It's home!

[puppypalavas]

Got our puppy today.
Been about 8 hours since we’ve had her and I’ve got puppy blues already!
She’s doing ok toilet wise. Maybe 3 inside, 3 outside and a poo outside.
Got her confined to the kitchen at the mo and she’s got a playpen in here.
We’ve got a deep sided box for her for our room tonight.
We’ve put her in her playpen probably 5 times, for short durations, 15 mins or so.
Then we went to the shop to find a box for her for tonight, so we were out for 40 minutes.
She’s howls and cries and barks solidly in her playpen.
As soon as she’s quiet we go in and praise her. Sometimes getting her out and sometimes leaving her in there.
Every single time though she has barked and howled in her playpen until she’s vomited. She’ll be losing weight at this rate.
Am I doing the playpen thing right?

*pasting

The breeder is talking bollocks.

Think about it logically. What is more likely to result in a puppy with separation anxiety; a puppy who has been trained at their own pace to be happy being left who has never been upset during the process, or a puppy who has experienced distress every time they've been left alone?

Have you had a look at the FB group I posted previously? In case you missed it, Dog Training Advice and Support. In their 'Files' section they have two guides/articles in particular that you should really read: Crate Training: Step By Step to a Distress Free, Force Free Crate Trained Dog or Pup and Puppies and Time.

I'd also recommend reading this article about the "cry it out" method.

The more you leave her to scream and cry, the more she is learning to be distressed when you're not there.

My husband has joined that Facebook page yes.
And the breeder has said that he can’t offer advice if people ignore his advice. Meaning don’t come back to me moaning you’ve got problems if you’ve ignored my advice!
Literally feel torn in 2 directions.

And the breeder has said that he can’t offer advice if people ignore his advice. Meaning don’t come back to me moaning you’ve got problems if you’ve ignored my advice!

To be honest anyone who said that to me about any advice would be ignored. The best people to take advice from I find are those that can adapt their own experiences to help with yours. So any 'trainer' who said it's my way or no way is instantly put on the mental rubbish list for me as they are too rigid in their beliefs whether they are right or wrong.

I think the best thing would be to trust your own gut feeling. You posted because his advice about leaving meant you had a very upset puppy that you had to clean up as they had been sick. You will probably find you have to bathe your puppy tomorrow if it pees and poos everywhere.

I am not going to say you must do this way or that as I don't think that is helpful. I think you have to decide what you trust to be the right way for you.

This is a sensitive dog, even the breeder has said so. Even if I had the most robust puppy in the world I don’t think I’d leave them to ‘cry it out’. What’s the point in letting your puppy become so distressed when there are other options available to you?

You chose to have this puppy. You need to put the effort in.

Breeder is a twat.
The old advice was to leave them. Modern advise is that leaving a dog when they’re upset teaches them that it’s scary to be alone. That’s what causes the separation anxiety.
Your dog sounds soooo like mine. I couldn’t leave her at all. Not even for a minute. She wouldn’t vomit but she would pee and eat her own bed. Think trembling and heart pounding panic attack.
So I didn’t leave her. At all. She’s now two and totally happy to be left.
I bought a whelping pen for the kitchen. It does have a gate. Ellie Bo from Amazon.
Sleeping overnight and toilet outside is HUGE. Well done. And good luck.

Please don't leave her to cry, poor little thing 😢
It will get better but for now just give her the attention/comfort she needs.

Breeder is a giant twat. If I knew who he was I’d be reporting him to whoever would listen

Leaving a puppy to cry it out may stop it crying but only due to learned helplessness. They learn that crying doesn't do anything so they shut down instead. Why get a dog if you want it just to lie helplessly in the corner? Toileting or sickness when left, is a puppy that has worked itself into such a distress they have lost control of their bodily functions. Again not something I could let myself live with.

Give the puppy comfort when needed, let it sleep by your bed and gradually move away when comfortable if you don't want it in your room for life. Build the crate as a positive place as now the puppy will have negative associations where you've already left it alone and it's become so distressed. In fact I'd be looking at getting rid of the crate as reversing the damage done will be a tough task.

Please, please, please get yourself booked into some good (and by that I mean force free, positive reinforcement only) puppy classes as times have moved on since you last owned a puppy. Dogs are wonderful but they are a huge commitment and deserve to be treated with respect. Also, if possible take the children to puppy classes so they can learn about dog body language and the need to leave a dog alone. There's so many videos going around on social media at the moment that terrify me as these dogs are giving all the warning signals but no one is paying attention!

There are plenty of breeders out there who know bugger all about dog behaviour. What are his qualifications, credentials etc? Is he a KC assured breeder?
What breed is she?

Go with the advice that Wolfie has linked to

Yes of course you can work in January for a couple of hours three times a week. Just build very slowly to leaving her

I wish people wouldn't say things like that. Not all dogs are capable of being left for two hours at a time at barely four months of age - mine certainly wouldn't have been.

Not all dogs are the same and by saying things like that, people feel like they've failed when their dog doesn't "behave" correctly by crying or having anxiety about being left.

@adaline good god, nobody would ever be able to have a dog if it was required you had to stay with them for 24 hours a day

A couple of hours a couple of times a week is more than feasible. No, of course the puppy shouldn't have been left alone for 40 minutes on day one. But to say it can basically never be left is just nonsense

And I wish people wouldn't say that!

When I got Billypup she was 8 weeks. We were lucky in that she slept through straight away but her crate was big enough to have a puppy pad at one end. They don't like to soil their sleeping area so we were able to compartmentalise it.

A breeder friend of mine also gave me an idea of what the daily schedule should be for her. Every hour included puppy rest/sleep time, taking outside to try and wee/poo time 10 minutes or so of game/play time (starting training) So we did get her into her routine quite quickly and then were able to gradually extend things ie leaving her alone for 5 minutes to leaving her sufficient time for us to go back to work after a few weeks. I am part time and mostly work from home so much easier to do this.

Not all dogs are the same. Mine couldn’t have coped with that at that age. Many could. Eventually a dog should be fine to be left. But how long that takes varies hugely.

A couple of hours a couple of times a week is more than feasible.

Dogs are individual which is why they all behave differently. On top of that each household is different so dogs will get different experiences which will impact their behaviour.

What works for one household on the length of time they can be left won't work for others. As demonstrated on most threads all of our dogs are different and we have had to overcome different challenges.

So for one dog they may be perfectly happy to be on their own for a couple of hours at 3 months of age. For others it may be more like 6 months. No one really knows until the puppy is here and how they react.

All we can do is state how our own dogs behaved. We can't make assumptions about what another dog can or cannot tolerate and at what age.

OP please ignore the 'advice' of the breeder. It is nonsense. It is a sad fact that people who breed working dogs can be very, very hard on them and also use very outdated and cruel training methods. I live rurally and have gundogs myself and know a few local breeders of labs and spaniels who I consider to be actively cruel.

Love and cherish this little pup and give her your time and attention and she will reward you for years as a faithful and loving friend. Take things very, very slowly as it sounds like she is a sensitive little girl and praise the behaviour you want her to carry on with.She needs companionship and affection.

She will learn. Labs have lovely temperaments on the whole - please do not break her spirit by locking her in a cage and ignoring her.

Breeders advice may be based on the fact that most of the puppies are destined to be working dogs rather than household pets.

Glad you're getting there OP it will get easier.

good god, nobody would ever be able to have a dog if it was required you had to stay with them for 24 hours a day

A couple of hours a couple of times a week is more than feasible.

Again @BatPie that depends entirely on the dog! This is a puppy, not w fully grown adult. Mine definitely couldn't have coped with that at four months of age. He would have cried until he was sick and probably messed himself too - now at ten months it would be perfectly manageable.

Funnily enough dogs aren't robots and they don't all develop at the same rate. Some are fine with being left immediately, some take a lot longer to be happy with it.

Telling OP her dog will be fine to be left for two hours a day in three weeks isn't helpful because it may well not be the case. Just because your dog managed doesn't mean they all do!

Mine had bad separation anxiety as a young puppy and I know @Wolfiefan had similar struggles with hers.

Yep. There is absolutely and completely no way mine could have managed that long at that age. I think my dog’s level of anxiety was unusual but not unique.
The dog may be fine to be left. It may not. No one can predict. The only thing that is certain is that leaving a dog that’s distressed when alone only exacerbates the problem.

“A couple of hours a couple of times a week is more than feasible.”

That’s a bit like saying your baby will sleep through the night...

I mean, yes, at some point, but whether that’s in weeks or months or even years is pretty unpredictable.

Ok so with regards to tonight and crate training.
We’ve had her in her crate for 30 minutes twice today. We’ve ignored her crying and after 10 minutes she’s stopped and fallen asleep. I think she gets overtired as she doesn’t nap much during the day.
Anyway, we are going to try crate downstairs tonight, but not if she cries excessively. If she cries for 10 minutes then falls asleep as she did earlier then happy days. If she cries for more than 10 minutes then crate will come back in our room.
Either way we are setting an alarm for 2.5 hour intervals during the night as we did last night as I really don’t think it’s fair for her to sit in her wee all night. That doesn’t sit right with me.
So it’s kind of the breeders recommendation, but I feel more comfortable doing it this way.
Guaranteed I’ll be down on the sofa next to her in the middle of the night!
But hoping if she settles in her crate for a few stretches overnight then she’ll stop howling in it in the day time.

On the plus side, she’s eaten 3 meals, had lots of lovely playtime with the kids, and done 70% of wees and poos in the garden. Only 3 wees inside all day.
If you watch her like a hawk you can tell her wee signals pretty easily.

OP don't worry you are doing great - the fact you have asked for and acted on the advice given tells me so.

When our pups were that age I just took them everywhere with me - carried on school run, zipped into jacket in shop, into shower room etc. It is like having a baby for sure!

Or I waited til they went to sleep and then got on with doing things I needed to!

Our latest pup cuddled us all the time, he had a playpen in the living room and I left the door open so he could go in and out. Also fed him every meal and every treat in there.
So he got used to it and then started going in when he was tired and wanted a rest.
Usually slept on us tho!

It does sound like you have a clingy one but rest assured it will get better and you will have such a lovely cuddly loyal dog when he is older. Mind and socialise him well so he isn't scared of other dogs and people if he is that sensitive.
Let others stroke and hold him on school run, book into puppy classes as soon as you can etc.

Good luck, also top tip is leave a radio on when he's in the crate - mine like radio 2
That way they can hear voices and music and aren't lying there listening for you!!

I think they do have to get used to sleeping in their crates but I think you could leave that until much later. Still so little now....

No doubt I’ll be told this is wrong, but fwiw this is what we did OP. First night we put the puppy in her crate downstairs. She howled and kept us up all night. 2nd night we moved the crate to our room and she slept all night. We kept her in our room for the first four weeks. During the day her crate went downstairs but she wasn’t put in there. She soon started napping in there of her own accord.
After four weeks she slept in her crate downstairs and very rarely wakes us in the night.
She was carried on school runs etcfor the first few weeks. From about 16 weeks she was left for up to an hour. She is 18 months now and we will leave her occasionally for up to three hours (in her bed). She is fine.