how to help settle pup in the evening?

[highlandcoo]

I would love some advice about how to get an overtired pup to settle in the evening. Highlandpup is lovely in the morning. He sleeps (or at least is in his crate peacefully) from 11pm till 7.30am, and is chilled and still napping on and off with a bit of playing in between till about 10. Then a one hour outing - walk and sometimes cafe visit or we go to see a friend with a dog - and he'll nap again after that and potter around the kitchen. We'll do a few games and a bit of training and it's all pretty calm. So that's all great.

He goes in his crate for an good hour/hour and a half around midday and is quiet and settled.

We take him for a good run round off-lead from about 3-4 pm and he'll sleep for a couple of hours after that. But from 6 till bedtime can be really hairy. Like he's over-stimulated, sometimes charging around, or prowling about looking for mischief. Attacking the doormat which he's ignored all day, jumping on the furniture etc. We try chews, stuffed kongs, disgusting body parts and he moves from one to the other but can't settle till about 10.30 when he runs out of steam and lies on the sofa finally, then goes for a last wee then bed.

I don't think at his age we can exercise him any more? We did try a sniffy walk at 8pm last night but he wasn't keen and just wanted to get home.

He's doing so well on the whole; I would love the evenings to be calmer though! Is this just a stage that will pass or can anyone offer some advice ..

looking at your post again if he’s napping a lot in the early morning he’s probably not sleeping that well. That’s really common in puppies. Generally they sleep really well if they’re with you. I’m not a dog on the bed fan but certainly in the room as a baby. Or you can sleep downstairs with them. Depends on your preference.

if he’s not sleeping at night that will contribute to day time agro. We’ve been there! Our pup is crated with us at night but when she’s been woken by things she’s really horrible the next day. We all know when she’s not slept well at night!

so maybe look at sleep arrangements too. It’s only short term. They really need to be where they get really good quality sleep at that age. Once they’re genuinely sleeping soundly all night then you can slowly move them out of away.

our last dog slept with us for months when we adopted her as a pup and then we slowly moved her out (we didn’t crate then although I did train her later) and she went on to be bombproof sleeping and being alone.

there is lots of conflicting advice but at the end of the day they are very similar to young babies, then toddlers cognitively so NEED you near them until they start to mature.

if he’s sleeping with you then disregard this but it would be worth looking at if not 🙂

Oh my gosh a tiny pup! You could do 2 x 20 minute walks a day if you really wanted but it's not necessary. As my amazing dog trainer says MOST dogs can even skip a day for walking every now and again. Glad you've found out now and fingers crossed not too much harm done to pups joints and bones.

At sixteen weeks you're definitely overdoing things!

I would drop the walks to 20 minutes twice a day and massively increase his naps. He should be sleeping around 18-20 hours a day at that age!

OK thanks all - the advice on here is pretty consistent which hasn't been the case with people I've spoken to IRL.
I will totally calm it down and hoping for peaceful evenings soon.

Peaceful evenings SOON might be a bit optimistic!! ;-) I wore the same clothes every evening for quite a while while knobpup was little. He was INSANE in the evening, so bitey and lunging and a total pain - so many holes in those tracksuit bottoms and a hoody where he would basically hang off me with his teeth. Gosh it was hard. Light of my life now tho still terrible on the lead and his recall isn't great.... Good luck op.

Definitely recommend puppy training and other fun activities. We do scentwork classes with ours now and he loves it.

Remember he's still incredibly young. Most dogs don't reliably settle calmly in the evenings without human intervention until they're about 12-18 months old.

Thanks Knobknob.
I should have been clearer that we've only been doing this amount of exercise for less than a week. Before that I was sticking to two short walks a day however because the evenings were so crazy I was advised by our local dog guru woman (owns the pet shop in the village and everyone recommends her as giving great doggy advice) to tire him out more, and to get him off lead once a day ...
I did suspect myself that he's been overtired though and have listened to all the advice so will definitely dial it back.
I don't want to be a lazy dog owner and just want to do what's best for him.
We have a weekly zoom call with the puppy trainer in addition to the physical class so will be able to ask advice then too.

I also didn't want to be that 'lazy' dog owner so I understand completely. What I've learnt though actually is the laziest option is the walking/running. Much easier to go outside in the fresh air for a while than stick with training indoors.

I'm making these figures up but 10 minutes of training is the brain equivalent of an hour's walk (you can do several small chunks of training a day) and 20 minutes of scentwork is like a two hour ramble... Not accurate figures but you get my point!

Check out Nina ottosson toys. We used to feed ours his dinner in the wobble board then graduated to the ones with flaps and sliders etc.

Brain work tires a dog far quicker than leg work. Hopefully your new trainer will have some more up to date advice 😉

Sounds normal! Puppies are nuts. Well mine was. I don't think anyone has said it but rule of thumb is 5 minutes per months of age.

I did the same with my puppy and over exercises.

You just have to survive it. Dog is now three and fine.