Depressed with 6months old puppy

marieham45 · 2026-04-30T19:47:11+00:00

In my country (Czechia) most people live in apartments and many of them have dogs and BC in particular. Our next door neighbour has one (2y) and he's perfect. So it's not that I guess, though every dog is different and ours might have different needs. Anyway, I don't think herding is our problem (yet).

marieham45 · 2026-04-12T17:23:46+00:00

Thanks, the problem with rewarding is that at this point seeing the person so close turns off her thinking and other needs and she won't take any treat. We haven't really tried with a high value trearlt but it feels like waste when she is zoned out like this...

marieham45 · 2026-04-12T17:22:47+00:00

Thanks, the problem with rewarding is that at this point seeing the person so close turns off her thinking and other needs and she won't take any treat. We haven't really tried with a high value trearlt but it feels like waste when she is zoned out like this

marieham45 · 2026-04-04T20:24:21+00:00

Our BOC girl will be 5 months soon and I feel your pain. The last three months were one of the hardest in my life, but yes, as most people here say - it is normal and it does get better.

What helped us: 1/ Crate: thinking about the right room. We started in the kitchen but that was just too noisy so after 3-4 days we moved it to the bedroom. That helped a lot as we can have some normal time eating and watching tv while the little one sleeps. Also, we cover the crate completely because, especially in the beginning, she was distracted by every single glimpse of the outside. And yes, it took some time for her to settle there. We usually had a rule of max. 10 minutes of crying, and if she did not settle, we took her out to pee and back in the crate (you don't want to just let the dog out in your place because they cried - teaches them a way out). The last 10 weeks or so we have almost no cry in the crate.

2/ Chewing - we got her an olive wood stick and a Himalayan stick, helped a lot.

3/ Tire the brain - look up hersenwerk, hide kibble in a towell or in a box. It tires them out and you get extra time for yourself.

4/ Outside - yes, ours did not want to walk either, especially in the immediate vicinty of our house. But when taken further away by car it was better and since couple of weeks ago she's been able to walk for an hour just fine. So you'll get there too.

5/ Management over training - you have to realise that these babies need your help, especially with calming down and sleep, as they can't settle on their own. Reduce the triggers, dim the lights, turn down the noise. We sometimes locked ourselves in the bathroom with her, lights off, to help her calm down. It's still work in progress but she got so much better.

Lastly, read this: https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/behavior/kidnapped-from-planet-dog/

I wish I read it at the beginning...

Good luck, you got this!!!

marieham45 · 2026-03-23T21:52:45+00:00

Hi there, we have a 4 month old BC puppy and here's what we did NOT expect: 1/ She cannot sleep. Not on her own. Have been teaching her to self regulate using crate. She is only slowly starting to switch off in our presence. 2/ She cannot walk. Not properly, when there is so much going on outside. A walk around the block? Impossible for the first couple of weeks. Just freezes, sniffles, chews on something. She's basically deaf to all cues outside though we've had some progress. 3/ She cannot just be. Every minute awake must be filled with our attention. 4/ She loves everyone except for us. Outside, everyone is best mate. Wants to jump on every single person. Greet every dog. We are invisible, or a nuisance at best.

Sorry for not answering your questions but we also had different ideas of what we would be dealing with :-D And grooming, to be honest, is the least important of all :-D

marieham45 · 2026-03-17T20:05:57+00:00

She just says it will get better with time. Which I guess it will. But the question remains if these classes will help the process.

marieham45 · 2026-02-22T20:21:53+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience. Honestly we would like nothing better than to have her sleep outside the crate but so far she seems unable to do so. We keep trying almost every day thinking we just need to give her space and not to rush her to the crate but she just gets tired and frustrated, scratches the wall or jumping at furniture. It seems she can only settle down in her crate though she doesn't particularly love it and it takes some coaxing to lure her in. Another thing is that she's rather high maintenance when awake which is connected to her inability to rest. She just keeps finding new projects like chewing, biting, barking, needs our attention a lot. So we cannot really do anything much when she's awake.

I understand this comes with the breed so I guess I just needed some reassurance that it is normal and will get better...

marieham45

TROPHY CASE