First time puppy owners with some questions

[Lilycrumb]

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Hi there,

my partner and I got a cockadoodle puppy last weekend. She is 9 weeks today and she is generally doing well, but I wanted some advice as to whether we are doing things 'correctly'. We have read a lot (too much, probably) and some advice seems conflicting and confusing.

Housetraining.

She only really has accidents when we have shut the back door and not picked up on signs. There is also a really short time between her showing she needs to go and her actually going (like 1 second between sniffing and circling, and going). We are currently keeping the back door open most of the time to encourage her that going outside is the right thing to do, but we know this isn't sustainable. Is there a way we can train her to tell us (consistently) when she needs to go or will things naturally change as she gets older. We take her out on a regular schedule as well, but she quite often doesn't need to go, there doesn't seem to be a particular routine!

Independence training

She is already doing well at occupying herself although so far we have not really left her alone except for at bedtime when she does settle quickly. What is worrying me is that she sleeps about 75% of the time, so the amount of time we are interacting with her feels really small. Will that be a problem later? We will be leaving her alone a bit more over the next few weeks of August,

Chewing

She chews the furniture a bit and all the stuff we have read says to just distract her with toys or whatever, but she completely ignores us! How do I distract her without her thinking that chewing gets her attention? Or is this just part of teething and will stop eventually? We are trying to crate train her at the moment but we would eventually like her to have a bit more freedom in our living area when she is home alone.

Morning wake ups,

At the moment she is waking up about 2am (and then being put straight back to bed) and then 5am. We are currently getting up at 5am to play as she is properly awake by this point. Should we be doing that or should we be putting her back to bed until we would usually get up (at 7am ish). We are currently putting her to bed at about 10pm for the night, but it will likely be later as she starts to sleep through the night (and therefore we are not so exhausted)!

Thank you!

 

[JoanneF]

Sounds like a very normal puppy and you are doing fine! With the housetraining, a lot of people suggest not leaving the door open; a closed door seems to great more of a different environment between indoors and outdoors which helps dogs 'get it'. You want your dog to learn that toileting outside brings such a great reward that holding on for that reward is well worth it. So huge praise and reward for toileting outside. Give the reward immediately on toileting, don't make her come to you for the treat, so she knows that it's for toileting and not for coming to you. some people train dogs to ring a bell on a string by the door to tell you they want out; i havent done that but maybe someone else reading this can help. The time for a puppy between needing to toilet and having to toilet RIGHT NOW is, as you are finding, very small. So keep taking her out regularly. Like every 45 minutes, and after eating, playing, waking etc.

For independence, start leaving her for short periods - as short as a minute at a time if necessary - and build up slowly. Puppies do sleep a lot, just make sure you do interact when appropriate. Training tires their brains a lot, so that's useful on many levels!

Chewing - it will stop eventually but at the moment there isn't any problem with distracting her with something else to chew. Something better like a pizzle or beef scalp if she is old enough (I forget how old they need to be for these things) or something else suitable for chewing.

Mornings - is her room dark enough? If she sees the light outside or heard the birds, that will wake her. If she is created, a blanket over the crate may help. Make sure she doesn't need to toilet though. I would get up in the night, quietly take her out (be boring so she knows it's not play time), praise and reward for toileting then back to bed. Train a 'settle' or 'back to bed' cue.

 

[Lilycrumb]

Hi Joanne, thank you for your comments, that is really reassuring. We will give these things a try!

I will take a look at pizzle and beef scalp - we have not come across these in our research!

 

[gypsysmum2]

You are doing really well!

When you go to let her out of the door make a bit of a fuss about it. "Do you want to go out!!???" "Do you?!!" etc so that she shows some excitement around the door opening procedure. If the door opens as she shows some excitement she should make the association that getting excited around the door causes it to open! Don't overdo it or walk times could become a nightmare as she fusses to get you to open the door and take her out! Just a bit of agitated body language from her so that you can recognise when she wants the door open.

I would never waken her early to play. You may live to regret it. She is still very young and breeders often fail to point out just how much sleep young puppies need. She is probably finding life in her new home exhausting at the moment. Once she accepts all the new sights and sounds she will relax and have more energy for play.

Well done for recognising the dreaded attention seeking behaviour! Chewing the wrong things is great for getting attention. Try really hard to pay attention to her when she is playing with her toys. It is so easy to heave a sigh of relief as they settle down to chew a toy and ignore them. This is totally counter productive as they soon realise that playing with their own toys gets them ignored while stealing things and inappropriate chewing gets them lots of attention. A gentle "uh, uh" as she starts to put her teeth on the furniture and then distraction with something exciting is the way to go. Be careful not to train a scenario where she chews the furniture and someone gets very excited and produces toys! Prevent wrong behaviour as much as you possibly can.

The toilet training is, as Joanne has said, just recognising the signs and anticipating when she might need to go. Always ignore the wrong behaviour as reacting causes more problems than it solves. They are just accidents. Ditch any newspaper or puppy pads as they just encourage indoor toileting. Focus on teaching her that holding on to her toilet and doing outside produces a wonderful treat. Before long she will look at you to say "quick - lets go outside - I need a wee and you bring the treats".

 

[Lilycrumb]

Thanks!

We put her back to bed after 5am toilet trip and she did cry a lot. This morning I have been trying to teach her an cue to go to her a crate which I think she is sort of starting to get. She is sometimes going in there when she wants a nap and did that at 11am this morning.

We haven't been using the newspaper/puppy pads technique as we didn't want to encourage her going inside the house. Today we have been keeping the door to the garden closed and we have had no accidents so far!!

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Peegee]

We have 13 week Cockapoo and we even went as far as setting a timer during the day to remind us to take outside for toileting - 25 minutes after peeing and if she didn't go then setting it for 5 minutes and trying again and so on, once she peed then we put it back to 25 minutes. We did keep the door closed so that we could keep an eye on her and to make sure she got a treat when she went. She still doesn't have any routine with poohs and can go five times a day and usually at least once in the middle of the night. She is crated but does whine and let us know she wants to go out. We always repeat the words when she is going and she knows what 'pee' means now.

 

[Lilycrumb]

Thanks for your advice! We are getting more used to spotting signs she needs to go but she is not consistently telling us yet. So that's my job now I guess. I am finding it more difficult to train my partner to shut the back door!!

 

[Lilycrumb]

Sorry Peegee I ment to also say that our pup doesn't have a pooping routine either. Sometimes she won't go for hours then she will go 3 times in five mins. She has had 2 vet checks and they say she is in great health so I assume this is just a puppy thing!!

 

[Peegee]

Have kept a diary for a week of when she eats and poohs but can see no pattern. Last night was first night with no pooh!! Hoping this is a sign that a full nights sleep is on the horizon. We do now keep back door open but only with access to patio and her 'toilet area" so I am still aware of what she is doing and can treat when she uses toilet area. No treats if she goes on patio. Fairly confident now that she won't go indoors although wouldn't totally trust her with the door shut.

 

[gypsysmum2]

The quality of the dog food can influence the amount of poo produced, Low quality food often results in lots of poo production.

Take a look at the All About Dog Food website to learn about the different kinds of dog food.