Help please. Dog unmanageable away from home

[Goawayangryman]

Golden retriever bitch puppy, 7.5 months.
Not at all biddable, but very smart. Not food motivated at all. Slightly wary character, def not the alpha pup. Freaked out by wind and anything that flaps in said wind. She was very thoroughly socialized although possibly not to extreme wind....hard to find those opportunities in their socialisation window!

So. We are away for a short week and she has been an unbridled nightmare since we got here. Went 13 hours without a pee, didn't eat for 24 hours really either, after we arrived. Has picked at food since.

She will only pee and poop when absolutely busting. On afternoon of day 2 I thought we'd cracked it as she found a spot she'd gone a couple of times and seemed to have settled a bit.

Today, she wouldn't go in her pee place
for either a wee or a poo until desperate. Distracting herself with twigs, sticks, biting on lead, messing around, all sorts. Only one wee outside since 720am. Another on the sofa in the holiday cottage and she is totally dry at home, has been since 16 weeks. Been taking her out every 30 minutes or so. She has had a wide choice of pee spots. Grass (no thank you), streets, shingles in a protected spot (where she usually goes at home), sand, soil...All a big fat nope.

I am losing the will and everyone is fed up with her barking and whining and I feel like I'm failing her and missing something important.
I was totally prepared to bring her on holiday/ to visit relatives with us for the foreseeable 10 years. I was less prepared to never be away from home at all for the next decade ....

We are going home soon but I want to know what is going on in order to avoid this in the future.

She is well-loved, gets lots of fuss. At least 2 or 3 training sessions a day, usually plenty of off-lead running and play.

Help.

I will not presume to advise but just sympathise as my 9 month old pup was a total lunatic nightmare when I took him away to stay at my dads this week.

I thought he would like it because it's rural with a huge garden but in fact he was overwhelmed and behaved himself extremely badly. He was jumping on my family and embarrassingly shagging everyone, stealing and chewing up things, constantly pacing, barking and whining and getting up at 6am.
Even on lovely rural walks he was paying zero attention to me so could not be let off lead and finally snapped his long line from pulling so badly
He wasn't even interested in food which is not him at all.

It was a horrible trip that I did not enjoy at all which is a terrible shame as spending time with my family is so important to me. I will confess I hated him for it and had thoughts of giving him back to the rescue place.

However since he's been back home he is much much better and I realise it was my fault for putting too much pressure on him with the car journey and the new people and place.

I don't think this is it for the next 10 years but I won't take him next time that's for sure.

At that age she's still a baby and will be completely discombobulated as well as picking up on the frustration of those around her.

Goldies are usually very biddable but like all dogs they do need boundaries and words that they're clear in their meaning otherwise they don't know if they're on their head or their paws.

There's no reason why you can't take her on holiday for years to come. We had our six month old away for two weeks in December and he was a bit confuddled for the first 36 hours or so. Dogs show this by not eating, not quite finding their toilet spot, we had one accident but with lots of patience, reassurance and fun she'll be fine.

@Goawayangryman

Thank you for the posts. I am genuinely despairing tonight and it helps to have voices of sanity. Even at home she is very highly strung though. These trainers have trained hundreds of dogs, professionally, and both also have had many pet dogs. They can't be that useless! One is a Kennel club bronze/ silver/ gold trainer. They aren't renegade self-proclaimed experts with no qualifications.

It depends on the type of training they do and what they're training the dog for. Dogs need force free trainers and with no disrespect to your ex police trainers, they will, I'd bet, be using aversive methods.

I do have experience working with police dogs and unfortunately they are largely seen as tools of the trade for lots of officers. You need someone to train her to be a member of your family and to train you (no disrespect!) to work, read and live with her.

As I say our German shepherd cross has been a dream, he's a nervous dog but he is improving as fine is going on but he still is a baby.
We do have lots of experience but we still went to a good force free trainer and he did train us as much, if not more, than our dog. He was ex military but had left his aversive training methods behind long ago.

We're about to enrol in another course with him more to help us retain our focus and not fall into bad habits and refresh our pup on things we may not have reinforced enough e.g jumping up to say hello!! 🥴

I'm sorry you've had a rough time. It does sound as though your puppy is experiencing considerable stress which is no fun for her (or you either). Some dogs adapt beautifully to new places and others don't. That is at least in part due to individual temperament. I would definitely try to keep things as similar to her home life as possible, especially during the first few hours/days of any trip away. So stick to her usual routine of mealtimes, walks, playtime, etc. Bring all her usual comfort objects: beds, blankets, toys, bowls, etc. Try to establish a toilet area outside as soon as you arrive in the holiday home. If she associates a word with toileting, say that word in the specific area even if she doesn't feel comfortable to wee immediately.

Also, if you are happy with your trainers, please don't let the words of people on MN dissuade you. After all, you are the one who has worked with them, people on MN don't know them from Adam. I have always used positive training techniques with my dogs, but I am wary of some of the current crop of trainers who seem to think they have discovered The One True Way. Just as I am dubious of childrearing experts who assert this sort of inflexible fundamentalism, I don't subscribe to any school of thought regarding dog training that insists on a single rigid approach.

Poor baby, she sounds totally overwhelmed. I won’t add any more advice, as I think Polly has nailed it. Basically she needs to have all pressure taken off her and lots of reassurance.

One of my rescues suddenly decided he hated his crate when we took him away at a similar age, so we bought an extra duvet, cover and blanket and had him our our bed for the rest of the holiday, which really brought down his stress levels. We always go to the same place (family owned) and the next year he was fine and slept on the sofa next to our other dog quite happily from then on.

I would also echo what others have said, she’s not wilful, she is entering adolescence, when they become naturally more independent and explorative, whilst still needing a lot of support and reassurance. Essentially they need calm handling and lots of positive repetitive reinforcement, not thinking about as if they are being deliberately wilful or getting away with things.

Fwiw, not all police dog trainers are the same. ‘Some’ police forces still use aversive methods and have not given up on dominance theory (even if they say they have) others are more progressive. Having visited police kennels as part of my old job, I personally, would never ask for help from a police dog trainer.

[quote Goawayangryman]@Hoppinggreen thank you for your post. No, she can't work out where we have all gone sometimes but we have got around that by someone always been with her. Been doing the fabled "flitting" as a new place etc. At night she is with me in my bedroom in her usual pen with her bed as I just can't deal with the yapping and whining and I think it is distress.

We have been to my parents on several occasions and she has been fine.

This cottage is dog friendly and I'm sure there are many smells that she can't reconcile. But I'm not sure how to tackle that ...[/quote]
Our DDog is currently in the kitchen asleep while me and DH are in the lounge (closer to the door than him) and the Dd are upstairs.
Ddog is ok with this but if we were anywhere other than home he wouldn’t be, he would need to check where we were and would be happier if we were in the same room

I really appreciate all your comments whilst I was despairing last night. It was grim.

Ddog is home and so happy. She has also pooed out something that looks non-food-origin and very much like a bottle top or plastic lid, from a discrete squish through the poo bag 😱. I was on the beach lstt night in the wake of the storm, coaxing 3x sloppy poops out, with loads of mucus... Ughhh.

Happy to report that she is totally back to her normal self this evening, pooed at a Portsmouth retail park on way home..good girl!
She is also very bloody cheeky and since returning (3 hours...) Has dismembered the bird feeder bought by my mum (wrongly presumed to be out of reach) and a really nice pair of pants that matched my best bra. Bah.

We won't be going away again for a few months ;)

@Goawayangryman - Awwwwww !!!!

This reminds me of my lovely golden retriever. He was such a homebody! When he was your dog’s age he had to go into kennels for a week as an emergency after the dog boarder pulled out the day before . He returned with an awful bladder infection as clearly he had not done a wee all week.

Dog particularly hated National Trust properties for some reason. He only had to see the emblem on the way in and he started having an anxiety attack (barking his head off). He’d tolerate a day out but the relief on his face when he was back at home - even when grown up he do a round of celebratory zoomies in the garden. And a poo in peace (!)

@DottyHarmer they have truly amazing bladder control, don't they?! But your poor pup. Hope he was alright afterwards. I think house-sitting/ petsitter is going to be the way to go with ours in future. I'll sell my kidney now.

Wonder what the objection to NT properties was?? Maybe he didn't like their ethics! All the NT places around here are absolutely swarming with dogs. For those of a sensitive disposition, maybe it's all just too much!