black lab?
good luck is all I can say
You want to take her outside at least once an hour when she is out of the crate. As soon as she goes to the bathroom take her outside and leave her there for 5-10 minutes. It is also important to get the enzyme cleaner and clean up every area she has used in the house. As for the crying that is up to you. If you want a bed companion for the next 15 years then give in to the crying.
The last little Lab Puppy I had was so sweet that you had to just love her. My parents always put an old alarm clock in the box with a puppy who had just been taken from his Mother.
The ticking seemed to soothe them. I have never kept one in the house so can’t help you there. I will say they just naturally leave the yard to do their business, so it must be ingrained in them a bit to not use the bathroom inside.
When they are real little, Momma licks the urine and feces off them. That is the only was she can keep them clean and a dog’s digestive system can handle it with no problem.
Cage train. It’s humane for all involved and learns em real quick.
They won’t mess in their own chance and have to earn more space.
Pure bred Lab? Good luck. Be patient. (ALL dogs are a gift from above.)
Try a wind-up clock if you have one, in it’s sleeping place. Pure bred Labs are a handful. My sister has one and I think she’ll get a “mutt” next time.
Good luck and don’t set any bad precedents!
K...
Read your post after the headline.
Bring the baby into your room, next to the bed and get up every few hours to let the poor thing do its business.
You’re taking care of a baby and it takes love and time to get everyone on the same page.
You have a project but if you work at it the reward is great. Get a copy of the Purina dog training book for starters. Dogs learn by condition, the same as you learn the first time you stub your toe really hard on something. Your toe never hits that something again. Don’t train your dog to do bad habits like jump up on you. Always reinforce it is not to put its paws on your legs. Each time it jumps up lightly step on it back feet. About the puppy poop...that’s what puppy’s do. Keep it in the garage until you have that problem solved.
I love Labs...great dogs. But don’t expect peace in your life for at least 2-3 years. It’s not that they aren’t smart (they are) they are just exuberant.
If you want to crate train, turn off your hearing and be sure to take her out OFTEN.
Of course she wants to sleep with you..all dogs do. But unless she is under control, I wouldn’t suggest it. She can always sleep with you later.
As already suggested..a ticking alarm clock works well for a pup.
She is whining due to separation anxiety. First off, at six weeks of age she is far too young to be away from her mother and litter mates. You will have problems with her, as she will socialize with people and never understand what it means to be a dog. You’re setting yourself up for some real problems later.
That said, do you know anyone who has a nice older dog, one that would befriend a puppy, and that can live with you for the next five weeks until she is nearer to 12 weeks old? It will make a world of difference later on.
Housebreaking a gun dog breed like a Lab isn’t that difficult. If you have a spare bathroom where you can put down ‘pee pads’ at night, (absorbent pads that have an odor that attracts young dogs so they pee and poo on the pads instead of your floors) they can get used to going in one place. Be sure and have a soft, large enough bed for her to sleep in also in the bathroom. At some time they will be able to sleep through the night and a crate will be sufficient.
Note: we withhold water after 9PM and since we arise in the morning about 5:30, we escort the dogs outside and give them water at that time. Then we feed them.
If you have any questions, please ask me. We’ve had gun dog breeds for the past 43 years.
Do what I did with all my dogs.
Well, you could do what I routinely do. Give up! Let ‘em sleep on the bed or at least in the bedroom. My lab - he could come up on the bed to visit - briefly! but slept on the floor - and was content with that.
Paper train them and be sure there is no paper substitute like a small carpet around. Dogs will naturally look for a spot like that to pee/poop on.
I know this won’t work for everybody - just saying I gave up and it didn’t work out so bad.
The dog has a second cage or sleeping area in the kitchen or near the kitchen so he can see you making food. As long as you have cages in these two spots you will be OK.
Remember your husband (if he is bigger than you) is the alpha dog. It does not matter who takes care of the dog, who feeds him, or spends time with him, he is the Alpha. The dog assumes the largest creature is alpha.
You are the alpha bitch. Outside of bad marketing, the alpha bitch is like the COO of the pack. The dog is subservient to the alpha bitch until the alpha shows up.
You may not like this. But this is the way dogs are. And you and the dog will be happy as long as you understand the laws of the pack.
Remember as alpha bitch you never cede control to your dog. You are in charge. Acts of kindness are often misunderstood as acts of weakness. Be sure and be strong.
There are some really good books on the subject, but I’ll give you what I’ve learned:
Water takes a specific and predictable amount of time to get from one end of your dog to the other. Same with solid food.
As such, do not leave a dish of water and/or food down at all times. Put the water and food down at specific times of the day (water more often than food), and then pick the bowls up off of the floor. Then time how long it takes for the dog to then pee and poop and from then on you will know how much soon after to take your dog out to pee (if fed water) or poop (if fed food).
If you learn your dog pees 10 minutes after drinking water, be outside with your dog sooner than 10 minutes after you give your dog water. And when your dog goes outside, make an embarassingly big positive deal about it.
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.
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?
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.