Puppy problems

AGB_Ghost

My family has after getting a new puppy, she is a 15 week old cocker spaniel, problem is almost everything, we had a dog who was a saint in her old age but a bit of a devil at her puppy years, even my family comments on how our previous dog regardless of being a puppy and similar breed was nothing like this dog, the puppy ignores everyone regardless of what we do (whistle, clap, say anything or do anything), she tries to climb our kitchen furniture to get to the top of counters or the table, she goes toilet all over the house, there is news paper everywhere we have tried to have her use, and she still ignores it and usually wets the one or two places where there isnt any newspaper, even the puppy pads designed for puppies to go toilet she just chews them up, which is another issue, she tears up everything, my uncle got her a carrier case and she tore three holes in it after an hour, she tears up the news papers and the puppy pads, she has ruined the leather table chairs and her own leash, though she isnt loud or physically aggressive she is becoming a major problem, my grandmother is 52 and I dont think she can honestly handle anymore, we literally own lost our other dog a few weeks ago but I guess the mourning forced my uncle to get her, To be honest with a puppy at 15 weeks she should be trained coming from a breeder.

and one question, do you think a cage or kennel or cut off area in the kitchen would be a solution for night time, stopping her running around and eating the furniture?

RubyGirl

How about crate training her altogether. It will help with the destruction and even maybe the toilet training, as they dont usually wet their bed. Also take a look at her food, maybe it dose'nt agree with her, talk to your vet or pet shop where you bought it. Finally excerise, a tired dog is a quiet one.

AGB_Ghost

food doesnt seem to be her problem though, but ill try crate training thanks very much

AGB_Ghost

Ill try crate training but one problem is the fact she scratches doors and barks and whines when anyone leaves the room, going down to her just makes her hyper and mess up the place.

The Sweeper

AGB_Ghost wrote: »

she is a 15 week old cocker spaniel, ...To be honest with a puppy at 15 weeks she should be trained coming from a breeder.

First, at 15 weeks she's still extremely young. And I don't know why you think she should be trained coming from a breeder - either you specified this with your breeder, or you didn't - you can never assume. I'd be surprised at a fully toilet trained pup at 15 weeks from a breeder tbh.

First, puppies are a lot of work. This isn't unusual. She's ignoring you because she's being a nuisance and subsequently nobody is bonding with her because she's a destructive widdling chewing poo-machine.

We also call them 'puppies' tbh.

First step, look into crate training. If she's destructive you'll need to get her a hard crate - wire or plastic, not a soft cloth crate (which she'll just eat). But do NOT embrace the crate unless you're going to USE IT PROPERLY. It's not an excuse to lock the pup away for hours at a time so you can have some peace - you need to be interacting with her, training her, working with her, constantly, to build up a bond so she starts paying attention to you.

Toilet Training

Toilet training - your pup will need a wee and/or a poo: after playing, after drinking, after sleeping and after eating. If you don't want her wrecking the place, you need to either keep her on a lead or in her crate inside the house. This means she can't get the chance to poo or wee anywhere without you supervising her.

Take her outside every half an hour and use a command word - wees, poos, toilet, whatever works. The trick is not to use the word until she's doing the action - so you take her outside, walk up and down the yard with her, she'll sniff about, and when she squats to wee, you look into her face, clearly use your command word and make an ENORMOUS fuss of her and give her a treat.

When you catch her in the act of weeing or pooing in the house, clap your hands to make a loud, sharp noise and use a negative word like NO or NA AH! - and make sure that every single person interacting with the dog uses the same commands.

Dogs aren't born knowing commands - you have to build up an association between an action and a word before they'll understand what you want - hence there's no point going out with the dog and saying 'toilet, toilet, toilet, toilet, toilet' while she sniffs in the grass because she won't have a clue what you're on about.

It's up to YOU to take her out constantly - sod newspaper everywhere, that's pointless, get rid of it - as you say yourself it's just something for her to tear up. Get rid of the paper, get rid of the pee pads, and GET OUTSIDE WITH YOUR DOG - every half hour. That's toilet training. Yes, it's difficult, and it takes some time, and there will still be accidents, but this is all part of owning a puppy.

Watch her food and her water - be aware of when she eats and drinks because what goes in one end has to come out the other. If you feed your dog her breakfast and you don't take her out to the toilet within a half an hour and she craps on the floor, that's your fault, not hers. And you cannot simply feed her and shove her out in the yard and let her in 45 minutes later - yes, you won't have poo on your floor, but she's learning nothing - she'll simply wee or poo when she feels the urge, without associating the action with a command or appropriateness to her environment, because you're not there to tell her she's doing the right thing by going outside. Hence she's just as likely to come back inside the house and wee or poo indoors within another hour because she just responds to the urge.

So daytime, take her out every half hour to wee and poo, praise her hugely when she goes, and if you catch her at it inside make a sharp noise and bring her outside immediately, and make an even BIGGER positive fuss if she continues to wee or poo outdoors.

Overnight - remember, what goes in, must come out. Subsequently feed her the final meal of the day at 6pm - including treats. No food after 6pm! Then take her out every half an hour or every hour and the plan is she'll have done all the poos she needs to do before bed time.

Take up her water at 8pm - no more water after 8pm. Again this should mean, if you consistently take her out every half an hour for wees, that she's all dry by 10pm bedtime. Until she gets the hang of it there's no harm you getting up in the middle of the night to let her out for a poo or a wee either, or setting your alarm way early - 5am or 6am - for early toilet and then both of you go back to bed.

If you're allowing her to free feed from a kibble bowl, or drink water from a water dish that's down all the time, you have no control over her food and water intake and therefore no control over her need to pee and poo. Think about it - if you drink a pint of water before bedtime you're going to need the loo at 3am.

Crate Training

Where the crate comes in here is that most dogs won't soil their own bed - so overnight you put her in her crate and it encourages her to hold her bladder or her bowels until morning when you let her outside to poo and wee. However, it's unfair to expect a pup to hold wee or poo if it's eaten or drunk just before being crated, or if you haven't brought it outside regularly enough to empty its bladder and bowels before crating it, and it's unfair to expect it to hold in wee or poo for hours and hours on end e.g. from 8pm to 8am.

What'll happen in that case is the pup can't hold the urge and is stuck lying in its crate with its own crap or its own wee and you now have to clean the dog, the bedding AND the crate (as opposed to just a patch of wee on your floor for instance, which is what may happen with an uncrated dog), plus you've created a highly negative association with the crate for the pup.

During the day, you can use crates for quiet time - but the crate shouldn't be a punishment. When you crate the pup, give it a toy or a bone or something nice to keep it occupied in the crate. Also leave the crate door open during the day so the pup can go in there of its own accord if it wants to sleep. Crate training is good, but it's like all training - it's up to you to get it right.

Chewing and Destroying Things

Puppies chew stuff. What a shock, eh?

As for ruining the leather table and chairs - of course she has. I can't imagine anything nicer to chew than a leather stuffed table or chair leg. Soft and pliable, gives way under little puppy teeth - perfect.

The first thing you need to do is stop leaving your pup unsupervised in your house. She should be on a leash that's attached to you, or in her crate, or if she's not tethered or crated then that should be because she's having a few minutes of off-leash interaction with you where your FULL ATTENTION is focused on her.

Stop leaving stuff where she can get it. Put things away. Tidy things up. Get rid of the newspapers.

And now go puppy-shopping and buy some toys and treats. Below are my personal durable favourites - long lasting, some are relatively expensive but you won't be constantly replacing them (unless they're food treats):

• A Kong Toy - a rubber toy with a hollow centre that you can stuff with treats and food and give to your dog as a reward that will keep her occupied for some time as she works on eating the treats out of the kong. They come in small, medium, large and extra large, and in a number of rubber grades - blue and white or pink and white tend to be for puppies (softer), the various sizes in red are for most chewers, and the black kongs are extra hard rubber for extreme chewers (bull breeds spring to mind here!) Buy two so you can always have one clean to stuff - I put raw beef mince in mine and freeze them and give them to the dog out of the freezer.
• A knotted rope - you can buy these in various sizes. They are a length of thick fabric rope, with a knot at both ends and the free end beyond the knot is allowed fray. The good ones are extremely hard wearing - they are chewable, shakeable, washable, tug-o-war friendly toys. Bits won't come off and choke the dog and they are an excellent teething toy.
• Specialist dog treats - these are extremely useful. Look for pigs ears, smoked and dried bones, various other dried items like sinews, hooves, snouts, tails, so on. Sounds gross but they should be preservative free, additive free, involve hours of happy chewing and they're good for your dog and your dog's teeth (and your furniture). They'll keep your dog occupied for an hour in their crate, for instance.
• Raw, meaty bones. Marrow bones can be a problem because they're so hard, dogs can crack or wear their teeth on them - especially small to medium sized dogs. Instead try something like the shoulder bone off a leg of lamb with some meat on the ends - the dog will eat the meat and chew the soft ends off the bone and enjoy it. She'll probably lose interest when it comes down to the middle part of the bone and then you can take it away and bin it - don't leave it around to get dry and hard.

Always supervise your pup with a treat like this because if she's a tenacious chewer, she could get overexcited and choke - she needs to know you're not going to take the treat from her, and this is her time to enjoy the treat she's been given, so she takes her time and gives you a good hour of peace and quiet. You can also involve training in this - so she gets her treat in quiet time in her crate, or she gets it on her mat in the kitchen and she has to stay on that mat to eat the treat while you go about your kitchen business (so you can hear if she's getting into difficultly or choking or coughing).

When you catch your dog chewing something you don't want her to have, correct her and then give her something she's allowed to chew.

The chewing urge is a basic puppy urge - like breathing and wagging. You can't stop it, so you have to redirect the energy into treats and toys and quiet time for you.

Basic training

Google NILF - nothing in life is free. I find this an excellent basic training tenet for a dog - your dog works for everything. A door never, ever opens unless the dog sits first. Dinner is never, ever served unless the dog sits or lies down first. A treat is never, ever given unless the dog DOES what you have asked BEFORE getting the treat.

You don't have to stand there parroting off the command over and over while the dog stares blankly at you - in fact, if the dog doesn't understand the command it's pointless for you to say it - they won't have a 'eureka' moment where they suddenly understand English. Training isn't about language. It's about YOU associating a sound you make with an action the dog does, followed by a reward. So you create that association - when I make THIS noise, and you do THAT action, you get THIS treat (or this praise, or this toy).

Sit - the most basic one

Remove distractions from the room. Focus on your puppy. You need some nice treats - something smelly and lovely. Wait until the pup has calmed down a bit and it looking at you and the treats. Hold out a treat and show it to her (if you have a very boisterous pup who jumps and carries on, you lift the treat out of reach and make a sharp, negative noise).

The pup should be standing, looking at your hand with the treat. Lift the treat upwards and backwards over the dog's head. As her noise follows the treat up and back, it's automatic for her to drop her hindquarters - dogs sit down as they look up. As her backside hits the floor, you immmediately mark that moment by clearly saying SIT and giving her the treat.

Repeat this action, each time making sure you get your timing right, marking the sit action with the sit word and a treat. So you show the treat, you move it upwards, as she sits you say sit and give her the treat and praise her.

You may then find that as you show her the treat she sits down - she hasn't learned 'sit' the word yet, she's just learned that to get a treat she has to have her bum on the floor. So it's important not to jump straight to assuming she understands 'sit'.

Look this up on YouTube and you'll see this technique in use.

Then you teach her to sit in another room, or with a distraction in the room you were using. Then you do it outside. Then you do it in the bathroom. Basically you keep up the lessons until you've made it very clear that 'sit' means 'put your bum on the floor, whether or not you get a treat, when I ask you to, just because I asked you to, no matter what room we're in, or whether we're inside or outside'. When your dog will sit on command, anywhere, just because you asked, with no reward obvious, THEN your dog is trained to sit.

Bonding and actually liking your dog

Bonding with a pup can be very difficult, especially if the hassle they're creating is outweighing their cuteness. This is the basic equation that results in dogs in the pound - the trouble you cause me no longer equals the pleasure I get from your cuteness = out you go.

By implementing solutions to the toilet training, the chewing, and the ignoring you, you'll have a more biddable dog who's less hassle, and subsequently (hopefully) you'll want to spend more time with that dog and you'll like her more. As you like her more, your interactions will become more positive, and the dog's behaviour will reflect that.

It takes some work, but it won't take forever. Be patient and consistent, and remember - if the dog's not getting it, you're not making it clear enough!!

AGB_Ghost

Thank you very much for all of your help, much appreciated to all