Hello I have a 12 week old chocolate lab named Luna who has a crazy amount of energy in the morning and nothing I do seems to burn it off. We go for a walk first thing in the morning (not a long one just down the street and back up again at Lunas pace so takes about 15 minutes) and then we come in and do some training, sitting/staying/down/shake etc. Give her breakfast and then she is still so full of crazy energy. I also have a 2 year old so I can't give Luna all my attention in the morning to tire her out. We always do the walk/training/breakfast but after that If I am not paying attention to her she will just bark at me or try jumping on the lounge which we don't want her doing unless we say okay. How can I burn off her energy, stop her from barking and me and stop her from jumping on the lounge without permission. Any suggestions, thank you
Hi and welcome. Do you have a crate or a pen that you could pop her into once you have done the walk etc? Rather than give her breakfast to her in a bowl you could use a Kong or a snuffle mat / slow feeder or even scatter her food. All of these will tire her brain out more and should help her to settle a bit more. Having a pen or crate will also stop her jumping up on furniture etc and also give her space from your toddler.
I have a crate but haven't exacted figured out crate training properly, she hates it. When I give her space from my toddler she has the laundry that has access to outside thats what I usually do when I can't supervise them both or if she's being super bitey but I'm trying not to do that unless completely necessary so we can get toilet training sorted quicker! I will buy a slow feeder mat I think, she doesn't eat fast but I know its good for brain training. I've done a muffin tray a few times to mix it up a bit in the meantime. I've got a kong but she doesn't know how to use it properly unless something is clearly half sticking out and easy to remove, I tried the peanut butter trick but she is not interested in peanut butter at all. I would love to be able to give her breakfast and dinner it when she figures out how to use it. I've tried using an old baby play pen as a puppy pen, but I stopped using it because she would just constantly bark. She's a good dog and the rest of the day she isn't as hyper it's just the mornings... this is my first pup so still learning lots.
Keep the kong really easy to start off with - for some puppies this means, as you said, something sticking out or a few pieces of loose kibble in it. Once she's super excited when she sees it with this easy method, make it so she has to work just a tiny bit harder. Then wait for her to get used to this before making it harder again. One game my puppy loved was having her kibble hidden around the room. I did her breakfast in two or three goes, each took ten to fifteen minutes for her to find all the bits. I helped her out with some of the more difficult ones, which is great for bonding, too. And, because the pup is focussed on the game, there's no biting - bonus
