What more should I be doing to entertain and tire out my puppy?!

[3AndADog]

She’s a lovely natured 5 month cockerpoo, seems quite easy to train and has some really lovely days, but other days (like today) she just can’t calm down and I am doubting whether she’s getting enough stimulation/sleep/training.

Today we went for a 30 min off lead cliff walk after school run. Then she slept 1.5 hours in her crate while I did supermarket. Then we played for half hour in garden practised some tricks and recall, and I filled a cardboard box with loads of paper and treats and she demolished that. Then I scatter fed her her lunch in the garden. Curled up for an hours nap on the sofa. Played with my mum in the garden while I picked up the kids. Came in the car with me to kids activities and we had a slow amble on a training lead through a field for 30 mins while the DC were dancing. Came home and she’s just not stopped tearing around the kitchen and lounge for last hour and half. Jumping up at counters, jumped up when my MILcame in, zoomies round the kitchen table, stealing cutlery from the kitchen table, scavenging the builders rubbish in the garden and scaring the life out of me with what she finds and tries to eat - it’s just insane. Some days she’ll just settle and sleep off a walk. Days like today I wonder what we’re doing wrong. I know she probably needed more sleep but unless I sit and hold a chew in her mouth and stroke her for half an hour she hasn’t been able to settle.

Is this an ok sort of day, activity wise?

I think it's loads!
We had days like that - it's the working dog in her. Even now there will be days when ours doesn't settle and I just can't put my finger on it. They just get over stimulated and can't calm themselves down. It gets better as they get older.
Maybe more sniffy things will help to focus and chill her out but otherwise.. time..

Cockerpoos are a mix of 2 energetic dogs.

With my cockers we just enforced sleep times. Crate in a quiet place with a blanket over.

I have 2 coxkers. One a working and both really calm in the house at 2 and 6
We just adopted a poodle mix. Probably a cavapoo. She is only young and bonkers too. So we are doing the enforced sleep again with her. Its helping but you have my sympathy.

So she had an hour and a half of enforced sleep in the morning, should I do that a couple of times a day? It’s just non stop with the counter surfing and grabbing, and I just feel that when she’s in that state all the training goes out the window and maybe it could be avoided. I’m also aware that she could do much longer walks (and has done) but our trainer has been really firm telling us that she shouldn’t have more than half an hour at a time twice a day. Maybe when she’s getting longer walks and is older….

@3AndADog - I have never had a cockerpoo but I suspect it is puppyhood. My two had mad half hours - as she gets older I suspect she will calm down a bit but do take advice from those who know more about that breed / dog

Sounds totally normal for a puppy to me

She sounds hugely overstimulated.

Puppies need around 18-20 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period, and it doesn't sound like she's getting anywhere near that much.

My cocker puppy is very much like DS as a toddler - major FOMO hard wired and no off switch. We had to watch DS like a hawk for the first sign of tiredness and force naps. We have to do the same with the puppy :-) 18 hours is a LOT of sleep and he absolutely needs it all, but he doesn't think so! So we have to help him settle and learn to be calm, or we all suffer the bitey hyper consequences. Sounds like your puppy might need more sleep and down time than she's getting.

How do you enforce a nap in a dog?? With My ds2 I just put him in the car and he was off like a light, but that doesn’t work for the dog. Do you have to have a crate and basically lock them in? (Not being goady)

Sounds totally normal to me. My pup is exactly like this and a similar age. Basically my conclusion is that they need tons and tons of physical exercise but obviously they can't have it at this young age so we just have to ride it out...

@Dizzywizz puppy pen with a water bowl and a comfy bed in it. Pop them in there with a favourite chew and let them chew themselves to sleep. This may mean you sitting quietly in the room - not engaging, but just being a comforting presence - whilst they drift off.

Ideally you start this much younger, so they know the routine. Some dogs are better at self-settling than others. My current two year old used to throw a massive tantrum at even the thought of a nap. She would howl, fling herself at the bars of the puppy pen, and glare at me with increasingly sleepy and outraged eyes til she would just... fall over. Regular naps, much as she hated it, made her much more civilised.

Having said that, zoomies in the evening are pretty normal almost whatever you do. It's the witching hour.

I make sure she has had exercise/stimulation then put her in her quiet crate with a kong with a bit of stuffing to settle on, then leave her to it . Whines a few times but will almost always go off to sleep. If I kept her up she would not rest but would overstimulate herself and go utterly stupid.

I agree she sounds overstimulated and over tired - our lab puppy is a few weeks younger and sleeps far far more than that. Our play/training sessions are about 10 minutes long, and if we walk twice/day we keep them to 20 minutes max. Otherwise once a day plus play sessions is plenty for her.

Excessive silly puppy biting is always linked to tiredness with ours and is a sure sign a nap is needed.

Stop playing before he gets overtired, remove other distractions (like DS!), encourage him to lie down and chill out for a bit first chewing a toy, which is calming for them, then provide him with a nice cosy quiet place and make sure DS and the cat don't bother him there. He has a crate but his chosen den is on a bit of blanket under a side table in the corner of the living room :-) Once he's overtired sleep's a lost cause so mostly, we keep an eye on his excitement levels and dial it down if he's been up for more than an hour or so.

@icedcoffees 18-20 hours of sleep a day for a 5 month old pup, really? I know that's how much they probably sleep as a tiny puppy but by 5 months if they sleep say 10pm-7am then another 11 hours during the day?!

It does sound like your pup needs a bit more rest...does she chew on anything as that often chills them and calms them down so a nap may follow?

Go Trying to encourage them to settle and just sit on their own on a bed. Chewing helped ours to settle. Or we’d sometimes sit with her on our lap. A bit of training, just 10 minutes would be knackering too.

Agree with others that she’ll grow out of it. But training and praising calm is good. And sometimes a day of not doing much, so just a calm sniffy walk and some training….

If he's struggling to switch off we reduce the area he can racket around snd keep himself awake in by using a puppy pen as a barrier. We potter about or sit quietly in the room so he's not alone but we make sure we're as boring as possible and don't engage.

Can I just ask that you be very careful with the cliff walking? If the cliffs aren't fenced, your puppy is at grave risk of going over the edge if he's off lead.

[quote Motorina]@Dizzywizz puppy pen with a water bowl and a comfy bed in it. Pop them in there with a favourite chew and let them chew themselves to sleep. This may mean you sitting quietly in the room - not engaging, but just being a comforting presence - whilst they drift off.

Ideally you start this much younger, so they know the routine. Some dogs are better at self-settling than others. My current two year old used to throw a massive tantrum at even the thought of a nap. She would howl, fling herself at the bars of the puppy pen, and glare at me with increasingly sleepy and outraged eyes til she would just... fall over. Regular naps, much as she hated it, made her much more civilised.

Having said that, zoomies in the evening are pretty normal almost whatever you do. It's the witching hour.[/quote]
This is the voice of reason above.
Puppy sounds v over stimulated and has not learned to switch off. Puppy pen and bed are the answer and slowly get it used to going there to be quiet or sleep. You can move to a crate by putting the crate in the pen and eventually moving the pen altogether.

We have to use crate with cover for our spaniel...and fairly quiet room although we leave the radio on if not there...Still at 1ish ...am also training a settle but is very much a work in progress..should have started earlier 🙄...Will chill with a chew in the evening now but probably only from 10months or so reliably but with us ..on his own has to be in crate...

I don't think a half hour walk is enough, an hour to an hour and a half not necessarily walking all that time but socialising with other dogs in the park while you chat to their owners.
Cockers where traditionally working dogs so have a lot of energy.

Our cocker poo peaked his overtired chewing around that age. Stopped at 10/11 months. We found if we just paid him no attention when he got over tired and chewy, he soon settled himself on the sofa around 7pm and slept till morning with a quick wee trip out and relocation to his bed in our room when we went to bed. We crate him when he’s home alone for an hour or so but we don’t find we have to crate him to get him to sleep when he’s overtired, but pay the chewing no attention and he finds a quiet corner himself soon enough. Each dog will be individual though. But it’s normal for it to peak around 5 months. In my experience with all the dogs we’ve have you don’t have to find a solution if that’s the only issue, it goes with age and just had to be endured for a bit. So long as you’re confident it is just evening overtired chewing.

Official advice for walks is 5 mins per month of age for puppies till a year old to protect their hips etc. You can do more than one walk a day.

She sounds overtired and overstimulated. Our Lab boy gets like that on occasion, even at 2 years old. We pop him in his crate and he's usually asleep within 10 minutes.

And please don't think that Lab puppies need hours of walking and stimulation every day. The last thing you want is an overly fit dog. Some days our boy gets an afternoon running across fields, other days it's 20 minutes in the park or a trot round the block, if it's pouring with rain he gets let out in the garden. He's in great shape and kept at a sensible weight by feeding the right amount of decent dog food.

Sounds overstimulated and overtired, agree with PP. I've found the more exercise mine get the more bonkers they are in the house.