5 month old cockapoo - is this normal?

[Marm24]

We have a 5 month old cockapoo who has been a dream so far, trains really well, walks really well, eats well, toilet trained well, we’ve been very very lucky.

However over the last 6 weeks he has become incredibly hard work in some ways, if he’s not eating, on a walk, or actively playing with someone he just whines all the time.

We walk him 2 x 30(ish) minutes a day, we give him lick bowls, tie treats into blankets, all the ‘stimulation’ games that are meant to be good for them, we play with him a lot. But obviously there are times he just has to ‘be’, but he just whines the entire time and follows me about, whining. Or attempts to find stuff that isn’t for him and then whines that he can’t have it. I do not remember this stage with my previous dogs. What can I do?

No toy seems to entertain him for longer than 5 minutes. He is crate trained but ideally this is only for when we’re out the house or eating, I don’t want him to have to be confined to this whenever he’s not getting 100% attention.

Oops! Sorry missed the age of the dog.

This is right. But also wrong. It massively depends on how fast the OP is walking as to whether it's sufficient exercise tbh.

If the OP is 140KG and walking 1 mile in an hour, then thirty minutes twice a day isn't enough exercise for a five month old puppy - that's barely moving. If, on the other hand, the OP is secretly Mo Farah then that's probably too much.

TBH is sounds more like the OP gives the dog way too much to do and the dog is constantly overstimulated and now it searches for that overstimulation. A dog needs to learn to settle outside of its crate and not constantly be amused with toys/licky matts/kongs/brain games from day one. If the dog has been coddled/played with/amused since the day it came home, then this behaviour isn't unsurprising.

Ultimately, OP is going to have to reinforce 'no' with the dog and go back to day one basics and teach it that, sometimes, it needs to settle with no stimulation around. It shouldn't just settle when it wants to, but when it has to. It is classic puppy attention seeking.

I do loads of basic scent work with my cockapoo too which he adores. It’s really easy to do - I hide chopped up red Kong, or his toys, or clove scented rags around the house or garden, get him to mark the scent by putting it under his nose, then I say go find (he can find the toys without the mark it cue). Lots of praise and rewards when he finds it. It’s a fab way of getting them to use their brain and helps to focus their energy and gets them to calm down. Also great for tiring them out if you can’t get out for a walk or if you’ve got one like mine who refuses to walk in torrential rain.