Really need some behavioural help with my new puppy, Minimu? Anyone else?

[WhereTheWildThingsWere]

I am a little lost and really don't want to make any more of a mess of my new puppy than I already have.

I have an 11 week old Whippet who I have had for a week and a half, he is not my first dog but is my first Whippet.

In the first week I had him I spent the whole week here with him and was gradually introducing him to the crate whilst I was in the house, so putting him in for short periods and ignoring him while he fussed and then rewarding him once he was calm. He wasn't keen and would quickly start to scratch at the door/dig the floor and cry within a few minutes of the door being shut but would calm down eventually.

After a week I mentioned to the breeder that he seemed slow to accept being crated, she insisted that I had waited too long to leave him and should start leaving him crated whilst we all went out of the house for two hours every day starting from the next day.

I wasn't too sure, but decided I needed to trust her so have followed her advice for three days, on return today he has split a couple of nails and damaged his pads, I presume this is from digging at the door, he also seems exhausted on our return so obviously hasn't been sleeping.

I don't know what to do now and I need to get this right. Sadly we don't have any other safe place to leave him, otherwise I would do that to completely change his experience, although I am a SAHM and so here a lot of the time, I have to be able to do the school run, playgroups etc, so I need to acclimatize him to being alone for short periods.

He is left with a stuffed Kong, a Nylabone and other little chewy treats (interestingly he has always eaten all of these wheras I would have expected him to have left them if he was very anxious) and a top of mine freshly impregnated with my scent.

He is very happy to lie in there and sleep or chew a treat when we are here and the door is open, so he is not afraid of the crate as such.

He is clicker trained and I have spent a lot of time working with him and the clicker wrt crating (click/treating him for going in, lying down biulding up to shutting the door and walking away for longer and longer periods, during these sessions he has been fine and never so much as whined.

When we leave he is always lying calmly and chewing his things.

I need to proceed in the way that is best for him now. Thoughts?

I think you really do have to crate him at night in a situation where he is happy eg your room. Maybe get another crate for upstairs you can always sell it on ebay once you are done with it or why not leave him in the crate upstairs when you go out.

It is going to be quite hard if I don't crate him as my house is very open plan inclusing the stairs so if I leave him out he has access to an enormous amount of stuff and it is not possible to put everything damageable away.

I had a very positive chat with the behaviourist whose puppy classes I will be attending soon and she has given me some good advice.

I think also it will help when he is innoculated and can start going for short walks as he will be so much more tired and we can excercise him before we pop out.

I took him to my Mums the other day and he had a run around her (very sizeable) garden. afterwards he fell asleep on his blanket in the garden and stayed there for an hour while we all went inside.

I need that level of tired, then I think he won't notice we are gone!

I'm another one who would ask why he needs the crate, especially if he is damaging his nails/paws, when left in it. Completely understand about you wanting to tire him out - are there some little games and things you can do on your own patch before going out, so he is a bit tired? Don't forget it's also quite tiring for them when they have to concentrate/learn so if you are doing clicker training with him, which is great fun, that will also be helping to tire him a bit.

I have no crate, and ddog is only part whippet (mixed with collie). I think you are right about the exercise. Ddog needs a walk and a run, preferably with his gang of mates, first thing in the morning - until he has had his morning constitutional he can be 'difficult'. (Keeping him out of the duckpond is my problem..)

hi, why can't you just leave the crate upstairs? keep it in one place, it should be like his little house, somewhere he likes to go. so keep it the same all the time for him.

our dogs love their crate, in fact the older one was not happy when the new puppy came and she had the run of the house! it seemed she prefered her crate

MrsRhettButler I can't have the crate upstairs as I want him to have it as a retreat from the children. He does love it, he sleeps in there all the time, eats in there, has chews in there, he is more than happy to use it. It is being left he objects to.

Scuttlebutter he is clicker trained and we do lots of fetch and find etc games, but it is running that really tires him. Because it is being left he objects to, if I leave him with the run of the house I imagine he is just going to be horribly destructive and we completely open plan including the stairs which he is not allowed to use as it will damage his joints.

Any Bond type tips? This is the same puppy btw if you hadn't realised.

oh Wildy, man this puppy is really putting you through the ringer isn't he? Any further joy on peeing outside?

As you say the issue doesn't seem to be the crate it's the being left. Can you crate and then go for a few mins, come back, wait for quiet behviour let him out. repeat and repeat slowly increasing how long you are leaving him for. 2 hours from the get go seems quite a long time

I've been pondering further as I painted the skirting boards.

Wildy I wonder if you are giving your puppy too much attention atm? What with all the going outdoors for the wees and the clicker training, plus the kong and chewy stuff and this crate business too.

I remember minimu being firm with me a few months back (she does it so nicely ) about dogs needing to learn to be left alone and well, I guess to be bored. Maybe you need to do less with him and be a bit more aloof and ignoring around the house, then when you do crate and leave him its not going to be such a massive change for him.

hope that makes sense

Hi Slubber, what the mission?

We are actually seeing improvements

I totally agree that two hours was too long, it was the breeder who insisted I do it and I was struggling so much I listened and more fool me.

The behaviourist who puppy classes I start in a couple of weeks has suggested that over short periods of time, to leave and enter the house so many times that Rudy almost gets bored with it and to be very breezy and quick, so, I go out then come in, go into the kitchen, turn around, leave again, come back in, run up the stairs, leave, come back in, go into the garden etc, etc, every now and again I let him out and we have a quick game or I give him a treat, then he goes back in and I leave again.

It is supposed to make everything really unpredictable and change his mind about what me leaving means, most times atm he is only left for between 30 seconds and 5 minutes but we will build up the times. It seems very effective so far, at the beginning of the session when I come back in the door he is standing right at the front of his crate and srying loudly, by the end he is lying right at the back of the crate and just whinging a bit.

The weeing is much better, is is all to do with the wet, now the weather has been dry for a few days he is asking at the door again, will wet to see what todays wet afternoon brings.

He is getting better about being alone, we can all go upstairs now and he will stay down, but Whippets are very much velcro dog they like to be with you alot, which I was aware of before I got him, it makes me smile that despite his love of comforts he will often curl up on my feet and go to sleep whilst I am washing up rather than lie in his comfy bed.

I foolishly though that as my last dog was a Stafford, also well known for being stubborn and clingy and that I trained him to a very high standard, that I knew what I was doing. Rudy has seriously brough me down a peg or two .

How is Elsie doing? Also how did you get on when you first started using the whistle outdoors? Rudy can go out in six days and he recalls really well to it in the house and garden, but I am worried that as soon as we hot the wilds it will be a completely different matter.

The mission is to get all the painting done before the builders come back from holiday

Oh that all sounds like really good progress with Rudy. I had to do something similar initially as we had some separation anxiety too. It's so hard to ignore the whimpering and crying isn't it? Even harder with the scratching and split nails/scratching. I developed a very good underwear model face (looking off into middle distance with complete disinterest).
We are out the other end now so it's worth persisting and nipping it in the bud when they are little.

Do you know about exctinction bursts? That's also worth bearing in mind as they ramp up all the carryon.

Whistle is fantastic. Her recall now is pretty bloody brilliant (even if I do say so myself )

tbh when i first let her off the lead recall wasn't a problem as she was pretty much stuck to my heels with glue anyway. You can still start on the come command plus treats even when they are a foot away.

God, sorry about all the above spellings , was a long, poorly edited post.

No, I know not of 'exctinction bursts', tell me more.

OK so an extinction burst is a normal thing that happens before a behaviour dies out.

So you get into a lift and press the button to go up to your floor and every day the door closes and up you go and there we are. One day you get in and press the button and nothing happens. Do you immediately get out and walk up the stairs? No, you press the button again. and then again. And then you press it REALLY hard. And then you press it REALLY HARD really really really quicky and THEN you get out and go up the stairs.

Same thing with changing a dog's behaviour. So when they don't get what they usually get for whining (owner appearing/crate door opening - whatever) then they don't just immediately stop. They really really ramp up all the carry on to try to achieve the previous result.

then they'll stop

trick is not to cave as they're in 'the burst' or you're right back to square one with an even more reinforced dog

Off lead - go somewhere well closed in. Ddog loves to run in 'laps' like a greyhound if he is with his friends. They can't catch him... He also changes direction. He is a sprinter though, not built for long distance running. However - he has brilliant long distance sight and in the early days would see a potential friend in the far distance and chase off, with no recall at all. (He comes back without being called when racing, unless he decides to go and cool off in the duckpond. On his own his recall is fine. We also had problems with a collar and lead - he was able to escape from a normal collar, he isn't fully whippet so we didn't try a whippet collar, he was the wrong shape for a harness and has eaten two - a rope lead (like a lassoo!) seems to work best, and has stopped the pulling. (He was a young adult when we got him and hadn't had a lead before). We had him 3 months before he was totally housetrained, but he was mostly fine.