Hi All - not been on for a while due to having The World's Neediest Puppy but he's finally settled today so I thought I'd pop in and ask for some wisdom/reassurance. We seem to be taking two steps forward and three steps back on everything so tell me, am I doing something wrong, is this normal or is there something wrong?
I can't be out of his sight and still be in the house (weirdly I can leave him and it appears that he is fine - no evidence of chewing or weeing). He will bark like a demon pup until I get back on the same side of the stair gate as him. I have taken to leaving the gate between dining room and living room open if I'm there but he's too small to be going up and down stairs so I have to leave him sometimes.
I am still sleeping in the living room (he's 13wks). In the last couple of days I haven't been able to get him in his crate at all (if I just shut him in he will bark the place down) so he sleeps on top of me on the sofa. Last night I managed to get him to bed down in his crate and I went back to my own bed - he woke around midnight but didn't need a wee, just wanted to sleep on me again. In an attempt to not disturb everyone else I relented.
I think making the bed up downstairs has become a sign for him to have sofa cuddles and I need to re-establish crating. I rarely shut him in yet - only at night and if we have people here. Otherwise I leave it open. If I go out he has the run of the living room but nowhere else. I have just bought him a new comfy cosy bed for it which he appears to like.
Toilet training seems to be going well UNTIL I have to leave him behind a gate (because I'm cooking or going upstairs) when he will bark at me and then wee. I presume this is anxiety rather than properly needing to wee as I'll take him outside before he does this.
And the nipping... I have started being sterner - we were just offering a toy instead of our arms/legs to chew on. Now he's going on the other side of a gate since he's demonstrated quite clearly that he doesn't like this.
Oh God. Am I doing any of this right? We walked around Pets at Home earlier and he was adored by lots of people (a few commented that he was really well-behaved. I laughed. A lot). He also met a few lovely calm dogs and was reasonably polite. I tried to move him along after about 30 seconds to ensure he didn't start jumping. Puppy training was a nightmare because he was terrified of all the noise at first and then someone marched over with their GSD and introduced them when my pup was close to a nervous breakdown. I thought he was going to explode.
Sorry, this is just a stream of consciousness really but the long and short of it is that I don't know what I'm doing and I'm terrified that I will turn him into an anxiety-ridden monster (someone said to me that the most important thing of all was not to be nervous as he would pick up on it.... So that's screwed obviously!)
Hope everyone else is doing ok.