Failing as a puppy parent already

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BBP

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Puppy arrived a week ago, perfectly behaved, no house accidents, quiet, polite, slept through the night etc.

He has now found his feet. Barking at the cats every time they meow, peeing in the house even though he only went out an hour before (gives v little warning, no whining or crying or sitting by door, just a quick circle and pee). Reluctant to go in puppy pen or crate as doesn’t want to be left (had to leave for 1.5hrs tonight as had to do 4 horses and no-one could look after him and he had peed in his bed).

Parenting failure already...broken a perfectly good puppy!

...don’t know how people with kids cope!
 
How old is he? Assuming he's very young, just left mum sort of age, you need to be letting him out every 15 mins ideally. Every hour is too long for a young pup.
 
He is 12 weeks. For the last week I have been letting him out religiously every 1.5-2hrs and he has been great with that, no accidents at all, but my other half was home at the weekend and kind of disrupted the pattern, puppy had a couple of accidents when OH didn’t stick to the routine and now it seems to have carried on being disrupted. But 1.5hrs in the crate was definitely too long for him mentally.
 
At that age they are just finding their feet a little bit, but thats a long time to leave a pup. We didnt leave ours at all until a little bit older than that and then it was just to go out the door and come back in. I think he was 6 months before he was left for a couple of hours. But I am paranoid after dealing with the worst case of separation anxiety known to man with the last dog!
 
Honestly - an hour and a half is absolutely fine, and yes they can hold on that long. Don't overthink it - if he pees in his bed, no biggie, just give him a clean one. He'll be fine. :-)
You have reached the age of my horrible spanner - who actually has been lovely the last two days!
Do give him somethnig nice every time he gets put in the crate, puppy here has a treat and a thing to chew on, and her toy.
 
the first week they are more subdued and lull you into a false sense of security :D they do tend to regress a little ;)

basically now he is much more excited / stimulated and generally has a lot more to think about so it’s your job to keep on top of that until it clicks in again. Does he sleep in a crate overnight? At 12 weeks he should be fine for a couple of hours, they sleep a lot so you need to make sure crate time coincides with him being ready to sleep; eg make sure he’s fed, toileted, and mentally tired before you expect him to settle. You need to teach him it’s ok to be on his own and ok to love his crate! It’s really very easy - use his food, make it high value and let him go in and out by himself while you feed him treats through the bars at the back to start with. There are lots of online resources available nowadays, google 'crate games'. Also very important for impulse control which will pay dividends later on, eg when you you dont want him jumping straight out of the car when you open the door.
 
Thank you for the replies. He is definitely more confident in his environment and bolder in giving his opinions now he has settled. His set up is that he has a medium sized crate inside a puppy pen (which gives him extra protected space approx 3x size of crate so he can play in it). I don’t often shut him in the crate, including overnight, as if I’m in the house I usually just limit him to the pen and open crate. I will start to work on some of those games and try to time popping him in there a bit better for when he is sleepy rather than when it suits the pony timetable. As of today I have 4 kongs for him and have been stuffing some of his food ration in there, running a little water over and then freezing them and adding a tiny bit of the squeezey goo that Kong make to the hole. He seems to be entertained by these for a while longer. He sleeps pretty well from about 11:30pm til 5/5:30am, just last night he woke up at 2:30am and I let him out to pee, and 1 other night when he had an upset tummy and messed his pen. I’m just ignoring any accidents, cleaning up with a dog appropriate disinfectant and making sure I shorten the interval that I take him out next time.
 
You’ll get there, it just takes time and patience. Our dog definitely regressed a bit when she was a puppy.

If your dog is doing wees on carpet I definitely recommend powder to clear it up rather than spray and scrubbing. You shake the powder on, leave it for a while and then hoover it up. It removes the wetness and the odour, no scrubbing necessary. You can get it in pet shops, can’t remember what it’s called but it comes in a cylindrical container.
 
If he's having accidents clearly you are not letting him out enough.
Take him out every time he wakes up, every time he's fed, every time he's been playing and about every half hour as well. I know it seems a lot but if he gets in to the habit of peeing in the house it will be much harder to get him out of it.
Loads of praise when he goes where you want him too.
It's up to you to put the effort in.
 
Sandstone1 said:
If he's having accidents clearly you are not letting him out enough.
Take him out every time he wakes up, every time he's fed, every time he's been playing and about every half hour as well. I know it seems a lot but if he gets in to the habit of peeing in the house it will be much harder to get him out of it.
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I do agree with this, and was deeply impressed that you were going over an hour in your first week. We do go out every time she drinks, eats, wakes and every 30 minutes, it is soul destroying but only lasts a few weeks. As of yesterday (she is 3.5 months now) we started leaving her a little longer, but only if we were watching her like hawks.
It is in the crate he should be able to be left, I meant.
Smut goes in her crate while OH has lunch, and also while we eat dinner, and any time she gets overtired and gets OTT with the grown ups, she sleeps in there like the dead.
ETA he won't ask to go out yet, the concept is not yet that formed.
 
You’re absolutely right about not letting out enough, that’s why I said parenting fail not puppy fail. I think he lulled me in the first week as was so easy, but probably being a bit new and shy he may not have been drinking as much as is normal, now he is more comfortable he needs more outings. It’s no problem to take him out a lot more often. We are fitting in games and little bits of basic training each time and it’s nice for me to get a break from my computer when I’m working.
 
you aren’t using puppy pads or anything in the pen are you? I believe they just teach pups they can go inside, there should be no need for them if you take the puppy out enough.

the other thing is - when I have a puppy they are either with me and being supervised, or in the crate. It sounds like when you are at home your puppy is in the pen a fair bit of the time? They instinctively don't want to mess their own bed but if you make their ‘bed’ area too big then it’s easy for the puppy to create a toilet area within that space. Does that make sense? When they are this young you can’t take your eyes off them for a second and that is why using a crate works well and helps with toilet training as opposed to putting them in a bigger pen because you can’t supervise. Can’t pup be with you when you’re working on your computer?
 
NeverEver said:
you aren’t using puppy pads or anything in the pen are you? I believe they just teach pups they can go inside, there should be no need for them if you take the puppy out enough.

the other thing is - when I have a puppy they are either with me and being supervised, or in the crate. It sounds like when you are at home your puppy is in the pen a fair bit of the time? They instinctively don't want to mess their own bed but if you make their ‘bed’ area too big then it’s easy for the puppy to create a toilet area within that space. Does that make sense? When they are this young you can’t take your eyes off them for a second and that is why using a crate works well and helps with toilet training as opposed to putting them in a bigger pen because you can’t supervise. Can’t pup be with you when you’re working on your computer?
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He is with me most of the time, only in the pen if I am making dinner or feeding the cats or similar. The puppy pen opens up so he is free in the living room with me the rest of the time, or he’s on a lead in the rest of the house (to stop any cat chasing instances whilst they get to know each other). Or he has a puppy sitter with him when I do horses in evening. No puppy pads.

Fortunately all is back to ‘normal’ now. I think it was leaving him with my partner in charge (who did not believe he had to keep to such a strict timetable!). No more accidents in the house now I’m back in charge!

But yes, the extra space vs crate makes sense in terms of him having space to create his own toilet area.
 
Well done BBP. OH's are hopelss, I was saying puppy here looked skinny and he said 'Oh, am I still meant to be feeding her at lunchtime'. So for today I made her lunch and balanced it on top of his!
Smut really smells of wee, as she leaks it under any excitement at all between her hind legs is not nice. I am going to have to give her a wash, which will no doubt make even more wee! Be grateful your little boy doesn't do that. :-)
 
I'm glad you've got back into a routine again OP, the first few weeks really are soul destroying as clodagh says when you feel you literally can't let them out of your sight.

My Dunbar book After you get your Puppy suggests puppy wakes up, straight out for a pee, back inside with some play while puppy is 'empty' and then crating for a short period (for a sleep) until its time to go back outside again.... and repeat, on and on and on......

Best of luck, and have we seen pics yet?

Fiona
 
BBP said:
He is 12 weeks. For the last week I have been letting him out religiously every 1.5-2hrs and he has been great with that, no accidents at all, but my other half was home at the weekend and kind of disrupted the pattern, puppy had a couple of accidents when OH didn’t stick to the routine and now it seems to have carried on being disrupted. But 1.5hrs in the crate was definitely too long for him mentally.
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I had the same problem when I had to leave my 3 month old puppy with my OH, he just doesn't get that you have to watch them ALL THE TIME, I'm only human and miss her sometimes but he is sloppy, would just go off and take a nap and leave her wandering round the flat. Numpty!

Said puppy is now 6 months old and I would say housetrained, except I'm not allowed to take a shower, even if I leave the bathroom door open, she will go and poo in the house somehwere, short of shutting her in the bathroom with me, not really sure what to do about that one. Even if I take her out before hand (which means getting dressed and undressed which is a pain!) she will find some extra poop from somewhere to go on the floor.
 
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I've been back in sole charge for the last week whilst OH is away and puppy is back to being perfect. He's 13 weeks old and back to no house accidents since last monday when I posted this. Sleeping quietly whilst I work. Waiting quietly if I go upstairs or into the bathroom without him, even flaking out on his own for an hour whilst I went to the yard after a particularly busy afternoons playing (I put a camera on him to make sure he wasn't stressed). He spent 4 hours up at the yard yesterday, either in his crate snoozing in the sun, watching the world go by or playing with his toys, plus coming out regularly for leg stretches, games and cuddles. I even went riding and left him in his crate whilst my sister was doing her yard chores and she said he was quiet as a mouse. He then watched me building electric fence paddocks and watched the horses getting their feet done. Pup is now excellent at sit and lie down, and is learning stay, come and heel in little bite-size chunks during playtimes (he isn't very food motivated so I need to find something irresistible for teaching him to focus on me). Hes a really smart little guy! He has been to stay at the neighbours house, and my parents house, and has met all their neighbours including small kids, he has been to the train station and to busy car parks, and to three different garden centres and has been great at all of it, engaging with people and making friends everywhere he goes. His temperament is amazing really (I don't have much experience of puppies but I expected him to be more shy and nervous).

OH takes over most of the dog care starting next week...I think I am going to have to put a lot more work into training him to train the dog than I am into actually training the dog! (I joke, he will be great once he takes over, the weekend was just a blip, he can learn from my experience now).
 
Clodagh said:
Well done BBP. OH's are hopelss, I was saying puppy here looked skinny and he said 'Oh, am I still meant to be feeding her at lunchtime'. So for today I made her lunch and balanced it on top of his!

I completely agree, my OH (who is lovely in so many ways) has just allowed Stan to trash his second harness. Just take the bloody thing off when you get home!! i wouldn't mind but I have bought a (2) really good quality ones. On Saturday he took Stan for a walk and I found the harness in the kitchen and the lead outside on the drive, he'd gone off with Stan in the car with neither. I utterly despair!!!!
So pleased you have pup back ontrack!
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