My first post about Ted, who joined our family on 2nd July at 8 weeks two days, eldest and second heaviest of a litter of nine. 10 weeks old tomorrow. He's been a joy as well as a challenge - that typical lab puppy mass of contradictions. Trainable yet exasperating in equal measure. He's responded fearlessly and with curiosity to visitors and has a healthy appetite. He's already been to the vet and put on antibiotics for colitis but is fully recovered and into everything. I wish I'd had a pedometer to measure how many miles I'd done chasing him around to keep him out of mischief. He has his favourite peeing and pooing sites in the garden, but an equally loved peeing place on our carpet. That's work in progress and not his fault. I'm recognizing the signs now and scooping him up before anything more than a trickle emerges. You could say we're learning on the job, but it's all remarkably similar to when our children were toddlers. But the night thing - that's frustrating at the moment. I write this after a completely sleepless night for my wife and me. She is unable to trust herself to drive to work today because she's exhausted, kept awake in equal measure by Ted howling and my apologising for bringing this tyrant into her life. The thing is we were beginning to get somewhere with managing Ted's overnight behaviour. OK at the start he howled but we let him get on with it until he quieted down. He gradually got much better to the point where they night before last he slept right through until 5 and only let our a short little yip on waking. But last night - he started howling at eleven until I got up at 4.30. Not just howling - there was barking, whining, yapping. At times it sounded really angry, at others like there were two dogs fighting downstairs. I know he paws and pulls at his bed in the crate and on one occasion he tried to pull the covering blanket through the bars! The pre-lights out routine had been the same as the night before, but we're beginning to suspect I took the wrong approach an might be setting myself up for problems with Ted. I have used clicker with treat method to get him to go into his crate. Tiny slivers of hard cheese. At bedtime. Then I leave him with a Kong stuffed with kibble. Two nights ago it worked. Last night we lost the will to live. Having said that, during writing this I have fed him breakfast, taken him outside, invited him to "get busy", which he did immediately and he's now happily chewing a hide stick. Looking at the forums so far I see there's a lot of wisdom out there, so I'm very open to being as teachable as Ted can sometimes be.
Ah bless you,it's frazzling these early days ....,I didn't have this stage with my dog as he was older when he came to us ,your puppy is still very young.From all that I've read of the many members that have been exactly where you are its 2 steps forwards ,one step backwards.....the fact that you got a decent night or two shows you are heading in the right direction and will get there .....but doesn't mean the next night will be the same x Your bedtime routine sounds ok to me and I'm a big fan of routine and for me it works with my dog ....so now really it comes down to dealing with the noise,if you persist as you are Ted WILL learn to settle but it's tough on you all while you get to that.There are other things you could do , you could have him in the room with you in his crate and gradually as his confidence increases move him down to where his sleeping place will be.If you don't want him in your room and a lot of people don't then you could sleep by him and again gradually move away ....start by the crate,move to the couch ......I've just done this with my 4 year old getting him used to being in his travel box....although I have to admit it was more through curiousity to see what he did after lights out....than being there because he's was upset. Does Ted have periods during the day when you would put him in he crate away from you? Does he cope with those times ok? If he's with you all the time ,I'd give him some regular little intervals in his crate during the day with a yummy treat .....it's all practice to help him learn for the nightimes.Its rotten being tired isn't it? I hope your wife got to work ok? He sounds a little treasure though you know,doing well with his toilet training and good on you for exploring clicker training x
My wife's had to work from home this morning as she's so tired she cant drive. She'll go this afternoon. Ted's back to normal this morning. I got some sleep while my daughter was with him (one pee on the carpet!) Right now he's in the closed crate for 5 minutes while I'm in the other room. He's busy with his Kong but I'll only give him 5 minutes. Thanks so much for your support. It's nice to know things do get better. Are you Dexter or is it the dog? I ask because a couple of years ago, I wrote a short film called Looking for Dexter for my son to produce for a competition. You can find it if you google it! Ted's short crate session went well. All I need to say is go to bed and he's in. I might sleep down here this evrning if only to give my wife a nights sleep.
It does get better. I remember being so sleep-deprived that I wanted to cry. Now, reading your post, I just can't imagine getting another puppy -- yes, a clean slate, but such hard work! Snowie is 4.5 years old and, while I really miss those cute puppy days and am sorry I didn't enjoy them more (it took us 2 years till we found a dog school that worked for us and Snowie's busy busy busy personality), I am so thankful to have an adult dog that is now sleeping at my feet while I work. Dogs, like kids, grow up. We had Snowie sleep in our bedroom as a puppy, and while this did help hugely with house training (he never weed in our bedroom) and he also never cried at night, I regret it now because he continues to keep us awake by moving around all night. If we got another dog, I'd train him as a puppy to sleep downstairs in the kitchen -- rather the hard work at first, paving the way for better sleep for years to come.
Hi! I totally feel your pain. We got Stanley 4 weeks ago and he goes from being an adorable Angel one second to full out Godzilla in the next. We taught him paw in around 20 minutes, however he will not learn not to eat the door mat.. But that's another issues completely. He struggled on a night at first too, we were adamant that he would not be coming upstairs. What I found really helped was once he started to associate his crate with sleep, it was much easier. I never really let him sleep anywhere else, and if he did fall asleep elsewhere I carried him into his crate. He now knows that when he's tired, that's where he needs to go. Between 7.30pm and 10.00pm we run around, we play, we train, we cuddle. Anything to stop that puppydog shutting his eyes. We try and limit the amount of treats we give him and reward him with attention or toys to prevent needing the toilet. By 10pm he's whining to go in his crate - one last toilet trip and he's off to the land of nod til around 5.30/6pm. He sometimes wakes during the night and needs the toilet so we take him out and once he's done his business he goes straight back to his bed for a few more hours sleep. We're hoping when he's a bit bigger it will get later when he wakes up, but he's still only little for now. This is my first puppy so I'm probably not one of the best to give advice - but it really worked for us and it means we're only half zombie like at the minute and we're getting a good few hours sleep. I hope little Ted gets better, he's gorgeous from his pics! Sometimes it's hard to remember they're just babies, rather than the devil in disguise x
Molly is my third puppy and I've had them all in the bedroom to start with. You can reassure them in the night and get some sleep. It doesn't mean they have to sleep in your bedroom forever - once mine were settled and confident I moved them back downstairs.
That's very reassuring.. I like the idea of putting him in the crate once he starts dozing during the day. I just tried it but he got out again. He's dropping off again so I'll give him a little longer before I carry him in. Stanley sounds great. Nice to know he's only two weeks ahead of Ted and relatively civilised already.
I'm with @Joy Juno's crate was carried to the bedroom on her first night home with us after she gave 2 cries, and she settled with hardly a whimper that night and woke for a toilet break around 4:00 and then straight back in the crate with no fuss. She slept in her crate in the bedroom without any fuss or whimpering, whining, barking etc. She was moved to the kitchen in her crate after 2 weeks and settled with no fuss in her sleeping quarters. I have also let her sleep wherever she wants during the day whether that was her crate when young, or her bed in the kitchen, her bed in the living room if I'm in there or asleep on my feet underneath the table as he currently is . For me it was important that she learn to settle and sleep wherever we happen to be, not just in her crate, and she happily settles in cafes, bars, pubs, restaurants, holiday cottages, cars etc without any effort from me.
We also did the crate in the bedroom for one week, then we moved it to the living room which is a very short walk down the hall - no issues. I'm not a fan of Victoria Stilwell (It's Me Or The Dog lady) but she recommends making the transition very slowly - one week in bedroom, then gradually moving the crate down the hall until you end up in the final spot, which takes a couple of weeks. My hallway is narrow so I had to cut that middle bit out.
We got Bruce at 8 weeks and he spent the first two nights in his crate in our bedroom. He cried for about five minutes every 90 mins or so, but we managed to get enough sleep to function the next day. On the third night we brought his cage downstairs and put it in the living room. When we went up around 10:30pm he had a mix of soft and hard toys put in with him plus a rag from his litter we were given by his breeder, and his bear, a large cuddly toy we got him on day 1. He cried for about a minute, and we've not heard a peep out of him every night bar one since. He had a stomach upset one night and woke us around 3am with a different sort of crying. I knew something wasn't right so went down and let him out the back onto the patio. Poor thing poo'd for England. The only thing we did on the first two nights was to ignore him. It's heartbreaking, but it does work, and he quickly settled down from then on downstairs. Now, quite often he puts himself to bed if we're up watching something late on TV. He then goes out for a last wee when we go up. His bodyclock is amazing though. If you go to the loo upstairs in the night he doesn't stir, but go after 06:30 am and he hears the floorboards creaking and starts asking to get up.
Sounds like you had a dream start with Bruce. I've resorted to earplugs now that I'm sure he doesn't hurt himself amid all the racket. Reports from other family members are that he is relatively quiet although when I got up to the loo last night he was crying. I went straight back to bed without looking at the clock and woke up to his short yelps at 5. Things are improving. He's a wonderful addition to the family and yesterday and today took to his introduction to the lead like a real trooper. Thanks for your story.
An update on Ted. A big thank you to all those who said it would get better. Do you know what? It did! Two trouble free nights in a row. This morning I got up at 5 to make sure he was still alive he'd been that quiet. He barely responded beyond a wag of the tail as he lay there. I took him outside where he immediately did the necessary, and sloped off back to bed. I've also noticed that sometimes during the day he will choose the crate to crash out in. I can hardly believe I'm the person who wrote that hair-pulling-out first post. So to any new and frantic puppy owners: Hang in there.
@Deejay50 It does get better! We had to do a slow transition with Duncan - we got him at 8 weeks and let him sleep in his crate in our bedroom for 2-3 months actually because he was sick a few different times in those early puppy stages and we needed to keep an eye on him / be able to hear him when he needed to get up and then once he was about 4.5-5 months old we put him down the hall in the open kitchen/living room area in his crate which is just a bit away from our room and we can still hear him if we keep our bedroom door open -- he did howl and cry and bark even still in our room in his crate for the first few weeks and I thought he would never settle down and like his crate, but now he puts himself in there to go to sleep at bedtime when he is really tired and he doesn't whimper or cry at all when we close the door to go to sleep ourselves - he was even perfectly fine with me leaving the house after awhile working up to how long we could leave him but randomly all of a sudden he has total freak outs if I close the front door and leave him even when I leave him with a kong, which used to always work! So I definitely had a few steps forward and a few steps back on that which I think is normal for the puppy years progress and then regression but I will have to work back up to being able to leave him/leave the house without him getting so upset
Thanks, Bridget. Very kind of you to offer your experience with Duncan (a fine Scottish name!) Sorry to hear you still seem to be struggling with his separation anxiety. I'm sure there are threads elsewhere on the forum that can help with that. Meanwhile Ted is still managing to sleep through although I havent dared take my earplugs out yet. Apparently he did cry for a short time around 11pm last night, but soon lost interest. I think we're through the worst. I did a dry solo run with him in the car today, because I have to take him to the vet on my own on Thursday for his booster vaccination. He was great. A minor whimper of uncertainty and then he settled down. I texted my wife that he drove us home he was so confident now. He's slept most of today because of the heat and humidity, so I've taken the opportunity to cook bits of liver and turkey, to chop up and freeze for training treats.
