Please help- puppy meltdown!

Welcome to dog forum Raffles32 and my god do i know how you feel.

This is teenage tantrum territory and i'm afraid to say that there is more to come for at last 12 months!

One minute beautiful charming so cute little puppy dog that loves him mommy soooooooo much and then BANG!!! devil dog!

Pyschotic, unruly, tearing around like a nutter devil dog!

The best way to handle this in my experience is to ignore the good and praise the bad.

He misbehaves then get up, cross your arms and walk into the other room and completely ignore him. Any dog hates being ignored and your puppy will soon catch on that his behavior means no attention.

If the behaviour stops then praise him!

Regular training and puppy classes are a brilliant way of getting good tips. Training your dog for 15 minutes a day is a great way to teach them new things as well as them learning who boss.

Now as your pup is only 6 months your recall may be a sketchy but if you have a nice clean lake near where you live or a short drive, then take him swimming. its not stress on the joints and 15 minutes swimming is like a 5 mile trek! He will be so done in by the time he gets home he want to misbehave!

He is a springer cross so he has working dog in him. use this to your advantage. a tennis ball is always a good one!

Now in the really dark times, where you are sitting on your sofa and puppy is driving you insane and you are thinking to yourself "what did i do to deserve this" take comfort in knowing that most of us (myself included) have been there!

Now here's what I did. I have mine crate trained if you have a crate its a fabulous tool for down time.

Keep his lead on him in the house, he acts up, dont look at him, touch him or speak to him, just pick up his lead and put him in crate and lock the door. leave him there until he has calmed down, then let him out. repeat this process as many times a neccessary until the behaviour stops altogether.

The first time I did this with mine, it took over 40 trips to his crate in the space of nearly 2 hours before he got the message, so you must grit your teeth and keep going.

So in summary consistency, ignore the bad, praise the good and firm training.

It wont be this bad all the time, so I wish you the best of luck and let us know how you get on!

There will be others on this site that will also give you some great tips to help you on your way!

Sophie xx

 

Ok first of all, if he doesnt like swimming dont force him, just leave it. there are other you can try to help him on his way. He may want to swim eventually but some dogs just dont take to it.

and i'm sorry to be so blunt but it sounds like you didnt follow through with the crate training. it has to be done very slowly otherwise it wont work. if you want to try the crate again let me know and I will give you some tips on how to bring the crate into his daily routine.

Its good that you have a time out space for him. just make sure there is nothing in that area that he can play with when you put him there as he needs to have nothing around to tempt him into carrying on being naughty.

Agility is excellent. I take mine to agility and he loves it so much. He will only be able to jump the baby jumps and he wont be able to weave until he is 12 months old becuase his bones are still growing at the moment and too much strain can cause issues.

do give it a try, and you can always put some agility aparatus in your garden if its big enough

if he rolling around snapping at the air just leave him be. he sounds like he is having fun and he isnt annoying or harming anyone so let him have his moment. its when he does this to you that you need to adopt the method or crossing your arms and walking away. sometimes if you just stand there and turn your back they will just keep jumping up! mine did, so i had to physically walk away from him to get him stop. i still do it now he is gets too over excited when we are playing.

Mine also flew through his obedience classes. was as good as gold in his class, it was like i had brought another dog with me and left my devil dog at home! lol!

let us know how you get on!

Sophie x

 

Sounds like you have a plan in place, though shortening his walks i feel is slightly odd.

I would of suggested longer walks but twice a day. this will give you a chance to drain his energy and be calmer in the house before he is ready to go again later!

But hey, I'm no specialist just a dog owner! lol!

I wish you the best of luck!