Giving up my pup

[BB8sm8]

I’m heartbroken so please go easy on me - I really don’t what to do for the best. I’ve never had a dog and always wanted one. I would always dog sit for weekends, walk friends’ dogs etc. I work from home, DC (5 and 8) are both at school so now seemed an ideal time. My husband much prefers our cat but reluctantly agreed to get a dog. We got a pup as I was nervous of a rescue dog with an unknown history, having once witnessed a rescue dog snap at a child. She’s 5.5 months now, we’ve gone through all the sleepless nights, the worst bits of the early days...but I’m really not enjoying it. I love her & we enjoy our walks which have also helped to lift my depression a little, we like puppy class, the school run etc. but my goodness it’s hard work, she’s full of energy & is getting quite big (she’s a cockapoo). We do puppy classes but she’s pulls badly on the lead & is so strong. She will wee & poo outside but still wees in the kitchen if I don’t pick up the sniffing signs quickly enough. I know she’s young & that she will grow out of the puppy phase but I’m not enjoying it anywhere near like I thought I would. It feels like having a very difficult 3rd child at the moment. I’ve contacted the breeder & she’s happy to have her back. But should I give her back, will I regret it? Or should i wait it out & hope I enjoy her more with time?

[adaline]

You'll find she calms down a lot over the next 3-6 months. Mine is unrecognisable from how he was six months ago!

[umberellaonesie]

We had dogs all my life from pups so when I got my first puppy as an adult I thought I was well prepared.
Oh how naive I was I wanted to re-home him everyday for 18 months. He was hard work and failed all his puppy classes but then suddenly I just noticed I hadn't asked my husband if we could get rid of the puppy that day. It took alot of blood sweat and tears but we made it through and he turned into a fantastic family dog. We lost him in February at the grand old age of 11 and I miss him so much.
We just got a new puppy last week, and are in the throws of sleepless nights and toilet training. But despite our previous puppy experience I'm willing to do it again.
So I guess what I'm saying is don't be so hard on yourself, you are growing into a dog owner and your puppy is growing into your family. You may not be that experienced but you and your puppy are learning together just like I did (as an on paper experienced dog owner). Have more confidence in your knowledge as you say you have researched and have support from puppy classes etc. And accept as it is with our children sometimes 'this too shall pass'

[FrancesFryer]

We've had dogs for the last 20 years and i can honestly say i hate puppies. The teenage bit is a bit more entertaining and once they hit 18 months to 2 years they tend to settle down and are happy in their routine

[bbcessex]

OP, I feel for you, you seem overwhelmed.

Is anyone helping you? I second the suggestion of occasional daycare.. sounds like you love her, she's just in the 'pain in the arse' phase.

My dog is 13 months now and we adore him.. he did try to eat us and all the furniture for about 90% of his life though.. we seen through that 'phase' now, thank god x

[MattMagnolia]

Surely a puppy is not a teenager at 5 months old? I’ve always found the stroppy independence worst around a year old.
Op’s Puppy is still a baby and she’s had him only 3 months. Give yourself time to bond and learn to relax, it’s not all about training and worrying. Gradually the fun overtakes the hard work and you fall in love.

[adaline]

Doggy adolescence starts around 6 months old - so OP is just heading for the worst of it!

[Signifyingnothing]

I hear you and I was you 18 months ago. It was awful. Our cockapoo was exhausting and I was ready to give him up. Then one night my husband said to give it one month. One month without complaining. One month not saying every day what a terrible mistake we'd made and then review how I felt after that.

Well, we still have him. And while he is still v v energetic, he's also so so so much calmer. And it's largely his age. He listens to me more now and knows I'm in charge. He's v loving and a lot more obedient. I adore him.

Give yourself a breather with a notice period which allows you to relax because at the end of it you have the real option of returning him. You might find, like us, that it gives you and the dog time to relax a bit. And them time to show how they will change. Good luck.

[Sooverthemill]

The teenage months are hell ( we have had 4 poodle crosses) and we are still going through that with our current 1 year old. I love him to bits but omg he's hard work. A week ago we had a one to knee session with a behaviourist and that was very helpful. She suggested:
40 minutes walk a day broken into sections so you walk and sniff, play, train. Having 30 minutes ( only) chewing time with a good quality chew ( raw bone, cows ear, yak, nylabone) as this tires, every couple of hours if you can do 10 minutes brain training eg hide and seek, fetch, teaching tricks etc. Use a treat/ food dispenser so tbey work harder. Etc etc. Also for bark g at visitors we now just totally ignore them for first 10 minutes anybody enters the room. Acknowledge the warning barks eg omg someone is going to Cone to the door to our poor postman, we now look at the 'threat' say oh thanks and dog quiets quickly. It is all working. It's such hard work and I'm sure you are so upset about all this. Have another try, give yourself say 3 weeks. Keep talking to breeder who May have advice. But ultimately the dog has to be happy and if you are this unhappy the dog won't be. Poor you

[thewideeyedpea]

@VodselForDinner I also am very very fond of you.

[Earthboundmisfit79]

I've had a few puppies through this stage (and dealt with a few horses at that stage too) and am now parenting a teen.
All loveable arseholes I'm afraid! With the puppies/horses it was like a cross between a toddler (wrecking stuff, boundless energy and poor impulse control) and a teen-ager (stroppy, lack of respect and discipline and the dreaded hormones!) It gets better if you're consistent with training now. I have an 8 year old JRT and for the first 2 years of her life I disliked her most of the time. She was a fabulous puppy, very quick and eager to learn, but then turned into the hound from hell. I kept at it, kept consistent and she (and I!) Came out the other side. I adore her now and often get compliments on how well trained she is 'for a terrier'
She still gets a bit overwhelmed if she's overstimulated and can be a bit over the top, but a bone, her crate and some peace and quiet sorts her out.
The key I think is as I've said, consistency, and you will be sick to the back teeth of the sound of your own voice by the end of it, but it is worth it imo once you get through to the other side. It does take commitment and determination, and a lot of it. I'll admit there were times I just wanted to give up and re-home mine too, it's quite overwhelming, and I'd already been through it with other dogs.
Doggy day care one day a week is a fabulous idea, maybe even a dog walker on another day of the week too regularly? And maybe another training class as well or as others say a trainer for 121 sessions?
Good luck 💐

[Cath2907]

I was not a happy dog owner when mine was 5 months old! We’d just got past the worst of the toilet training but he was still terrorising my daughter with his jumping up, his biting and basically being a stubborn fuckwit. He started ignoring my every command, getting me up at 5am every morning and basically ruling the roost. We persisted despite my now ex-husbands demands to rehome him. He is 18 months old now. He is wonderful and calm company 98% of the day. In the few minutes before we walk twice a day he bounces up and down all over my DD which she hates. I imagine that too will eventually fade. He now recalls impeccably, sleeps most of the day and enjoys his walks with wonderful amusing ear flapping tail wagging joy. He sleeps until I get up between 7 and 8 everyday. If you can hang in there it does get better.

[BB8sm8]

Thank you so much for these responses, I’m learning lots here, reading around other threads I can see this is clearly the start of a very tricky age!! I can’t imagine going through this with horses!! 😱. I’d prepared myself for sleepless nights of a small pup but not this...I’ve also had a family member pointedly commenting that she’s terrible on the lead, she shouldn’t be pooing on the grass where the kids might play (we only have a small yard & have nowhere else for her to go), she’s badly behaved jumping up on the sofa etc & I’m feeling very much like I’m getting it all wrong, despite all the reading & puppy classes! One to one sounds like it really might help, perhaps just to bring some fun into it as well because I’m so focused on trying to get her to behave. Does neutering have an effect on temperament too?

[longearedbat]

Re pooing on the grass - better than pooing on the carpet! Just pick it up and wash the area down with some water. One thing I found with all our dogs is that as they mature they get to have regular poo times (a bit like my oh), so it makes management of that a lot easier.
Re the jumping on the sofa, you need to make being off the sofa more attractive. Your dogs breeding means it should be really easy to train. Have you tried clicker training? I have a poodle and I found using a clicker really helps, and they are so quick to learn. If I want her to be somewhere specific, I will indicate where I want her to be and tell her to sit, click and reward. By doing this regularly I can now just point and she will go and sit, so that she will instantly move from somewhere I dont want her. She also has a bed in the sitting room, which she actually prefers to the sofa.
I second a harness for the pulling. Mine pulled for a while. Every time she pulled I would just stop and walk back the way we had come (cue bemused astonishment from the dog). The first few times it took us ages to go a few hundred yards, but she soon learnt that pulling wouldn't advance her walk.
Mine was a whirling dervish until she was about 15 months, and was incredibly trying at times. She also used to get almost over-hyped and seemingly over tired at times. I had to be quite strict about time out and bedtime. A dog who has had plenty of attention and exercise during the day should not feel the need to spend the evening throwing balls at you.
Don't give up, you're just going through a bad patch. I am sure you love your dog.

[Booboostwo]

I think you need some better training tips. It’s great that you are keeping up with the puppy classes, but is your trainer teaching you effective techniques? I assume this is a positive reinforcement class?

Pulling: for an immediate solution get her a well fitting harness with a front (between the two front legs) clip. What has the trainer taught you to stop her pulling? I teach the no-reinforcement technique, I.e. if the dog pulls the owner doesn’t move, when the lead is slack you turn and go off in the opposite direction. It takes a few weeks but it works. Hand targeting also helps with nice walking, has the trainer taught you this?

Sofa: training this kind of thing takes time. Are you rewarding her for jumping off the sofa? Don’t concentrate too much on her being on the sofa, but focus on rewarding the behaviour you want, i.e. off the sofa.

Weeing: make sure you clean the area thoroughly with an enzyme based solution like Simple Solution or Urine Off. Be patient, sounds like you are nearly there. As for pooing on the grass, don’t listen to other people, if this is not a problem for you don’t make it one. You could teach her to use a specific patch but given how overwhelmed you sound it’s best to let her use the whole garden. If she is wormed, pick up the poo and forget about it.

Walks: at nearly 6mo she can start half hour walks, make sure you vary them. A walk in a new place will exhaust her more than anything else. Pop her in the car and go to a different park, a lake, the forest , etc. It’s great she has a good recall, you should be having a lot of fun with her on walks.

[adaline]

Your relatives comments really aren't helping!

Pooing on the grass - absolutely NOTHING wrong with it so long as you clean it properly. Grass poos are much easier to clean/pick up than pavement ones in my experience!

Jumping on the sofa - normal, if not desirable. It does calm down. Are you happy to have her on the sofa for cuddles? You need to decide what behaviour you are willing to allow and focus on praising her when she does what you want. Mine is allowed on the sofa but only if he sits nicely - he's not allowed to leap about all over the place, so we praise/reward when he's doing well, and just get him on the floor when he's not. Then praise for being on the floor. He's much better than he was.

Pulling on walks - have you done any loose-lead training? Unfortunately pulling is a self-rewarding behaviour - the dog pulls and gets to where he wants to go, so he keeps pulling to get what he wants. It's hard. Use treats in your hand and reward her for being by your side. Ours pulled like a train until about 14 months - it's only now he's started to calm down enough to walk nicely! He still pulls sometimes but it's much better.

You'll get there. ALL puppies need to work and they don't come with an instruction manual! What works for one dog won't work for another, so sometimes you have to try lots of different methods to find one that you and your dog are happy with.

[Nesssie]

OP, well done for not rising to the comments about mongrels etc. Its is against MN rules to have a cockerpoo.

As pp have said, you are at the hardest part of having a puppy, it will get better!

[LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett]

Just catching up on replies and there's so much to read it made me think about another piece of advice I got from our trainer - just work on one thing at a time. Just like with a child, you can't be on and on at them all the time, it's exhausting. So pick one thing you need to 'fix' and work on that. So if the thing that makes you most annoyed is pulling on the lead, buy a harness, have a look on Youtube, and work hard on that for a while. When fixed, move onto something else.

[YippeeKayakOtherBuckets]

Oh I feel you, OP. My big dog (Labrador) is a year old and for huge parts of the last few months I’ve fucking hated it.

Just this morning I have yelled at him to shut the fuck up and get to bed because he was having the scoobies round the front room. At 40kg having him whizz round like a mad toddler is not ideal. He seems to have developed selective hearing.

Funnily enough he’s much better behaved outside. Indoors he’s a terrible terrible arse.

It does get better. We had our chi from a puppy as well and when she hit 2 she turned into the sweetest dog in the world. Hang on in there.

[SupermassiveBlackHo]

It's not that it's against Mumsnet rules to have a mongrel, it's more that people are deliberately breeding them and charging insane amounts of money for what is essentially something you could pick up for pennies less than ten years ago because mongrel were undesirable.

[Cath2907]

• Pooing on grass - totally normal. As they get older (and if you walk morning and afternoon at regular times) they tend to poop on a walk mostly. Just go out daily and clean up any poop in the garden.
• Sitting on sofa - up to you but mine does. He has a chair he prefers and some dog beds but his totally favorite spot is the warm patch I just left! If you prefer the dog not to sit on the sofa you need to consistently stop him. It is your choice though and a dog that sits on the sofa is not a badly behaved dog - he is a dog who hasn't been told not to! Mine is currently asleep on his back with his legs in the air on the bit of sofa I vacated 20 mins ago.
• terrible on the lead. Depends what you mean. It takes practice for them to learn to walk as you'd like them to and for you to get the hang of going along with the dogs needs. The walk is for their benefit rather than yours (most of the time) so things like letting them stop to sniff (every 2 yards and for AGES) is normal and nice for the dog. Having them get tangled in every other dogs lead whilst sniffing butts is normal. Having them drag your arm off at it's socket is a pain and something you need to address. It isn't a fun walk for the dog if you leave the house and walk flat out for 20 minutes with him on a tight short leash. He doesn't need the exercise as much as the mental stimulation of sniffing, seeing new things, exploring. A 30 minute walk where you get 10ft and he sniffs and looks and mooches is as good or better than a 30 minute brisk walk where you go further but he has to go at your speed.

Our walks teend to be 80% mooching and sniffing with a burst of him chasing a ball or sticks or pinecones or his own bum in the middle. He likes a good run but mostly he wants to pee on plants!

They are a bloody nuisance as teenagers but they do get easier!

[EnidPrunehat]

I've got a very large, gallumphy nearly 6 month old lurcher pup. He's reliably house-trained and can be left for up to 3 hours. He's also nowhere near as chewy since his adult teeth started coming in. However, he's determined to jump at people (especially if they dislike dogs) and we're still having discussions about being bitey. And now, to add to it all, he's just hit puberty. So yesterday's casualties of his new career as a sex pest were two of the better cushions and a Lakeland Terrier called Bruce.

I say all this because all of us with a puppy go through this challenging time. I love him to pieces and couldn't imagine life without this comedy dog. But I don't have small children or a DH or partner any longer and I do have a 'doggy' sort of house with a large garden out in the middle of nowhere. All of which is a whole lot less stressful!

I can't say whether you should give your pup back or not although it's very encouraging that your breeder would help here. But all the puppy behaviours that are causing you issues will pass with age or training. Just be consistent about things like being off sofas. I'd also cut the walking down as an over-stimulated pup is usually a behavioural nightmare.

But ask yourself, how would you feel if your pup was suddenly gone for ever. Would you be heartbroken? Would you be relieved? How do the rest of the family feel? And while I wouldn't dream of being unkind, it is worth considering the effect on your children who, I presume, you wouldn't rehome if they'd turned out to be more of a challenge than you'd expected. Dogs are a lifetime commitment. If you really don't feel you can make this then yes, perhaps the pup might be better with someone who can. Although don't underestimate the potential damage done to your pup who has settled in what they assumed to be their forever home.

[Sooverthemill]

BB8sm8 we neutered our first dog and not our second. Bothe had very similar completely lovely friendly temperaments but still a bit loopy until about age 4 ( so we always had to work in recall for example) for our current 1 year old we planned to have him neutered about now ( because our old boy is entire and the dominant chap) but our behaviourist suggested that in her experience neutering before 18 months old sometimes keeps them in puppy mode for years longer than expected. Does that make sense? So after talking to vet we will review in another 6 months. We have labradoodles and always have because when we visited the breeder of our first it was clear that nine of my kids were allergic. ( if they had been we would have looked at other types, and had already decided we might go to poodles). We've had labradoodles now since 2003 and always paid silly money ( but have you seen how much a moggie kitten can fetch these days?). We have them because their temperament suits our family and we consider them the perfect family dog but recognise that the puppy stage is bloody hard work. I think it is for all types of puppy tbh. But at least they settle down unlike the kids! I hope you sort it out, ignore well meaning comments from people about poo. Do your best. That's all you can do

[Nesssie]

SupermassiveBlackHo - supply and demand. If people are willing to pay that amount then why on earth wouldn't the breeders charge that amount? As long as they are bred responsibly, and it seems as though this one is.
The trend on breeds and crossbreeds of dogs changes massively over time. Poodle crosses are popular now, as are french bulldogs, whereas 10 years ago, it was GSD and Labradors. Doesn't make one breed more superior to the other, which is what MN Doghouse tends to focus on.

[SupermassiveBlackHo]

They aren't a breed.

There shouldn't be a "supply and demand" for mongrels.

They aren't bred responsibly. Most haven't come from health-tested parents, there are no endorsements and no breed standards.

There are dogs in rescue centres dying because of this.

Surely you're not advocating breeding designer crossbreeds?

[Nesssie]

SupermassiveBlackHo Why on earth does it matter if they are a breed or a crossbreed? Most pedigree breeds are a product of crossbreeding years and years ago.

Not every single crossbreed breeder is a puppy farmer. That is utter rubbish trotted out every single doghouse post. There are responsible and irresponsible breeders for every breed, cross breed and mixed breed.

Not everyone wants a rescue dog. God forbid someone wants a puppy. The person that wants a small family dog is not going to go to a rescue and save the staffie or lurcher. It is not their fault the rescues are overrun. You stop breeding these popular dogs, and the rescues will still be full.

I work in dog rescue, and have several rescue mongrels but even I know that it is not suitable for everyone and can see the appeal of cockerpoos etc