Puppy help please

[LadyCatStark]

Hi, we could really do with some help with evenings with our puppy please! In the daytime, he’s great. He’s still hard work but we appreciate he’s only a baby (9 weeks old) and we (well most I) have managed to get him into a good routine. He sleeps through the night and he’s 90% toilet trained with just the odd wee indoors by accident, so he’s great in that respect. He’s a constant biter/ chewer but he’s improving and this morning he didn’t bite me or even mouth for a whole hour! He understands sit, stay, here, off and leave when a treat is offered 😂. He gets plenty of training, food, play and naps during the day.

The problem is that from 4pm to 8pm he goes crazy! He just wants to run around like a mad thing and bite as hard as he can and chew the house to pieces. I think the trigger is DS and then DH arriving home, which is obviously really exciting but he can’t then settle. I think he gets over tired and just gets worse and worse and worse until he flops at 8pm. We’ve tried popping him nicely in his crate for a nap, which works perfectly in the day time but he practically shrieks at this time. Trying to play with him makes him even worse. Trying to do training is pointless and would probably be counter productive as he’s gone past the point of being able to listen. Everything we try makes it worse actually! We try distracting him and try saying “off” or “leave” which he gets during the day but again he can’t listen and we can’t just allow him to destroy the house and garden!

Has anyone got any tips on how to manage this time please as poor DH and DS are only seeing the horrible side of him and is a real shame because he’s lovely during the day? It also means they’re not bonding as well as I am with him (I’m WFH, they’re out at work or school). I really think the best thing for him at this time would be a nice sniffy decompression walk but he can’t go for a walk for another week and a half and I can’t carry him when he’s like this as he bites my face.

I sympathise! Our puppy is a little biting, zooming monster when tired/excited. I am watching this thread

I call it the witching hour. No advice really I'm afraid. SiPup is 7 months now and just grew out of it. He still has episodes of the zoomies but they are very short bursts now. It does get better when they can get out for walks. Have you get a garden he can go out in and burn off some energy?

Is he food motivated? Could you stuff a kong with something (freezing it makes it last longer) or give him some treat puzzles to figure out? What do you actually do when he bites?

When he bites hard we’ve tried the ‘Yelp’ like a puppy thing which definitely makes it worse! We stand up and ignore him but yesterday he ripped my jeans while I was standing up and he just rags at our clothes. Just today he seems to have mastered “off” really well but time will tell whether he can do it tonight! We make a huge fuss and give him lots of treats for “good” behaviour even if we’re at the end of our tether and don’t feel like he is a good boy 😂.

He’s not massively food motivated considering he’s a Labrador! He’s currently enjoying a Kong stuffed with kibble and topped with Primula and a carrot that he’s been working on all morning and he’s as chilled as you like. But he wouldn’t be swayed by these things in the witching hour!

We do have a good sized garden that he enjoys, again he is great during the day but in the evening he just wants to eat the fence, tear massive chunks out of the grass and eat stones, which I worry about!

He’s like 2 different dogs!

Very common behaviour unfortunately.

Usually it is when the puppy is over tired and overstimulated and just can not deal with it. Yep everyone arriving home when he is already tired does not help.

Can you get him to do relaxing brain activities before it all kicks off (hard with people coming home) but give him a natural chew to chew on. Chew is tiring but also a stress reliever.

Could your DH and DS interaction with him be quiet calm rather than exciting puppy games. Maybe quiet walking in the garden on lead, low arousal.

When he is fed around this time scatter feed him so sprinkle his food around so he has to sniff it out and find it to eat it. ( initially make this easy for him but you can then build up to spreading in in grass over a larger area)

More brain games in the day and less stimulating activity will also help.

Avoid chasing games, running games, generally puppy excitement in the afternoon for a bit.

The best thing is to try and prevent it happening so act before the 4pm crazy hour.

This too will pass

This will pass

As you have found yelping just ups the excitement even more There is a reason dogs toys have squeaky noises in them! If he touches your skin stand still all interaction stops, nothing no eye contact, no words, nothing, if he continues to bite when you are still move into another room and shut him out for a few seconds.

I would get an old t towel tied into knots or a tuggy toy and play with that with him - if he hits your skin with his teeth stand up game over. If he drops the toy fab if not let it go still and no interaction for a few seconds. He will quickly learn.

If he is chasing your feet when you walk again use a long tuggy toy to distract him - soon you can build rules into the game eg when to drop and when to take it.

Think also what you would rather him to do rather than teaching him negative commands eg off and leave it. There is a place for that but for young puppies they tend to learn sit and down quicker. This is clearer to them and they can be rewarded for this easier than or an off.

@PollyRoulson he will sit and continue the chewing and biting 😂

Walking on the lead has not been successful so far so I just carried him to the pet shop as it’s only round the corner from my house and bought him a harness. I asked the lady for some edible chews for him but she said he was too young.

DS has definitely had some success with coming in calmly and taking him straight in the garden to do some sit, stay and walk training. It also helps to go straight up and take his uniform off as there are too many flappy dangly things in a high school uniform! And it would be expensive if his blazer got ripped so obviously we’re keen to get him off that so it’s better to just avoid it being there in the first place.

DH isn’t helping the situation, he thinks that the best way to calm him is to play fetch or tug with him which is the opposite of what he needs. He won’t listen to me though so I’ll get our trainer to tell him when she comes next.

We do have an excellent snake tug toy that is good for chewing and playing tug at arms length! It’s his favourite ever toy too and he won’t sleep without it!

We have exactly the same with our pup at 15 weeks. It is over stimulation and for us the morning "rush hour" I call it with DH and 3 kids all in and out of kitchen/bathroom etc and people leaving at different times it's just too much and she starts getting crazy jumping on sofa or nipping/chasing feet. We have the long snake too but she is determined with the feet! Today I put her in her crate and covered it and she protested at first but then she fell asleep! Same this afternoon when she got a bit crazy and she fell asleep again so she was overtired and over stimulated. Let's hope they grow out of the nipping soon!

@Aria20 yes the morning rush hour was an issue for us at first too but we seem to have cracked that! He has a filled Kong while I make DS’s breakfast and packed lunch and then he practically takes himself off to his crate at 7:30 for a sleep. That’s one little win I guess 😄

@Aria20 do you play her music when she goes in her crate? I play ours sleep music on Spotify and it sends him straight off!

That's really good yours is taking himself in the crate for a nap lol. What sort of music do you play? I did start putting some dog calming videos on you tube for mine but crate is in the kitchen now so might have to try music instead.

I just ask Alexa to play sleep music on Spotify and she selects a playlist for him to listen to 😂 sometimes it comes up with rainforest sounds or something like that and they’re no good, it needs to be music. Normal music doesn’t work either!

So we had an unexpectedly amazing night tonight! Ds and I took our puppy to the park to practise going in the car. He can’t go down on the ground yet so we sat on the round swing and DS pushed us for a while while we watched some children playing and a couple of dogs. He loved it and when we got home he was wiped out and went straight in his crate for an extra nap. He was calm when DH came home and hasn’t had any zoomies or biting, just a little bit of mouthing when he was trying to settle on his bed in the living room which I was able to distract him from with toys. I think he’s getting bored of staying at home, roll on a week on Friday! Picture attached of the little cutie being a best good boy 🥰.

That's great. Going out hypes my pup up unfortunately when we get back from a walk we have to go straight in back garden as she still hasn't realised she can wee/poo on a walk so she does that and then starts zooming around lol.

@LadyCatStark glad you had a much better evening. He looks just like hightidePup in that picture. Adorable! Things will all seem better when you can take him for a walk. Ours calmed down more in the evening. she still gets over tired and and bitey, but is quicker to calm down when all play stops and we walk out of the room, where as before she would have carried on going bananas!

Wanted to say have you tried lamb skin as a natural chew? HightidePup loves this and also loved chewing on beef pizzle sticks (the thin ones). There are loads of natural chews he can have as a pup. This site has chews and what age is ok

www.dragonflyproducts.co.uk/Dog-Help-and-Advice/Dog-health-and-nutrition-advice/safe-chews-for-puppies

@Hightideattheseaside that’s brilliant thanks! TBH I didn’t trust the pet shop that much anyway as she tried to offer me a slip lead instead of a harness (for a 9 week old puppy!) and tried to sell me some sort of air spray thing spray at him when he’s not behaving!! I didn’t even say he was misbehaving, just chewing.

Today is not shaping up to be such a good day as I just can’t get him to settle and sleep so he’s going to be a nightmare later on 😭.

HightidePup loves this and also loved chewing on beef pizzle sticks
SiPup absolutely loves pizzle sticks. Probably the only thing that would keep him quiet for a while at that age. Pricey but worth it!

Arghhhh tonight has been such a disaster 😭😭😭

Oh no sorry you had a rubbish evening @LadyCatStark. Do you have baby gates to shut him in one room but he can still see you? Or a play pen? So he can be popped in there with a chew every time he gets too excited if the ignoring doesn’t work? It won’t last forever, Hang in there!

We get our puppy next week...I'm starting to panic at the reality of it!

(p.s. Your puppy is GORGEOUS)

@ILikePizzaAndWine I’m not gonna lie, it’s been a lot harder than expected. I wasn’t expecting the biting to be so hard and so relentlessly constant. I don’t want to alarm you, but it’s better to be prepared! He is a Labrador though so a different breed might not be so bad. When he’s being good, he’s delightful though and we’ll get there.

@Hightideattheseaside in the end last night I had to pop him in his crate to calm down and he went to sleep immediately. It’s kind of my fault though as I got him back up after an hour to come and be with us in the living room and he wouldn’t even try to settle. He just bit us, ruined another pair of my jeans and tried to eat the furniture, skirting boards and even tried to pull up the carpet! I tried all his chew toys and even let him bring a carrot into the living room which we don’t usually do as he makes a massive mess with it 😂. I should have just left him to sleep but I don’t like the idea of him always being separated from us. He’s had his 2nd injections today and is now sleepy as anything so heres hoping we’ll have a quiet night, especially as DH is away so it’ll all be down to me!

You will get better at noticing the point at which he goes from excited to over-tired and manic. I have an 11 month old puppy now and he still can go a bit wild in the evening when he is tired, but it is much more manageable now. It is something that they grow out of, but it does feel eternal at the time! When my dog is over-excited and tired, I reduce the space he can move in the house so he can't wander endlessly, I give him something to chew and I also just ignore him. After he wanders for a while, he will often calm down himself. Definitely no wild games, tug of war, football etc. That just makes bad worse.

Can you move your crate into the living room @LadyCatStark? Ours is in there so she doesn’t feel separated from us and can make a quick escape if my kids get too much. She loves it now and takes herself off there all the time.

But when she was smaller and I needed to enforce naps through crazy over tired time I would pop her in and then sit next to the crate with my fingers poking through and shushing but other wise ignoring (no eye contact etc) and she would settle to sleep quickly. We were the. right there to hear her wake up. I also pop a blanket over the crate which helps her sleep longer and stop the kids bugging her.

Our gorgeous butter wouldn’t melt, 16 week old puppy turns into a demon in the evening.

Mine had her evening walk and came home hyper as anything zooming round the garden, biting everyone, jumping up on the sofa. I did a few training activities with her to calm her a bit and then brushed her and she eventually fell asleep on my feet!