Hello all, my 5 month old puppy is confusing me! When she turned 4 months old, my husband and I started leaving her alone for short periods and increasing little by little. She was doing great! Got up to around an hour and a half with no messes and no accidents. But now for for the past week or so, we can’t leave her alone for 2 minutes without her chewing our shoes or magazines or anything else she can get her paws on! We try to move things so she can’t get to stuff but we can’t move everything. She also starting teething a week or so ago. Could it be the teething that’s making her do naughty things or possibly sudden separation anxiety? I’m always home with her and if I go anywhere either she’s with me or she’s home with my husband except of course when we started to leave her alone. It just doesn’t make sense to me that she went from perfect to naughty in less than 2 weeks. She has bones and Kong’s and other things to chew on. She never goes after shoes or anything when we’re home. Any help, advice would be great. Thank you!!
Hi @KrisM sounds like teething and typical Lab behaviour. When you are not there to supervise her, then coax her in her crate. Why? To stop from all the self-reinforcing chewing of shoes and sundry.
Hi @michael She does have a crate but it’s only used for sleeping. It’s in our bedroom and she’s not particularly fond of it. She’s finally starting to go in by yourself for the night. Once she’s in it she still starts crying if we leave her alone for a couple seconds and she knows we’ll be right back. And I don’t know why, maybe it’s just me, but I can’t see locking her up in our bedroom in the back of the house. I guess I like that she can see us coming and meet us at the door instead of hearing us and possibly hurting herself trying to get out. (She sounds like she’s tearing the thing apart if we leave her for more than a minute) Do you think once she’s done teething that she’ll go back to the way she was? Good instead of naughty?
Hi @KrisM, if she is reluctantly going in the crate, then I'd re-train crating. Please read Jo Lauren's article found at https://thehappypuppysite.com/crate-training-a-puppy/ The crate should be one of the best places in the world. I think you may have transitioned too quickly to shutting the door on the crate. You need to stop the self-reinforcing chewing now. That is why I suggested in my initial answer that you need to train the crate when you are not able to supervise her. If an activity is self-rewarding, then the behaviour is more likely to increase in the future. Dogs are not naughty as in terms of setting out to be obstreperous or recalcitrant. As far as we can tell they don't have any conception of morals. We have to show them what is desirable and reward them for doing so. In no time she'll be your wonder dog again.
I wish I could put the crate in the living room so she could go in and out of it and see that it’s a safe place for her. But, unfortunately, our living room is too small. The only room it fits in is our bedroom. The door is open and she will go in sometimes to pull out a toy or her blanket but she wants to be where we are so she doesn’t stay in it. It’s not that I refuse to crate train her, I just can’t see doing it and having her in the back bedroom where I can’t supervise her. I don’t trust her to leave the crate door open at night and trust that she will stay. Although, my husband lets her out before he leaves for work and we had started to trust her and left her to see what she’d do and she did come back to the bedroom, knowing I was there, and would go back to sleep in her crate but once she started chewing our shoes and what not, we now put her back in her crate and close the door. She’s like a toddler all of a sudden, silence is cause for suspicion. So I guess we’ll have to take it slow and maybe when she’s done teething she’ll stop chewing on things she knows she shouldn’t.
Hi @KrisM okay I understand and agree with your reasoning. Dogs are social animals. She wants to be around you. So what to do about the chewing? You will need to put out of the way anything you don't want to chew. And when your husband leaves he can give her a Kong to chew on when she placed back in the crate. The chewing will offer some relief while she is teething. More importantly, it will make the crate a good place to go.
Thank you for understanding. I wish the frozen Kong worked but we tried that when she was little and she was done with it within 10 minutes. She’s much stronger now, she’d probably be done with it in 2 minutes! Lol We do have other Kong products we can try. I got different styles for her so she doesn’t get bored with the same one. Thank you for your help and advice.
Then you have to learn to stuff them in more devious ways. Use treats that require you to use all your strength to get them through the opening. Thanks for your appreciative comments.
It's normal for a puppy to chew or teeth anything she likes because of teething, although she has some chewing toys or sticks. You can hide the shoes and other objects that she wants to chew into the safe places. Also, it's advisable to build an activity area by some fences and enclose her into the area when you leave home. Make sure there are enough food, water, toys, and puppy pads (if she gets used to pee/poo indoors) in the enclosed area. This method can separate her from the objects and perform house training as well. However, most of the dogs like to do their "business" outdoors. You could help her to form an outside potty habit if you have enough time. Anxiety separation can prevent from the puppy age. In general, a small puppy has no severe anxiety separation. Here are some preventions.
@BennyG My 5 month old puppy is completely potty trained. I think you may have been referring to a smaller puppy. I understand your enclosed area idea, however our house is small and there is no area big enough for her to have an enclosed area. I did test her today and left her in the house while I went to get the mail. It took me less than 5 minutes. I peeked in the window and found her laying down as she should. So, fingers crossed!!
Goodness, you are going to need to crate train your puppy. This is only the beginning. If you think it's bad now, wait until adolescence hits and you come home to find your sofa ripped to shreds. There is zero reason not to use a crate. It doesn't matter if your living room is too small. Unless it is literally the size of a postage stamp, it can fit a labrador-sized crate in it. I can't actually imagine a living room which physically can't fit this in it. No, it's not going to look great - but neither is your sofa all over the room and your skirting boards chewed to bits. This is not going to be a permanent situation forevermore, it is going to be used only until she can be trusted. You can either have some months now of living with a crate in the living room that you all have to squeeze around and find slightly impractical, or you can have months and months or even years of destroyed belongings in an ever-increasing cycle. The sad thing is that you can't just opt for a crate at a later stage, without making it all much harder for yourself. Once she has a history of enjoying chewing stuff around the house, she is going to remember that and it is going to take a long more crating to stop it. So whereas you may have crated till 8 months, due to trying not to use the crate and her learning to chew stuff, you could well end up needing to use it until 18 months now... Have 2 crates - one by your bed, the other in your living room, if you want two...
At 5 months, I would really expect a puppy to be fully crate trained and going in the crate on cue - no 'if you'd like to go in it' - in fact, even my 8 week old pups don't get 'if you'd like to go in it' - it's not optional.
