name is Reagan. I have never had an large inside dog and am just a little nervous I have been reading about as much as I can squeeze in my brain. My main fear is my friend has an inside Australian Sheppard and she is horrible! She jumps on everything, she bites, and just a terror. She is almost a year old and my biggest fear is having a dog anything like that!
Lovely name. Puppies do much of this in play and it is up to us to train them to behave how we would like them to be. While your pup is small make a start - you will do this with toilet training anyway - but there are little things you can do. The first few months you are going to have an excitable little bundle that thinks you are his/her playmate and will be trying to play with you as he did his litter mates. You need to gently and kindly train him to play the way that we humans (those of us that do not have fur to protect our skin) want to play. There is lots of advice on the main site about this - bite inhibition, four paws on the floor, loose lead walking etc etc - and if you don't already have it the Happy Puppy Handbook and Total Recall are two brilliant books with loads of help and advice - and of course there is always this forum, which has saved my sanity more than once in the 14 months since Bailey arrived. He is now 18 months old and much of the time he is the kind of dog I want (right now curled up on the sofa next me snoring his head off), but he has his own personality, he is curious and brave and one of the friendliest dogs I have ever seen - I am amazed every day that his butt does not fall off with the amount of wagging his tail does! However, I still carry the scars from his puppy teeth when his favourite chew toy was my arm and hands, I still remember sitting in the pouring rain crying my eyes out wondering what the heck I had done getting this puppy, as he put his paws on my knees and head on mine (in the process transferring fox poo to my hair and trousers!) but I would not be without him for the world....he is my world. You have exciting times ahead and if I was offered another puppy I would do it all again and don't forget to take lots and lots of pictures and share the occasional one with us on here
I recently brought my gorgeous little lab puppy home and even though I felt I knew quite a bit about what to do...until I brought him home. Just wondering how you deal with your pup and it's pees/poops throughout the night? We were told to ignore whining, otherwise he'll start to whine for attention and if you go down you're giving in. This morning I went down to him and he'd pooped in his crate...then rolled in it, stood in it and then had been jumping on the sides meaning it's now covered his crate I'm going to start setting alarms throughout the night to go down to him and let him out to go to the toilet and hope that it makes things better. I'm struggling quite a bit and getting a bit down thinking I'm not being a good puppy mummy. He seems to be pretty good with other things, I can't fault him in the day time. He's still only 8 weeks so it's understandable. I can tell he's trying to use his mat when he can but sometimes it's like he forgets or doesn't get there in time which is okay for now. He's trying to chew wires and furniture but with a firm few NO's, he jumps around like he's threatening it and then moves on to something else. Oh! One last thing. He's also started humping things?! He has a blanket that he loves chewing and pulling around with him, it's only small, but I've noticed he tries to get it underneath him and when it is, he starts humping it! or if it's not the blanket, he climbs on to my lap and starts on my leg! When he does this, I pick him up and move him away and tell him NO. Is this normal for an 8 week pup?! Any advice will be appreciated!
Hi @Chloe you are not a bad puppy mummy at all - you are a new puppy mummy that is learning, just like I was. You will need to set your alarm to get up to your little boy in the night I'm afraid - pre-empt his toilet time but make it boring for him, no talk, no play, straight back to bed. At 8 weeks old he will not be aware of his bladder or bowel needs. I never ignored any whining when Bailey was in his crate, I just waiting for that split second of silence before going in to him. I was a very lucky mum in as much as Bailey slept right through the nights right from day 1 so I never had a nocturnal wee/poo trip, however for the first few nights I kept waking up in case I hadn't heard him needing to go out! Not sure about the humping but Bailey was humping his soft toy after about a week or so of being home (and luckily he still directs his affections to one particular toy), he's never tried to hump my leg just his Eyore toy.
In his create are you limiting the space? Puppies don't like to pee or poop where they sleep. So if you limit their space that they can only turn around, then they will be forced to hold it if they don't want to sleep in their accident. Also, I have noticed a walk or some games in the evening wear our puppy out and she can usually sleep through the night, but if she wakes up and whines we usually take her out and then right back to the kennel. As far as chewing, lots of toys fixes our issue. And someone suggested a kong. A frozen kong kept their dog busy for an hour when teething.
Thank you for your reply! We have now tried this, and it's working so much better, I'm starting to look at him as a little angel rather than the devil in disguise! He wakes around 2am, one of us takes him for a boring bathroom break (no playing/talking) and then back to bed, he then sleeps until around 6/7am, with no accidents! It's made me so much happier and probably him too!
So pleased to hear this @Chloe lack of sleep helps nobody! There will be plenty of moments to come when you need to "talk" things out - when that happens just come to the forum. We have pretty much all gone though puppyhood - and the really good news is WE SURVIVED it! Bailey is pretty much coming out of the teenager phase - but not completely out of it and we have plenty of our own frustrations and worries with him. But you know what - he is happy and healthy and I can't ask more than that! We all learn as we go along - load of more experienced people that me on here but glad the setting your alarm is working for you - keep up the good work and it will all come good
I know I am resurrecting a thread from a few days back, but I wanted to address this for anyone else who may come across the thread in future. It is true that puppies normally (I say "normally", because my latest pup didn't give two hoots) don't want to toilet in their den, which is useful for toilet training during the day. For instance, if you think your puppy needs the toilet, but doesn't go when you take him outside, you can pop him back in his crate for five minutes when you go back in, then try to take him out again. If you don't use the crate, you may find that he just squats as soon as you bring him back inside, which can be infuriating. That is the proper way to use a crate for toilet training. However, what is described above in the context of night time crating with a tiny puppy isn't appropriate at all. Most small puppies simply aren't physically developed enough to be able to hold their bladders and bowels, whatever their instincts are telling them, and if they are put in a position where they are forced to go in their crates, it can be very distressing for them. Less important than this emotional care, but still a consideration, is that it can also damage your crate training if your puppy gets used to toileting in their crate. You are associating the crate with a negative experience, so he will be less likely to learn to love the crate, and also teaching him that using it as a toilet is unavoidable, so as he does physically mature, he will still be less inclined to hold on.
Thank you so much! It's so nice seeing everyones support on here, not just to me but towards others too! Things are slowly getting better now and I'm not feeling so bad anymore! Though dying for a full nights sleep! x
Sorry to say but your friend's dog just isn't trained to not jump, bite etc. and nothing to do with being an 'inside' dog.
