@Hoosier Very, very few pups just play on their own. I have had eight now including my two Cavaliers and only one (Bruce, Golden Retriever) would play on his own - and even then not for long. If you have done enough training, play and interaction with your pup you don't need to feel guilty at all about popping him in his crate or pen. He does need to learn to be alone for short periods whether tired or not. A stuffed Kong is a good way to keep them busy when you are not there/available for play. Dogs usually simply sleep when there is nothing to do - this is normal. .
Hoosier, You're not alone, I have a 14 week old pup - am fairly sleep deprived and weary, not loving such frequent trips to the garden for toileting (and presently experiencing cold torrential rain .. for days .. and a flooded garden). However, I KNOW this will get easier, and picked up on a great bit of advice - allow the puppy to find me boring sometimes. It really works, if he's disruptive when I ignore him, I make sure he has a trip for a wee, remove anything that he grabs to chew with a sharp 'No!', and make sure he has a toy handy. He gets the message quite quickly now, curls up at my feet and waits for me to get interesting again. Phew. Last night he barked for hours, no-one could sleep and the noise was intolerable. So he had a visit to pee, then put back into his crate .. and I tried a technique recommended by my sister-in-law, and that was to bang loudly on the door when he started barking (the trick was to find the break between barking sessions to get a 'start' point). He hesitated barking after a second of door banging, and then it just took a few more goes before he stopped entirely, and I guess he made the connection between NOT barking and the door remaining quiet. There was no voice command to accompany the banging, and I crept to and then away from the door in the hope that he wouldn't realise I was around and available for entertainment. Anyone have any views on this technique? I don't want to frighten the pup, but thought I'd try this before moving the crate out to the farthest part of the house to minimise the noise while we're toughing it out (we like to be able to hear him whimper for a wee trip and know he's OK). In the early days, we had a family rota of someone sleeping in the same room, at a distance (he was in his crate) to help him settle into his new home, but he was fairly happy to be on his own after about a week. I'm hoping last night was a 'blip' - as we have atrocious winter storms here at the moment, he hasn't had as much outdoor time as we'd like (rain 24 hours a day and the garden's flooded), so perhaps he's a bit fed up with being inside, like the rest of us.
I really dislike this strategy. It must have frightened your puppy or it wouldn't have worked. Neither would I leave a young puppy (or an adult dog come to that) to bark for hours. I know puppies are tiring (I've had three, plus an adult rescue) but they need attention like a human baby. If you have 'atrocious winter storms' your puppy may well have been scared of the noise -or perhaps just not tired if he hadn't been able to play outside during the day.
One problem with using something like a loud noise as a consequence for behaviour is that if it stops working after a while then it points to no option other than escalation (a louder noise). The other risk is that it frightens the pup who then learns an unpleasant association (eg with being in the crate). So though it can work it's a bit limited and risky. And many people would feel that it's not the nicest thing to do. Pups bark because they don't know where you are and they feel alone and are shouting out for you. My approach with a pup (or any dog) is to have the crate or dog bed in my room. This totally removes the need for the pup to bark at all, because they know you are right there and they aren't alone. I know that not everyone wants a dog in their room...but most dogs do want to be in your room. Putting them there is an easy solution that goes right to the cause of the problem.
When I was doing the crate training method, I ended putting the crate in the furthest part of my house, and when it was my bed time, I took her toilet then back into her crate and put a towel over mainly the door of crate (I have a more closed in crate)had the radio on quiet and a clock on outside of crate, and walked out. I set my alarm to do the toilet thing(must say I didn't get that sorted)... But she was mostly quiet...
Thanks for your comments. I should have clarified that the storm is not thunder and lightning, just heavy rain, and I wouldn't leave a dog of any age unattended during a thunderstorm. I should also have been clearer that he barked for periods over several hours, not continually, and that the night-time disturbance has been a feature of several nights after being at the stage of managing 4 hours between toileting and then going back to sleep for another 4 hours or so. You may have a point about the outside time, even though he had heaps of play inside yesterday, but he is used to lots of free play on our property and paddock walks. We actually sleep within ten feet of his crate, across a narrow hallway, and as Pippa Mattinson mentions on her website, he will know that we are in the house, (he's been with us for a month). I don't believe his crying was loneliness or fear (it was quite different to the first night's whimpering and howling for his pack), and more the short sharp bark a dog makes when he wants playtime. I don't feel he needs to sleep in our bedroom, as none of my dogs have done this; they have had personal beds within the living room. One benefit to us is that an overnight stay away or boarding kennels is less stressful if the dog is able to take his own space with him, and has learned to spend time in his own company. Our last dog was a wonderful rescue lab, but he did have anxiety around being left on his own outside of the home (associated with being in a rescue centre for some time) which meant that boarding was a no-no for him. I will have a rethink on the night-time barking, thank you for your observations.
Hello Hello, thanks for sharing your experience. The radio's a good idea, have long used this when leaving our last dog on his own - in the early mornings, radio NZ has storytime! . Might try moving the crate and setting an alarm for toileting; so far listening for that 'I need to go' whimper has worked well, with no 'accidents' in the crate, but an alarm would work well if he's too far away to hear the whimper. Using a crate is new to us, but as our home is very open-plan, it seems a good solution to creating a cosy hazard-free space for overnight - to our amazement, the puppy chooses to use his crate for naps during the day, and takes his toys in, to. Does your puppy sleep a lot in the early part of the evening? We're finding that he goes off to his crate at about 7.30, and stays there until we have to lift him out to go outside to pee before we go to bed at midnight. He absolutely can't be tempted awake, not even with a bit of cheese or liver, so getting him to have an awake period before our eventual bed-time is just about impossible.
Many thanks for your observations; I will rethink that strategy. Pippa Mattinson mentions the use of aversives, and we would always be reluctant to deploy something like that without working through positive reward strategies. Night time barking is tricky, as attention during the night (other than toileting) might be mistakenly rewarding the barking. During the day, we've done reward-based time alone training, extending from seconds to minutes, and then letting the puppy out and giving a food reward only when he's quiet (even if that's only 2 seconds). He's very happy in his crate, chooses to sleep there during the day and putting his toys in there - in the evening, he's so fast asleep in there that we have to lift him out to pee. I'd be reluctant to have him sleep in our room, as none of our dogs have done this, but always been happy to be in their personal beds. I've also found that dogs like to use their beds to observe the daily goings-on of the household and ready for fun (or a dropped scrap in the kitchen) at a moment's notice. So a last resort would be to have him in our room, but due to the layout of the house, we sleep within 10 feet of him anyway. For the first ten days, one or other of us camped in the living room with him, just a presence close-by whilst he coped with the upheaval of a new home and the loss of his litter mates, and also the introduction of his crate. So he's been very settled until the last night or two (the previous nights were short periods of barking over a shorter time). I think that the last few nights have seen him more awake than usual, due to reduced time playing in the garden and shorter walks (our region has a lot of flooding at the moment).
