Hard innit? I've had it so easy, my 9mth old doodle puppy has really been relatively easy as puppies go. He arrived at 7 weeks totally housetrained, day and night, he slept all night, he didn't chew, he's clever and was quickly off lead when walking as his recall was solid right from the start. He was a bit of a landshark for a while but it passed. He settled down really quite quickly, once we could get out and about and the evening zoomies were done with. Frankly I was quite smug.
He's now pushing all my buttons and is pushing manybou ndaries, a lot. So I've upped the training, I now have a weekly 1:1 session which has really worked so well with specific issues.
But we've got lazy about keeping the gate to upstairs properly locked as he has been so, so good in the house. Big mistake. Huge. In two forays up there in the last few days he's been through a £200 pair of shoes, a pair of new slippers, the replacement pair of slippers, Buzz Lightyear is now a double amputee and I fear for his innocence too, Lego creations are no more, a pirate hat is a gonna etc etc etc. This is ENTIRELY our fault, not his.
My biggest problem is his jumping up at people and becoming fixated on dogs to play with. I thought we were making such fantastic progress with this, as his recall is excellent. Or so I thought. Today I took him along a busy 'dog walking' path. We met a pair of women with dogs offlead and my dog, offlead, raced off to their dogs and started playing very boisterously. The women called to me that it was fine, that their dogs like a bouncy play but I ran over as I could see the 'temperature' ramping up. Then I saw my puppy put his paws on another dog's back and it was getting really vocal, so I called him off and he (after thinking about it for a bit) came back to me. I got him to sit, and then to watch me for a few seconds because I wanted him calm before I put his lead on as he can see that as a game sometimes when he's excited and can start to prance about.
While I was calming him another woman, with a dog and holding it by the collar (I assume to stop it joining in the crazy puppy play), suddenly shrieked 'Why can't she JUST MOVE OFF! THat woman, with the white dog....JUST MOVE OFFF!" She was really angry and screaming, I called back to her that I was doing so but wanted my dog on a lead. At that point my puppy legged it back to the 'playing dogs' and very boisterous play recommenced. The angry lady then got even more angry and screamed at me that I was a 'stupid woman'.
I got my puppy back, eventually, put him on a lead and marched him back to the car with as much dignity as I could manage. And then I cried and I cried and I cried. I just felt so useless and hopeless and I knew I'd been in the wrong.
I know the lady was right to be cross. She didn't want her dog involved in a doggy boisterous play, and I should have been able to get him back and on a lead more quickly but I was doing the best I could.
Lesson learnt. He's not ready to be off the lead whilst he's so obsessed with playing with other dogs, to the extent of not immediately returning when called. He's very, very big and is very vocal when he plays and that's not on.
Cry. This puppy thing is so hard, I had no idea.