"..???...do the crates have wheels?
Posted on 07/13/2013 11:34:45 PM PDT by proud American in Canada
Hi, everyone. :)
We just bought a black lab who is about six weeks old; a female. I just brought her outside; she had napped next to me and was sound asleep on the couch as I dozed off. I then brought her out and put her in her crate, because she pees and poos all over the house.
How do I train this puppy--and how can I get her to stop crying at night. The last couple of nights, I could not stand the crying, so I brought her up to my husband and my bed.
Even now, she is crying and whimpering, trying to get out of the crate. We slept together just fine on the couch, just now, for a while, but now she wants the attention since I put her in the crate. I did that because our house has apparently become a puppy toilet. :( It is disgusting and I cannot stand it.
Do I bring her upstairs to stop the crying, or do I let her cry it out (which is painful).
I am falling asleep at the computer, however, listening to her cry, I"ll probably get very little sleep.
I will try to answer everyone, but we are all tired and I am at my wits end.
She is a cutie, though. :) She has massive paws--she will be a big girl. :)
Thanks, and I will respond as soon as I can,
Julie
She is too young to have been taken from her litter mates yet.
Who sold you a 6 week old pup?
Without another dog to teach her proper ‘dog language/behavior’ she’s going to be emotionally adrift.
You’re going to have to ‘make up for’ the lack of her siblings/mother.
I would not stick her in a crate at all myself.
She has to be beyond terrified.
FWIW, 6 weeks and 6 months are two key periods of psychological development in dogs.
Whatever they learn during those two phases will be with them forever.
If they learn fear, anxiety, separation issues, they will be nearly impossible to ‘fix’ later.
First of all, she shouldn’t be separated from her littermates at six weeks. That is at least two weeks too early. She is a scared and lonely baby.
You’d cry too if you were locked in a cage. I have never put a dog in a crate and never would. I’ve had dogs my whole life and never saw any reason to.
Babies have to be old enough to know how to use a toilet. Puppies have to be old enough to go outside. Take her outside every hour or so and praiser he when she poos outside. Give her a stern No if she poos inside and immediately take her outside. Don’t go all angry because that’ll just scare her so that she’s not in a learning mindset.
Kennel the dog in the kitchen at night let her out before bed and first thing in the morning. You happy, dog happy.
Thank you all for your advice. She was calm on our bed; we have a purchased bed for her, and she slept there last night. She has now started whimpering again, so I am bringing her up. Perhaps the owners let us purchase her when she was too young to be away from her Mom. I will take her out again, then bring her up.
As for everyone else, I will respond a.s.a.p.; I am sorry but I have to try to get some sleep. I have certainly got great advice on this thread.
Even my 14 year-old daughter, who wanted the puppy, is upset because she keeps her awake with her crying.
Thanks, everyone. You can always count on Freepers for great advice.
Julie
I am guessing that probably what's done is done. If I were in the situation, I would try to help her learn some of the things she would have learned with her mother for those last couple of weeks.
I'm not an expert, but based on what I know, I would make sure she gets lots of attention and handling. You are also probably going to have to work harder to teach her not to bite.
Puppies start out in litters with littermates, and learn their first skills at playing when they are with their siblings. When they bite too hard, the other puppy will give a high-pitched yip or yelp. Puppies are hard-wired to be taken aback by their sibling yelping, and that helps them learn not to bite too hard. This is something you can mimic to some degree. At some point this stops being as effective, but at this age I would think it should work. I wouldn't overdo it, I would gauge it to the puppy's response.
Your puppy is not a person and does not think exactly like one. I think it's important to start to learn some puppy psychology, and how to train her.
On the potty training, you will need to take her outside very frequently at this age. I don't know the schedule but maybe every 45 minutes or so? Not sure at that age.
Take her after she eats and after she wakes up from a nap. When she goes, praise her.
You can't teach a puppy much by taking her back to the scene of an accident and rubbing her nose in it, except that sometimes Mommy is mean to her. She won't understand why.
There are some good books on training and caring for puppies at Amazon.
At this point, she does not understand that your entire home is the family "den." Dogs don't tend to potty in their dens, but by nature that den is very small. Gradually she will get the idea that outdoors is the place she goes potty, and the whole house is her big luxury den. But that will take time, and there will certainly be accidents. She is just a little baby at this point.
I am certainly not an expert, but if I had a puppy that was that young I think I would be tempted to let her sleep right next to me (in some safe configuration) for the next couple of weeks, just to help her feel secure. Of course, then you would have to break her of that. You could put her in a box right next to your bed, and pat her and assure her everything is okay. Of course she is likely to cry some. But at that point maybe a big ticking clock might be comforting. Or you could try the ticking clock to start with, if you can find one these days.
If not, you could possibly rig up a computer speaker somehow with a ticking clock sound effect. Here's one that lasts all night.
You are going to have interrupted sleep for a while. She will wake up in the middle of the night, and she's going to need to go potty in the middle of the night. She has a tiny little bladder, and can't hold it very long.
Hope some of that helps. I wish you well with your new pup!
Labs are great dogs... she will be worth all this trouble.
A great companion animal... I just love dogs :-)
I have a Border Collie.... she absolutely will not go in the house. Never trained her, it seems to be an instinct.
If someone IS home all day, then there is no reason why she can't be housebroken, using the "crate method." there are several detailed descriptions, just google housebreaking puppies, crate method.
With the smallest dogs, this method works so well than, in a big enough crate, once they are housebroken, the will eagerly retire to that mean crate to get away from the cats, LOL.
As for sleeping, regardless of the size of the dog, they can be trained to sleep in the bedroom, but in their own bed. Does she have her own bed? Where is it located?
I also agree with the person who advised you to find a way to allow her to socialize with another dog(s) for the next month or two if possible.
Six weeks is so young. If you can, put the crate in your room at night, but if she is too loud, maybe a laundry room or a kitchen. We have our (older) puppy with an open kennel in a pen with layers of newspaper. She does not have free reign of the house yet. Our goal is to minimize the accidents she has in there (only a couple a week now) but give her an alternative to floor accidents. She gets taken out frequently and rewarded when she goes (either a treat or lot of love and praise). We do have an old lab to help show her the ropes, but the puppy is not a lab. She has a blanket, an old t-shirt (smells like us), and toys in her kennel. When I was afraid she would be stressed, I left soft music on for her. Yes, clean the accidents with an enzyme cleaner, but do not give free range of the house. Six weeks is way too young to be potty trained- don’t let bad habits start in. I have never paper trained before this puppy but better than my floors.
Just to clarify, when I said I would be tempted to let her sleep right next to me for the next couple of weeks because she’s so young, I wasn’t talking about her being in the box at that point.
Again, though, I’m not an expert. Maybe someone who has experience with puppies this young can comment.
"..???...do the crates have wheels?
You put her outside every 30 minutes. She should learn fast. Put a ticking clock in the crate with her along with maybe blanket to snuggle up too. Associates with Mom. She’s pretty young to be away from Mom. She’s probably lonely and scared. Takes time. If all else fails, and sometimes it does, bring her to bed with you.
Also, praise, praise and praise when she does it right.
Also, praise, praise and praise when she does it right.
There’s a reason to not let puppies separate from Moms to early. Mom is still teaching them. 8 weeks to 12 weeks is acceptable.
Hey, Julie. I hope you are asleep as I write this. ;-). Just wanted to say that especially a female dog is very unlikely to pee all over the house as she gets older.
If she is still doing that once she has acclimatized to the surroundings, do some research on kidney/bladder infections.
Choke her out... kidding...
>> six weeks old
Patience.
Hi! I can’t write a long response but you need to go to Peaceable Paw’s website and read Pat Miller’s articles on this subject. I used her techniques with my Siberian Husky and it works.
http://www.peaceablepaws.com/articles.php?type=Pat
She has an excellent training book but I don’t recall the name offhand. I’m sure its in her store and in Amazon.
Good luck!
It takes several days of constant attention and training.
In the end, you will have a dog to be proud of.
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