Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - get teenage licks right through the night!

[Bupster]

I've buckled and started the new thread - welcome to the horror of adolescence!

@CaptainBeanThief I didn’t know there was a relationship between neutering and bones – I’ve never looked into that before. Pupsy is good thank you! Currently conked out snoozing after a long, very muddy walk this morning.

Agree totally with @YorkshireFelix about finding a physio – you’ll need a vet referral but given the situation I’m sure yours will give you one. My best (v experienced) spaniel friend’s advice is: supplements, physio, restricted exercise, and keeping his weight down, and you’re already on all of that. I don’t think there is a magic solution but I’d def give the red light therapy a go too and on that website upthread they sell leg supports which look good – worth asking a physio about them but if that will help I’d give those a go too.

@YorkshireFelix
Is Vinnie on pain killers at all? If so which kind?
He is having plenty of rest he's sparko right now, everytime he starts jumping up and down I cringe, I think the medication are also helping him rest the poor soul.
I really do not want to do surgery so I'm happy for yours and @brushingboots suggestions.
It's just a massive shock to think he just had an issue in one leg but to be told it's something wrong in both leg, it just floored me.
It just makes you realise how much they mean to you.

Honestly @CaptainBeanThief I don't have kids and who knows if I'll have any but I swear to god I couldn't imagine loving anything living more than I love pupsy. They just mean the world and they give it back to us too.

@CaptainBeanThief so sorry to hear about Milo. I hope that the NSAIDs help him be more comfortable and that any future physiotherapy will strengthen the muscles x

Last night i felt sorry for him and I almost let him sleep in our bed but then I thought no way are we getting into that, it was funny because he was peeping through the crack in the door and I said Milo, get into bed and off he trotted.
I feel for all you struggling with your naughty dogs because it is hard, Milos recall had returned 😬 and now he listens.
Look he's still happy.

He's not on painkillers no. It might be worth posting in one of the cocker spaniel groups if you're on Facebook as I got loads of really great advice on there when V was limping, which is where I first learnt that luxating patella was even a thing.

I also cringe every time he jumps or zooms about!! We have to try and minimise his physical movement as much as possible, and I'm sure you know how bloody difficult that is. We are on strict short on-lead walks only whilst he's having his sessions for the next 6 weeks (which i know is very short term so we are lucky). The physio said if we let him run about we might as well be pissing money down the drain 😬

I'd also try everything to avoid surgery if we could too, so I think you're doing the right thing by exploring your options.

I feel for all you struggling with your naughty dogs because it is hard, Milos recall had returned 😬 and now he listens.
Look he's still happy.

That gives me some hope for my naughty puppy- only another 11 months to go 😱

@YorkshireFelix
We are also strict on lead, we even on lead in the garden as it's huge but I just can't stop him in the house.
We are going to have to buy lots of rugs as the whole place is hard floor and we can't afford to just rip everything out and start again ( we've only lived here 9 months) we are lifting him in and out of the car.

We are just going to up the mental brain games but he seems zonked out.

@Nella68
Oh shit 11 months, that's gonna be some frosty times ahead 🥶🥶.
How is pup doing?

@CaptainBeanThief he’s pretty chilled at home; gets rather excited when out and about and sees a young dog; sometimes comes back when called; and is currently terrorising the neighbours’ cats!

I've put my rugs back down but need some non slip backing because he goes flying on them! We are all hardwood floors too, it's a nightmare. I was looking at proper non-slip mats but they are so ugly...

Have a look into 'shaping' if you've not done any already with him. I spoke to our trainer about brain games to tire V out and she said it's such a good tool as they have to work really hard to work out what you want them to do.

@YorkshireFelix are you getting a better night’s sleep yet?

I’ll check out shaping too

@YorkshireFelix At Christmas I bought a Hug at Home runner for the kitchen to prevent slipping when she rushes through the back door and into the room and it genuinely isn’t ugly! It’s really helped not only with muddy paw prints but with the slip factor. They’ve got a sale on at the mo and I really recommend – was half price when I bought it at Christmas and I think the same sale is on now. I’ve also got a runner from Dunelm, a proper rug rather than a mat with Dunelm’s own non-slip lining which I’d also recommend, in our snug which is also used as a runway – 100pc not ugly and saves her joints!

No to sleep. I tried putting him in his crate last night so I could record and send to our trainer and it went as well as you can imagine! I keep trying to go back to basics with crate training like when he was a puppy but he just howls and howls and it's too noisy to let it go on longer than 30 minutes. I slept on the sofa with him but it kills my back so I can't do that again tonight. We might have to try our bedroom again. I feel like we're going round in circles!

Thanks for asking though 😄

Ooh thanks I'll look that up. I did actually see a runner on dunhelm which I liked. Luckily our house is small so we only have a living room and kitchen to cover. I just know anything I put down in the kitchen will be grim within 2 minutes 🤢

@YorkshireFelix
I'm not sure why you've gone back to crate training as I've not been around lol, is it because of his injury?
Milo, after we stopped the crate will just NOT go on it, he will of his own accord to just rest etc but if we put him it in and close the door he will have none of it, bark, cry, you name it.
We lock him in the hallway, outside our bedroom door. ( Baby gate, we also have to close the living room door aswell cos he can jump over the gate and we can't have that now) And he's fine, is this something you can try?

Oh god it's such a long story/ordeal which I've bored everyone with, but he basically decided he hated sleeping on his own overnight all of a sudden about 4 weeks ago. He's always slept soundly in his crate downstairs since he was tiny, so it really was a complete 360 overnight.

The ligament damage is sort of historical as he did it back in October and has just had an intermittent limp since then, and the physio doesn't think he is actively in a lot of pain so I've kind of ruled that out, since the sleep thing is pretty recent. So we've looked at everything and don't think the two are linked.

We have tried every combination we can think of - sleeping outside of the crate downstairs, sleeping in our bed, sleeping in the crate in our bedroom, sleeping in his plastic bed in our bedroom, having background noise on etc etc. The only way he will sleep is if someone sleeps on the sofa downstairs with him. Weirdly, I can put him in his crate in the daytime and close the door, and he will grumble for a few minutes then go to sleep. It's just the evening which triggers him. He's also fine in the daytime if I pop out and he will just snooze on the sofa.

We had a couple of nights success of him sleeping in our bedroom after spending a few nights of hell trying to get him to settle in there as he's usually not allowed upstairs so it was just TOO EXCITING, but then all of a sudden he started getting stressed out and was constantly pacing around and obsessively humping everything, then he did this awful possessive snarl and tried to bite DH when he was trying to calm him down. So now we are back to sleeping downstairs with him.

We are in a mid-terrace with neighbours either side so when he's barking and howling at night it's a nightmare, and dd is autistic and gets really stressed as it wakes her up.

I think I've covered everything there but we are pretty stuck with what to do really. I've spoken to our trainer about it and she thinks it's likely something as simple as a noise has spooked him once at night, or he needed the toilet and panicked, and now he doesn't want to sleep alone.

Honestly it is driving me mad. I wouldn't usually want to do this because I think in proper anxiety cases it makes things worse, but I am at the point where I'd happily let him 'cry it out' because what else is there left to try... but we can't because neighbours/dd. I've tried leaving him for a while before but once he starts howling constantly at around the 30 minute mark I had to give in 😵‍💫

Sorry that was so long but I like to be thorough haha!

Also V is the same in that he will happily wander in there for a nap in the day, and sometimes in the middle of the night (what a piss taker 😂) but as soon as you close the door at night it's game over.

@YorkshireFelix I know we have talked through every possible scenario and solution but something just made me think. Could you interrupt the 30-minute cycle somehow? So if he is definitely going to howl at 30 minutes and one second, can you beat him to it at 28 minutes, say, and reset the clock? It might, of course, just reset the clock and then when you leave again he will start from zero, but I wonder if it’s now just habit and he needs to get out of the habit somehow?

Sort of a bit like you can do house training – you wake them up before they need to go and take them outside, and then you make the wakeup later and later every night so eventually they’re going through.

I was just about to say what brushing said,
It will be tiring but I'd would do the beat him to it thing, it surely has to be worth a try.
I think it definitely has to be some sort of behaviour mixed in there but must be more complex.
When we moved in here, Milo would refuse to sleep anywhere other than in our bed where previously - he would sleep on his own in his bed in another room - we honestly tried to ignore him and let him "cry it out" but at night time it's a whole other ball game,
We kind of thought ( in our case) he's obviously upset and disorentated a wanker so we let him get his own way for a few weeks then I'd had enough one night then forced him to sleep in the hallway, we had ten minutes of him going on with himself but now he's fine.
It's difficult cos Vinnie has alot going on, his age and his injury.

Well I say 30 minutes but it can be anywhere between 5 minutes and 30 so it's hard to predict when the howling will start.

One thing someone suggested on the WCS group was repeating the bedtime routine, so we lock the doors, turn off the lights etc, go upstairs then we come back down and give him a treat and repeat. Which is kind of similar to what you both suggested? I don't know if that will work at all but I guess it's worth a try.

@YorkshireFelix Argggh, I was hoping he’d have a little clock in his head that you could try and beat. That’s a good idea – definitely one to try.

Not the same but similar in the way of creating a positive association with something to correct a behaviour – pupsy has an irritating habit of barking when I’m on the phone. It’s about the phone rather than me talking as I talk to myself at home all the time and she doesn’t seem to notice, and it’s just attention seeking. If it’s work and planned I just go upstairs/outside/put her outside, whatever. But sometimes I can’t plan it so the way I’ve managed it a bit is to simulate calls, so I’d ring my voicemail (lol) or call myself on the house phone or whatever, and then talk as if I was on the phone so she got used to it and with no pressure at the end, ie someone important needing to talk to me, I could redirect her to her bed/sofa/my lap.

So in short I think simulating bedtime would be worth trying.

I also wonder about breaking the habit some other way – can he go and stay at your MIL’s for a night, just to break the habit of barking every night? Or a friend’s? (He’s welcome to come here and he can bark at pupsy and she will tell him to stop being a baby and shut up and go to sleep, as will I!) Then he can come home having remembered having a nice sleep association. I don't know if they're that bright, or if he'd just remember that home and sleeps equals stress, for absolutely no discernible reason.

I am laughing thinking about you ringing yourself from the house phone. He does a similar thing when I have a teams call at work!! It's his cue to start trying to bite my hands and get attention...

Funnily enough DH suggested sending him to MIL's for a few nights as she's deaf as a post anyway so wouldn't be bothered by him howling. When we stayed there over Christmas, he slept with the other dogs in the utility room and did howl the first couple of nights then got used to it, so I know it works (as mean as it sounds!). Also you are too kind. I think pupsy would be absolutely sick of his shit after a few minutes 😂

I think it's definitely worth a try as we have nothing to lose!

That's also a good idea
He SLEEPS IN HIS FUCKING CRATE AT MY MUMS ALL NIGHT, NO PROBLEM...
I THINK IVE BEEN HAD ALL ALONG 😱😱😱😱😱😱

Good god 😂😂😂😂 They really are piss takers!