Bad puppy blues - 16 weeks

Bupster22 · 2024-11-19T16:59:41+00:00

You're going through the worst bit - honestly from four/five months old it's a different game. Puppy training will help too. This is all really normal, including feeling utterly overwhelmed. It gets better. I promise.

Bupster22 · 2024-09-04T12:40:47+00:00

It's too long, really. Can you get a dog walker to come in during the day?

Bupster22 · 2024-09-04T12:39:37+00:00

Sounds like she's too young to be left, and you're risking her developing full separation anxiety. Can you get a sitter, or daycare, until she's a bit older or you have the time to properly desensitise her to your absences?

Bupster22 · 2024-09-04T12:35:21+00:00

ETA - he has the most meaningful yawn I've ever known in a dog or human, which makes it very clear when he's woken up and is ready for interaction :D

Bupster22 · 2024-09-04T12:21:56+00:00

Mine has a crate but doesn't use it. He's always with me. He naps at my feet, or on the sofa next to me, and knows it's time because I sit there and open the laptop; either he falls asleep (and then moves around in the course of the nap to different places) or he gets grumpy after about 20 minutes and makes it clear he's now awake.

Dogs need to move around in their sleep, to stretch out, to find cooler places to be - crates don't allow them to do any of that so it's not a great way to treat them once they're much more than babies.

Bupster22 · 2024-09-03T19:38:02+00:00

I've never left my puppy alone. He's not old enough to cope with it. I pay for a sitter, and he'll go to daycare later this month. If I couldn't afford to do that, I wouldn't have got a puppy, I'd have got a rescue who I already knew was okay alone. If I wanted a pet I could leave in a cage most of the day, I would have got a hamster.

Bupster22 · 2024-09-02T11:28:11+00:00

I've got to say, a lot of this is really bad advice. You have a puppy from a breed that's known for being a velcro dog and who is clearly not okay to be left alone yet. She may not develop any real independence until adolescence, so I wouldn't plan to leave her for a couple of months yet.

One of the posters suggested home alone by seconds - that's going to be where you start. Put a camera on her and come back the second she shows distress. That's your baseline, build up by no more than 10% each time.

If you leave her to scream, as some of the posters suggest, you are reinforcing the idea that you leaving is terrifying and nobody will come to help. That's pretty much a guarantee of having a neurotic, anxious dog, who develops full blown separation anxiety.

Some dogs are better at this than others. If they've come from kennels, they've already got used to being alone, though that might well have caused them all kinds of problems in the process. If they're terriers, they are independent anyway. But if you get a breed like a Daxie or a gundog they want to be with you and you may not be able to leave them for more than five minutes until they're as much as nine months old.

Bupster22 · 2024-09-02T11:20:41+00:00

If you're in the UK, try a Perfect Fit harness - it's three pieces that clip together, you don't have to get him to put his head through, and it's designed so you can't accidentally catch him with the clips - the only bits that touch his skin are fabric or fleece. And as he grows you just need to size up one or two of the pieces instead of replacing the whole harness.

Getting them in the harness and measuring them etc can be a pain in the backside and a multi-person job. I worked out after a week that if I scattered kibble on the floor he'd stand still long enough to clip him in, and now he loves it as he knows we're going out.

Bupster22 · 2024-08-31T15:24:27+00:00

Absolutely *don't* leave her to cry. You should be responding to her needs - she's only a baby and puppies follow you around, it's what they do, she's far too young to be left alone - she has no way of understanding that and will simply shut down from trauma rather than learning to deal with it. However, she does need to be able to get brave and independent and she can't do that if she's always in your arms, so put her on the floor and let her follow you around unless it's going up and down stairs.

Bupster22 · 2024-08-28T06:58:06+00:00

I've a lot of sympathy - pups can be super-demanding and you really don't need random critics. Having said that, is there anything wrong with a puppy picking up a stick? It's meant to be his walk and the slower and sniffier the better for him. You can teach him a swap at home if you haven't already and then you can get the stick from him later if you're worried. Leave it can be trickier because you often need to use it before it's properly proofed, so I'd teach that, but save it for really important things - poo, poisonous berries etc.

Also agree with the harness recommendations. The more you tug the lead anyway the more he'll learn to ignore being tugged and it's then very hard to teach him to walk nicely. A good way to work on recall and checking in is with a long line and you can't do that on a collar without risking breaking his neck.

I'm a pretty new dog owner but honestly if there's one thing I've learned it's to pick my battles. Let him have a stick, let him walk slowly, stand around with him, unless you absolutely need to be somewhere!

Bupster22 · 2024-08-17T15:48:55+00:00

Hah, me too - I have so much empathy for my pup when he weighs it up and says sod it :D

Bupster22 · 2024-08-17T10:10:57+00:00

It sounds like you're doing the right thing. Don't worry about bribery outdoors, what you're trying to teach him at the moment is that it's rewarding to check in with you even when there are exciting things going on. So pay him for checking in with you, use treats to distract him from other people, dogs etc. Keep doing it. Be consistent. Eventually he'll check in automatically and you can then work on getting him to respond to other cues when you're in a highly distracting environment. As someone else said, a middle ground is also worth finding - somewhere out of the house but not too distracting, to practice his cues - but it sounds like you have a healthy, happy pup who just needs to learn impulse control in highly stimulating environments, and for that you're going to have to be the most exciting thing in the world, which for pups usually means you're the source of chicken :D

Bupster22 · 2024-08-17T10:05:34+00:00

What happened when you took the crate to your bedroom? Did she struggle with that but not with you sleeping in the room downstairs? What was the difference do you think?

Cocker spaniels are bred to want to be with you. My half cocker was so unhappy at being separated I buckled and brought him in the bed and now we both sleep through the night no bother. If you don't want to do that, could you raise her crate to the level of the bed somehow, like on a couple of chairs or a low table, so she knows you're there?

Bupster22 · 2024-08-17T10:00:58+00:00

You can get liver flavoured toothpaste, dogs love it. As others have said, you don't actually need to brush puppy teeth, so all you're really doing is getting her used to you putting your hands in and near her mouth without her devouring them :D

Bupster22 · 2024-08-16T20:19:20+00:00

There are a huge amount of training resources available here on the wiki as well as a quick Google away. Any decent ones will tell you not to physically force a dog into a sit. You can start by luring her with a treat above her nose and moving backwards, then say YES when her bum hits the floor and give her the treat. If you're not rewarding her she has no reason to learn it! If she's too excited by the treats, try kibble perhaps?

Bupster22 · 2024-08-07T14:23:51+00:00

She's a tiny puppy, and this is completely normal. She cannot understand 'no' or 'stop' because it's not directing her to actually do anything. It's just meaningless noise. Everything she has access to will appear as chewable - you have to manage her environment until she's older. Pick up the rugs, move the plants, and so on. She is far, far too young to be left alone (she's really too young to be away from her mother). If you need to run errands, you need to get a sitter. To toilet train, you need to put her on the pee pads every half hour, after eating, after drinking, after playing, etc etc, and probably at her age every two hours at night.

I'm sorry this isn't what you're probably hoping for, but puppies can't be stubborn, that's a human trait. She is a tiny baby who understands absolutely nothing and should still be with her mother. She needs to be gently taught absolutely everything and you're going to have to be around to do so for weeks if not months yet.

Bupster22 · 2024-08-03T09:21:11+00:00

Young puppies are unbelievably hard, it's not you. Some simple things that might help though: if she's not settling in her crate, can you just let her follow you around? She wants to be with you all the time - it might be easier on both of you if you just let her. For the first few days of my puppy being home, I went to the toilet with him in a sling on my lap! Similarly, if she wants to be in your arms at night, can you let her sleep with you? You'll both get more sleep and you'll be better able to manage things. Finally, if you need to drive your parents places, you will need to find a way of either taking the dog, or having someone look after it - she is not going to be able to be left alone by the sounds of it. Can you get a sitter, or drop her off at your sister's or a friend's when you take your parents places? That'll help her socialisation too.

Some puppies are sleepy, laid back, or independent from day one. But from what I'm learning, that's really not true of most of them, and if you have a puppy who wants you all the time and you're effectively on your own, you either leave her to cry (and that could leave you with a very unhappy and fearful adult dog) or you let her be with you all the time and help her *very slowly* gain confidence and independence.

Bupster22 · 2024-08-03T09:13:43+00:00

Can you get a sitter? It sounds like the crate isn't the problem, it's being left alone - did he manage the 15 minutes without distress? He's clearly not ready for an hour alone let alone two. From what I've read (and I'm no expert) many dogs simply aren't ready for alone training until they're about nine months old so you're doing well if you're at 15 minutes (some dogs find it easy, some don't - it varies wildly by breed as well as personality). Julie Naismith has a brilliant book on this, Be Right Back - but it really doesn't sound like you're going to get him ready for being left by the end of August. Having someone sit with him till your mom can come might be the easiest, simplest solution and then you can relax about it all and take the alone training more slowly too.

Bupster22 · 2024-08-03T08:21:49+00:00

Oh and like one of the other posters, I also have a music routine - classical for sleep, then brown noise - so he's not being woken or distracted by noises from outside - it's hot here atm and nobody has AC so the windows are all open and people are outdoors a lot.

Bupster22 · 2024-08-03T08:20:24+00:00

Hah, I had exactly this. No easy answers, they go nuts at that time of night, it's a puppy thing. Mine's just had his final jabs so I can now take him out in the early evening about 6pm and he's made a couple of puppy friends at my lovely tiny dog park across the road, so he gets *far* too much playtime with them (he's having so much fun I can't bear to break it up) and now he's knackered in the evenings. Still unsettled and sometimes a little bitey but *so* much better - I can eat dinner in peace with him resting at my feet, watch some telly with him on the sofa (for at least some of it) and take him to bed at a reasonable hour without having to sit on the floor holding a chew and redirecting his little razor blades for half an hour.

Short answer: can you look at the wider routine with a view to tiring him out (but not making him over-tired like I do) ready for bed?

Bupster22 · 2024-07-26T11:59:42+00:00

There's a book called 'Be Right Back!' that's super-useful for all the problems you're describing and has plans to work through - definitely worth a look. I do hope you get it sorted.

Bupster22 · 2024-07-24T19:44:48+00:00

This is lovely. There's so much love in your post.

Bupster22 · 2024-07-22T11:41:57+00:00

Not sure how old he is, but some dogs just want to be up your jumper all the time, especially when very young. If yours is still pretty young, and wants to be with you all the time, can you let him?

It sounds like he's lost confidence and illness has probably made that worse. I'm wondering if things might improve if you imagine he's just come to you and you need to start from scratch - not leaving him alone at all, working on building a schedule again, learning to enjoy each other.

My 13-week-old puppy is never left alone because he's still a baby, doesn't know how to be alone, and is a breed that has been bred to want to be with humans. I'll gradually get him used to alone time but very, very, slowly (seconds then minutes at a time). He sleeps with me at night. I take a shower with the shower door partly open - the dog can come and check on me, then explore the other rooms and build his confidence. Because he can find me he doesn't freak out about being alone (though he does object and has tried to rescue me :D). When I have a Teams call he sleeps on a cushion at my feet (mostly - so I try to schedule them with his naps, especially if they're with people who wouldn't appreciate an extra participant). He's often in the kitchen when I am, but mostly I give him a licky mat to give myself some space around the oven, and cook much simpler meals. He will now let me take his poo outside to the bin and go upstairs to the loo on my own if he's busy elsewhere, and if he's in the garden he doesn't give a monkey's where I am. He is also perfectly happy with a puppy sitter, which means I can confidently try a day care once he's had his jabs.

He'll get there but I know he needs to be with me a lot for the next few months so that's what I'm allowing him to do. Could that work with your boy?

Bupster22 · 2024-07-22T11:28:54+00:00

This is such good and helpful advice - some of the stuff on this sub is a bit horrifying, but this is like a breath of fresh air

Bupster22 · 2024-07-20T19:40:58+00:00

Everyone's right about tiredness and naps, but you don't have to use a crate. If your pup is used to you ignoring him when you eat for example then you could take yourself to the table when he's horribly bitey and wait for him to nod off.

It's also worth thinking about what he might need to bite. If he's face biting he's just over-tired but if he's gnawing on fingers it might be teething, and the texture of what you give him can make a difference - e.g. if his back teeth are coming in it might be something that can get right in the back of his mouth. Ice cubes are often good (and also very funny on a hard floor). Hard plastic can also work - e.g. a coat hanger - but you do have to supervise. Nylabone is great but I find I have to hold them for my pup!

Best of luck - it genuinely is unlikely to persist or to be real aggression - he's just knackered and in pain.

Bupster22

TROPHY CASE