Hello ALL....I just love this Forum....you learn so much from it...everything is covered.....so here goes a question: I have been told that Labs sleep about 16 hours a day.....so let's say 8 at night (mine does) and then eight during the day in separate intervals, of course. Is this true? Reason I ask is: if puppies get overtired (like babies) they get cranky, so could this be one of the reasons they tend to bite so much? Cooper just tured 16 weeks today, and he still bites HARD. Sometimes I can get him to mouth gently but, if I leave my hand in long enough, the mouthing turns to stronger pressure until....BITE...So, if I crate him often so he takes several naps during the day could this decrease the crankiness/biting???? I dont want to crate him IF 16 hours of sleep is not true!!! Thanks.
Re: Sleeping my lab as never slep 16 hours, he does the 8 during the night , 2 hours during the evening before is night walk example i took him out for 2 hours this morning then an hour this afternoon, he as not slept for more than 30 mins all day also my lab was very mouthy up to 6 month old
Re: Sleeping We definitely see a correlation between tiredness and bitey-ness. She does a fair bit of sleeping. 7 overnight, early morning nap, couple of hours in the morning at work, another couple in the afternoon, a post dinner snooze and then usually out cold by around 10pm. We see nap time coming on as she gets more hyper. Our current method we've been trying is to play with a toy until she's past it. When she stops chasing the toy, then it's definitely sleep time. It's helped our biting decrease both in pressure and quantity. Not completely gone but she's still young (3 months on Thursday!) so I keep telling myself!! And we don't put her in the crate for all naps and she'll happily sleep quietly in the living room in the evening and goes into her crate for night time sleeping quite fine. She's at work with me during the day so most of her sleeping is done in the crate.
Re: Sleeping Hi Yvonne, we are at the same stage and Maisie's biting has got harder as well. After about 13 weeks the nipping, etc, really decreased, but over the last week or so her biting has got harder again and she is starting to chew things! I can see teeth pushing through so I think this is the reason. Tiredness definitely increased the early puppy nipping and biting, but now it doesn't seem to have an effect and I think it is her teeth!
Re: Sleeping Debs, Cooper at times seems to have gone "feral"....he just comes at you with all his 33 lbs. of strength and bites and bites. I try to restrain him but he is so strong. Does Maisie do this, too? It is different from the biting before. This is more agressive. Is this the same for you? I will inspect his mouth to see if his grown up teeth are pushing out (if I can actually get him to open it without getting my hand chopped off!
Re: Sleeping Albert is 20 weeks now and the hard biting has almost gone. He usually just gently mouths our hands, but he does want to chew hard things. So I have got a supply of raw beef ribs, and dried beef cheeks which really satisfy his need to chew. He gnaws at a rib for ages until I remove it in fact, after about 30-40 mins. When all the membrane has gone he just chews the bone, but hasn't eaten it yet! The beef cheeks last a good while too, but he does actually consume these so need to be aware of that and count as food! He also likes Pizzles and tripe sticks, but I don't!!!! (They stink!) And a good old frozen pillowcase or Tea towel goes down a treat too. Jan
Re: Sleeping When Penny was a pup I think she definitely used to get overtired. We used to make her go to bed for naps in the evening time and on days we didn't do this she definitely behaved worse like mouthing more and harder, and being more hyperactive.
Re: Sleeping Well, Pongo just sleeps ALL DAY..... only wakes up when it is playtime! But he did go through a phase of extra chewy / bitey stuff when he was teething. He lost his puppy teeth between about 4 months and 5 1/2 months, and I know that at times he was in pain (pawing at mouth etc); and I am sure that chewing on stuff helped dull the pain. His bones and towel got a lot of mauling. At six months all his lovely new adult teeth are through and he seems much less chewy (although the power in those new teeth is really scary....he gets through big lamb bones as though they are cheese....
Re: Sleeping No, sorry Yvonne, she's only doing hard biting with us if she is "revved" up in play. It sounds like he is just playing, hopefully someone more experienced can offer some advice with this? It's so difficult to know how to handle this crazy behaviour sometimes isn't it? But from what I understand puppies at this age are not aggressive.
