Zitchdog

I snuck in through a different door and went around the house trying to see where he was - he was at the garage spot although there wasn't any cyying. Once he realised I was home he was super excited and jumpy so I tried to hold him down by his collar and get him to watch and sit. Took a few minutes but then he did briefly so I gave him a hug and continued to try and get changed with him bouncing around. I guess I'll just keep trying to calm down the welcome and try leaving him outside when we're home more. Maybe when we feed him I'll block the dog door and not let him back in for a while?

Lol how do you teach a dog it's ok to be alone? We did crate training when we got him - he couldn't stand it, took him less than a week to destroy it. If we leave it open he sleeps in it at night no worries but as soon as he is outside and/or it's daylight he can't be alone Not sure I'm cool with him being in the house when we're out - it's open plan and I'm bit worried he'd destroy the furniture.

No because as I said if he knows we're inside he howls, barks, scratches and throws himself against the door/window.

Ignore him when he's crying Try and be calm when we come home - go straight into training routine if he doesn't calm down. When we leave we pack up the house, put his toys and bed outside, say goodbye, give him a kong or something and close the door and walk away. I don't really want to get another dog, the crying is just breaking my heart

Hi, I have a 6 month welsh springer spaniel pup who is beautiful and (kind of) responding to training but is incredibly clingy/dependent. He follows us around the house (even to the toilet) he is totally over excited when we come home from somewhere, if he knows we're inside when he's outside he howls and barks and throws himself against doors/windows (has broken through dog door several times) and now when we leave home he sits at the back of the garage door and just cries, and is in the same spot when we come home. I'm really worried he's there crying all day. We have a kennel, toys, snacks outside, a bobble treat dispenser etc. Any ideas? I'm close to rescuing another dog from the pound just to keep him company...

Not on the ones I've got?

Thanks for everyone's continued concern. Like I said originally, he was sleeping in our room, having alarm clock, hot water bottle, old clothes of ours, chews, toys, radio light etc made no difference. Even with the crate next to the bed and my hand down with him didn't help. That is why he got put in the laundry so we could try to get some sleep. We also have the crate outside or in communal areas during the day and he sleeps and chews and plays in it all the time, it was just being zipped up that freaked him out. maybe he's claustrophobic?!! He's still in the laundry and I think he's sleeping in the crate, but I gave up trying to close it as he obviously couldn't stand it. We now just pop the crate in the laundry with the side door rolled up, an extra blanket on the floor of the laundry and if we're worried that he's not quite ready for bed or likely to cry a lot we chuck in a pigs snout too. he ADORES them!! Things have been much better. We only toilet him once a night and don't hear him crying very much, not compared to before anyway. We can take him out of the house as of this weekend and also start puppy school so that should help with the training and tiring him out a bit more. :)

Just after some quick advice on how much to feed the puppy. He's 12 weeks, about 6kg now and target weight when he's an adult is around 18kg. We have advance puppy growth wet and dry food at the moment (given pack by the breeder) and I'm a little confused by the feeding guides. Firstly, they seem to base the guide on the target weight as an adult, whereas I would have thought it would be based on current weight! For a 3 month old the dry food guide is 230g - 350g for a 15 - 20 kg body weight. This is over a day. For a 3 month old with the 410g can wet food, adult weight 10-25kg the guide says 1-2 3/4. I assume this means between 1 and 2.75 cans per day? This seems like a huge amount. On top of this, there is no guidance of how much to feed if you are using both, or even other food. Any ideas? Cheers Nat

we have done absolutely every one of the things above except for the pheromone spray and the wire crate. I'm not made of money - this crate cost $130+ and came highly recommended grr....

I don't know rosaline but I can sympathise, Zitch has decided 3am is his time... And he tore a hole in his crate last night so now he can escape. So many tears...

I spoke too soon... Last two nights have been evenly split between crying and not right up until the 3am ish toilet. After that he is not interested in sleep and howls and thrashes about for a good 3 hours til we get up at 6. He also clearly knew that I had said the k9 crate was indestructible because last night he clawed and bit his way through until the zip tore away from the fabric and he could escape. What the hell do we do now?

and another :)

Another pic!

Oh I'll also try and attach some pics. And to the person who was worried about a canvas crate being destroyed, I highly recommend this one - I think it's indestructable!!! http://www.k9softdogcrates.com.au/index.php?p=crates

Thanks everyone! Very pleased to report we had a better night last night! 5th night, 3rd in laundry, no radio or light, a luke warm water bottle wih a clock a cover and wrapped in my husband's shirt and a treat and a chew. However I think what did the trick was that when I zipped him up, I sat there for 10 or so minutes only saying shhh every now and again until he settled. He was a bit whimpery and wriggly still but nothing like earlier. I gradually eased myself out (leaving my stinky ugg boots at the door lol) and closed the door and went to bed. He may have started crying but I didn't hear it. Husband got up to toilet him at 1am and he wasn't crying and didnt pee but wad very upset at being put back in. I got up at 4am and he wasn't crying, did pee after 5 mins, cried at being put back til I gave him a treat and snuck out. He was however crying at 6.30 when we got up and I don't know how long that had been going on. Vast improvement however! Yay!

haha, I don't know if anyone here got it but Zitch is named after a how i met your mother episode where they play a car game called 'zitch dog' and only 2 people have got the reference so far - i get excited! thanks for the welcome everyone, hopefully i'll have some better news to report in a few days ;)

Thank you for the replies everyone, it is much appreciated. Although it might be nice if some of you could tone down the criticism a bit and remember that people coming here for advice love their dog dearly and are doing the best they can with often very conflicting advice. @ Telida Whippets Like I said, not sure about sleeping as an adult, either laundry or outside depending on weather and temperament. Also like I said he was in our room for the first two nights and only slept for a few hours and howled for the rest. Didn’t matter that we were only a metre from him or if we spoke or ignored or toileted or what, he just howled. We need to sleep so decided to move him to the laundry sooner. Will set the alarm and toilet maybe twice a night and then drop down to one and tough it out, thank you. @minimax He came from a breeder as I mentioned and I didn’t get up to him last night because the vet specifically told me not to in case he was playing games with the crying. I felt uneasy about it and won't be doing it again. He had his 10 week vaccination on Saturday so is confined to our yard for 2 weeks so at the moment exercise is mostly tug of war, rolling and running around with us. Hopefully will get easier once we can go for walks/runs. @cavstar I’ll do some more crate training thanks – he does like it and treats it as a refuge, it’s when it’s zipped up that he freaks out, will try and shut it for some periods tonight in the lounge when he’s still around us. Good tip with the cheese spread, thanks ☺ @melinda10786 Thanks for the toy ideas, the dry food in a bottle is a great idea ☺ yep will try and be consistent with the crate and stick it out, cheers. Will attach a pic, my avatar isn’t showing I guess? @lappiemum Thanks, we’ll stick with the laundry for sleeping, as I mentioned, he still howls even when he’s in our bedroom and we need to sleep, so controlled crying it is. Thanks for the link too. @Rosaline Auldana? That’s funny! Sounds like you’ve been luckier than us in the sleeping department, but yeah zitch is otherwise a darling! Scout is an awesome name, To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favourite books ☺ We have a similar evening routine but I’ll try easing him into the crate a bit more, like that, cheers. Will also lose the light! I was worried about the bottle being too hot too, but the weather has eased up a bit so I’m going try a lukewarm one tonight. Thanks again everyone, I spoke to my husband and tonight it is playing with the crate a bit more in the evening, then eased into it in the laundry, still with the treat and clock and toy and radio, but also with a hot water bottle and the light off. Will get up twice and see how we go. Much appreciated, Nat

Hi everyone, This is my first post - I just got my first puppy last friday afternoon and I'm after some help/reassurance! Firstly - he is a 10 week welsh springer spaniel puppy named Zitch and my husband and I already love him to bits! He also seemed to be comfortable with us very quickly - we bought him home and he had no problems toileting, eating, playing or chilling with us - he seemed to bond instantly which was great. Few accidents in the house, but not unmanageble. The problems started when we tried to put him to bed. We have a canvas K9 crate for him and we put it in the laundry and popped him in. He freaked out, howling, screaming, scratching the door. This was too much for us - we felt cruel since it was his first night away from his mum/the litter. So we moved the crate to our ensuite for the first night and our WIR for the second (carpet to muffle howling). Both of these nights he cried for an hour or so before sleeping for around 4 hours. And then he woke up and howled and didn't stop. We toileted him and put him back in and he was totally uninterested in going back to sleep. Not wanting to reinforce the howling by letting him out we put up with it for 2-3 hours both times before just getting up around 7am. The third night we were incredibly sleep deprived so we moved his crate to the laundry. We put his fluffy toy, a treat and a ticking clock in there for him and turned on a lamp and a low volume radio. We left the crate unzipped, newspapered the laundry, put some toys and small amount of water in there. I feel like he didn't sleep the entire night - all I heard was howling from 10pm to 6am when I got him up. I found this incredibly distressing and worrying - can howling for so long do any physical or emotional damage? The laundry door was scratched, he tore up all the newspaper and peed everywhere. I rang the vet and the breeder and spoke to a rep at the pet store too. The breeder said to put the crate outside as he'd been sleeping outside at home, however, we don't feel like this can be an option until he stops howling at being left outside - we don't want the neighbours to kill us. The vet and the pet store lady said to zip up the crate in the laundry and just stick it out, not even get up to toilet him, so that's what we did last night - still with the clock, treat, light & radio. I can't be sure this time (because we discovered that if we use ear plugs, a pillow and leave on our ensuite exhaust fan, it drowns him out enough for us to sleep) but I think he still cried the vast majority of the night - 10pm to 6am. He also peed in his crate (understandable). What I want to know is, are we doing anything wrong? Are we going to hurt him, is it too cruel? Do we have any other options or do we just stick it out and hope it stops soon? Any ideas on how long it might take? I'm thinking about getting a hot water bottle for tonight and wrapping it in my tshirt, and also leaving the light off - what do you think? I also think we should get up at least once toilet him, he is only 10 weeks old? I think we are doing ok with day time - but maybe you could just see what you think on that too! - My husband and I both work full time but we have a small grassed yard that he can't escape from, a nice portico/side door niche that the crate and food/water bowls go in, two other water bowl spots and a big verandah, so we want him to largely be an outside dog. Not sure about sleeping, maybe once he's older and after the winter we might move him to sleeping outside too. I worked from home yesterday and today to ease him into the separation. We got up at 6, played, toileted, fed. Husband went to work, and I left him outside with toys, a peanut butter kong (which he doesn't seem that interested in btw) and a pig snout chew which he adores. I'm leaving him for 3.5 hours and then spending an hour with him at lunch before going back inside and leaving him for another 3-4 hours. Yesterday he was asleep both times I snuck back into the house and although I heard him howl a few times, he seemed to amuse himself or sleep ok on his own which was excellent. Today he was awake when I went inside and later saw me walk past a door dammit and has been howling a lot more than yesterday. He also pees at the door as he scratches it - I think from being upset? I'm hoping he'll go ok on his own - I'm back to the office tomorrow so my husband is going to try and come home at lunch to check on him, but basically from next week he's on his own for 9-10 hours a day. Any toy suggestions?! Anyway, I'm so sorry this was so long, but the sleeping thing really upsets me & I hope you can give me some tips and/or reassurance! Thanks in advance, Nat