Puppy Frustration :(

[Staffygirl88]

Hi again.

I've had my puppy for a week and a half now. I'm regretting spending as much money as I did on this dog. I could have bought a car.

She howls and cries whenever I open her food bag and it is extremely hard to try and calm her down because I get so frustrated with her jumping at me because she can smell the food. It was explained to the breeder of this pup that I have a young son and would like a pup with a naturally calm and placid temperament.

She was also meant to be wormed. She was full of worms when I got her! I took her to the vet 3 days after her arrival because she had diarrheoa, paid for medication to thicken her stool but when I get home and let her out of the car, a heap of worms come out. :D I had wormed her that morning before taking her to the vet because I wasn't sure if that was the cause. When I contacted the breeder about the worms, I was told that she had been wormed TWICE! FFS TWICE!!!! WTF!!! I'm pretty sure pups are meant to be wormed every 2 weeks until 8 weeks old, then every month until 6 months old, then every 3 months for the rest of their life? My pup could have died because this breeder didn't worm her properly or often enough. I got no apology from her about the fact that those worms could have killed my dog. And if it had? I hardly think I'd have been compensated in any way. No wonder she was so placid the first couple of days.

This pup was also meant to be toilet trained. She does her business on my porch! And all over the concrete walkways. I do take her to where I want her to go but she BOLTS over to where SHE wants to go ;) I left her at home in her crate for not even 4 hours yesterday, when I got home all I could smell was poo. She had done her business in her crate and had run all through it!!! She had it all over her! My house reeked and my dog and her bed was covered in crap! She had done her business before I left the house, poos and wees so I can't see why she couldn't hold on! :p She has done this three nights this week and I've had enough of it.

Now the pup is outside because I'm sick of her pooing inside and the reek. She still sleeps inside. I wanted this dog mainly for my son. Which is why I spent a lot of money and went to a breeder. I was promised a wormed, toilet trained dog and for the money I paid it's what I expect. I just don't know what to do, she makes me so angry because she poos where she sleeps! It's meant to be instinct not to poo where they sleep and considering she's in a crate, it's even worse. I'm losing my temper with her, she doesn't even look me in the eye when I'm trying to get her to do something. Am I just expecting too much? I know I'm getting frustrated with her and I'm trying to be calm with her, but everytine I think things are going great she'll start chewing on my dining suite or something similar. Should I just leave her outside until she's fully trained and can respond to commands? Also is it normal for a dog from a breeder to be full of worms? And why advertise she is toilet trained when she obviously is not?

[minxy]

Copying and pasting my reply to your other one

Hi Staffygirl

I'm sorry that you are having a bit of a frustrating time. In all honesty, it's far too early for any of this to be a problem. You really shouldn't expect a puppy to *instantly* know how to behave in your home. She's only young and won't learn without your guidance. It's up to you to train her. About being calm with your son, well, she's a puppy! They like to bounce and play. It's up to you to supervise her at all times around your son.

I know it must be frustrating at the moment. If you persist in trying to toilet train her etc, it will pay off.

Added: Yes, honestly I think you are expecting a bit much. I can understand being upset about the worms. No, your puppy should not have come with worms.

As for toileting in her crate - how big is her crate? Is there a lot of extra room? If there is too much room, yes they will sometimes toilet in there. You can always block off some of the extra room with say an esky for example.

Leaving her outside until she becomes trained isn't going to do anything. YOU need to train her. She learns everything from you, so if you aren't teaching her, she won't know. Even if she was toilet trained at the breeders house, she's in new territory now. She doesn't just know how you want her to behave. Show her what you want her to do and then reward her when she does it.

[Cosmolo]

Your puppy is a baby. A baby who has come into a brand new home. Even if the breeder had done some toilet training- it is normal for some regression in new environments- the puppy is a baby. Have you spoken to the breeder about the worms? Pups do need to be wormed frequently so you would have needed to worm the pup in a few weeks anyway- and will still need to do so.

What surface was she toileting on at the breeders? If it was concrete or a hard surface, you will need to re train to grass or wherever you want the pup to go.

Do you still feed her when she is over excited and jumps at you? If so, stop and wait till she settles. It is a bonus to have a food motivated pup but you have to learn how to use it to your advantage.

[Staffygirl88]

Copying and pasting my reply to your other one

Hi Staffygirl

I'm sorry that you are having a bit of a frustrating time. In all honesty, it's far too early for any of this to be a problem. You really shouldn't expect a puppy to *instantly* know how to behave in your home. She's only young and won't learn without your guidance. It's up to you to train her. About being calm with your son, well, she's a puppy! They like to bounce and play. It's up to you to supervise her at all times around your son.

I know it must be frustrating at the moment. If you persist in trying to toilet train her etc, it will pay off.

Added: Yes, honestly I think you are expecting a bit much. I can understand being upset about the worms. No, your puppy should not have come with worms.

As for toileting in her crate - how big is her crate? Is there a lot of extra room? If there is too much room, yes they will sometimes toilet in there. You can always block off some of the extra room with say an esky for example.

Leaving her outside until she becomes trained isn't going to do anything. YOU need to train her. She learns everything from you, so if you aren't teaching her, she won't know. Even if she was toilet trained at the breeders house, she's in new territory now. She doesn't just know how you want her to behave. Show her what you want her to do and then reward her when she does it.

Leaving her outside is more for my sanity to be honest, I'm trying to get the smell of dog poo out of my house also. I know I'm expecting a lot from her :p And it's probably not fair but since the worms I've just been so angry I thought that I would get what I paid for

Her crate is just large enough for her to turn around and lie down in, I have ordered a larger crate for when she's bigger

I am trying to train her but with all the toileting accidents ;) I think I just need a breather (hence the dog being outside) I need to calm down before I try training her again. How can I get her to stop doing her business on the back and front porch? It's a bit hard to clean up

[persephone]

I'm losing my temper with her, she doesn't even look me in the eye when I'm trying to get her to do something. Am I just expecting too much? I know I'm getting frustrated with her and I'm trying to be calm with her, but everytine I think things are going great she'll start chewing on my dining suite or something similar. Should I just leave her outside until she's fully trained and can respond to commands? Also is it normal for a dog from a breeder to be full of worms? And why advertise she is toilet trained when she obviously is not?

She sounds as if she WAS toilet trained to not go in her bed- she sounds as if she was trained to go ON CONCRETE! She is doing what she is trained to do :D It is now up to you to take her on a long leash on grass or wherever.

Re pooing in the crate- it could well be anxiety /stress

This baby will certainly be picking up on your frustration/anger/anxiety... and she is probably reacting. this is perhaps also why she doesn't look you in the eye- you SCARE her.

Are you expecting too much? I would say, yes. ;)

You have a young baby of your own ... have high expectations, and a possibly slightly unreal puppy/little boy vision ( remembering that by the time he is old enough to really participate in caring for and training 'his' dog, she will be middle aged and set in her ways )

Leaving her outside until she's fully trained?

She can NOT be fully trained unless she is with you, and you are working at training her in all the house rules,sorry.

The worm issue is unfortunate- but it happens . Not good publicity for the breeder, but not a hangable offence, either, in the scheme of things .You were on top of it, and did all the right things !

Perhaps get in a private trainer to help you, or consider rehoming this puppy ...for everyone's sanity . :p

[koalathebear]

Hi

Many of us go through profound: "What have I done?" feelings after we get our puppy. I think more experienced dog owners are fine but we certainly had many moments of: "Urgh - one puppy - free to a good home!"

I can't comment on the worms issue so will leave that to others but can share with you what happened with us.

She howls and cries whenever I open her food bag and it is extremely hard to try and calm her down because I get so frustrated with her jumping at me because she can smell the food. It was explained to the breeder of this pup that I have a young son and would like a pup with a naturally calm and placid temperament.

I suspect it's difficult for a puppy to be calm - especially in a new environment. If a puppy was truly calm and placid, you might worry that it was lethargic. The crate can really be a blessing and give you precious moments of quiet. What we did with our puppy was put his toys and little treats in there - we kept luring him back into his crate. Every time he went in, we praised him. Eventually he went in of his own accord and it's a place that he could become calm - if he was hyper, we could close the door to the crate.

Also put a mat in a sunny spot of the kitchen - Elbie loves to stretch out in the sun and when he's all sprawly and recumbant on the sunny floor, he becomes very dopey and placid - dropping off to sleep easily.

For food, people will link you to the Triangle of Temptation for training your puppy. I can really recommend that making your dog learn to wait for her food will be one of the most useful things you can teach her because meal times can then become training sessions and that sort of thing.

With Elbie, when we first got him, we just made him sit and put his bowl of food down in front of him - he wasn't allowed to eat it until he made eye contact with us/we gave him the signal to eat. Of course he failed quite a few times - see

, but he got better at it even though he was still a bit of a greedy guts, see

. We did it every single meal time and he just got used to it and he's got to the point where he's extremely keen for his food, but he will wait as long as he needs to. It means he doesn't go rushing at the food/go crazy when he sees the food.

As Cosmolo pointed out, if your pup is food motivated it's actually a really good thing that can be so helpful in training. At Dog School, the most frustrated people are the ones whose dogs are not motivated by food because they just can't make their dogs do anything!

This pup was also meant to be toilet trained. She does her business on my porch! And all over the concrete walkways. I do walk her to where I want her to go but she BOLTS over to where SHE wants to go I left her at home in her crate for not even 4 hours yesterday, when I got home all I could smell was poo. She had done her business in her crate and had run all through it!!! She had it all over her! My house reeked and my dog and her box was covered in crap! She had done her business before I left the house, poos and wees so I can't see why she couldn't hold on!

You have to take her out on the leash first. Put the leash on, walk her to where you want her to go and wait as long as you need to. When she eliminates, then you say the cue word (whatever it is you have picked) and then praise her a lot. It takes a lot patience and persistence but it does pay off. We moved house and basically had to retrain Elbie again because he had a new back yard. We took him out on his leash to "Poo Corner" until he got the message. Also, when he was younger, the rain would throw him off so now and then, we would retrain him after the rain. He now is very good and poops where he's supposed to.

Also, toilet-training doesn't tend to be rock solid until the pup is older. I felt quite envious of people who would airily say that their pups were fully toilet trained at 8 or 9 weeks but my pup still had accidents until he was a few months old. By 3-4 months he was pretty solid. A lot of people say that pups can still regress up until 6 months. They just can't hold it. You can't rely on your pup to tell you when she wants to go. Sometimes Elbie would be so distracted by toys that he'd just lose control ;) The safest thing is to automatically take your puppy out after drinks, meals and sleeping. At night, we took our pup out every 2 hours. Then every 3, then every 4. Now he sleeps through the night.

Even after he was 'mostly' toilet trained, he'd still have the occasional accident. There's even a funny thread here where a bunch of us puppy owners start congratulating ourselves on our toilet-trained pups - thereby jinxing ourselves and pretty much everyone's puppy had an accident that week :p Elbie in the early days would sometimes wee in his crate - I think he fell asleep and did it in his sleep or did a panic wee when we were away. He doesn't do that anymore.

The first 3-4 nights we had Elbie, he screamed, cried, howled and yelled ALL night in his crate. Because of that, we couldn't tell which was an "I miss my mum" scream and which was an "I need to go!" scream. As a result, on night two, every trip down stairs to take him out to the toilet his blankets were just COVERED with poo and I was replacing the blanket and dumping the pooey blankets onto the deck to clean in the morning. That first week, I seriously SERIOUSLY regretted my decision to get a dog - the sleeplessness was putting me on edge and I was wondering if I'd ended up with a crazy dog. We persisted - my husband's a lot more steadfast and patient than I am, and we've managed to overcome each challenge from our dog.

So hang in there ... a lot of us have gone through the same thing. Sometimes we feel like bad owners because other people don't seem to have the same frustrations with their dogs but plenty of us have - especially newbie owners like us. A young puppy seemed to suck out a lot of the free time we had and we spent a lot of Elbie's early days with us closely monitoring him - for a while we seemed to spend our whole lives in the kitchen because we were renting back then and didn't want him anywhere else in the house (because of carpet). Then he went through his biting phase, then he went through this phase and that phase and blah blah blah Sometimes when we were standing out in the freezing cold waiting for him to do his business, we wondered what on earth we were doing - but now at seven months he is a very lovable, loving little dog who sleeps through the night, toilets on command in the right spot, waits for his food ...

There are a lot of people here to help out when you need it. You can also rant here although you should be aware that some people WILL say: "What did you expect when you got a puppy?" :D Nonetheless, it's good to get things off your chest when you need to. Good luck!

ETA: Just wanted to add two more suggestions.

1. Elbie's very focussed except when we go on walks. He won't even look at me when we go on walks even though he's stopped pulling. So it's good to go back to basics. One really easy exercise you could do with your pup to help her focus is to hold a piece of kibble between your eyes and say: "Watch" or "look at me". When she looks at you - which she will because of the FOOD, you praise her and give her the kibble. You can feed her half her meal or her whole meal this way and this will slowly teach her to look at you on cue.

2. Get a clicker. Your pup is too young to do training but you can get her used to associating the clicker with Good Things. This way whenever your pup does something GOOD that you like, you click and give her treat. Once she learns that there are good things that lead to food, she will try harder to please you. When we first got the clicker, we clicked, gave Elbie treat, clicked and treated until he associated the click with treats. He had such a good time that day - didn't have to do anything except get fed kibble. There's heaps of stuff here about how to do clicker training and it's a really helpful way to get your dog focussed.

Edited September 20, 2010 by koalathebear

[poodlefan]

I posted in your other thread. I suggest you ask the Moderator to combine them.

[Staffygirl88]

Your puppy is a baby. A baby who has come into a brand new home. Even if the breeder had done some toilet training- it is normal for some regression in new environments- the puppy is a baby. Have you spoken to the breeder about the worms? Pups do need to be wormed frequently so you would have needed to worm the pup in a few weeks anyway- and will still need to do so.

What surface was she toileting on at the breeders? If it was concrete or a hard surface, you will need to re train to grass or wherever you want the pup to go.

Do you still feed her when she is over excited and jumps at you? If so, stop and wait till she settles. It is a bonus to have a food motivated pup but you have to learn how to use it to your advantage.

I did speak to the breeder about the worms. I was told she had been wormed TWICE. Not nearly enough for her to be free of worms and she basically had a 'well tough luck' attitude about it which only made me angrier. I only took the dog to the vet on the breeder's advice (I called her when she had the squirts) whereas I was going to wait 24 hours on the vet's advice. I live almost 2 hours away from my vet so it was a costly vet visit and completely pointless. I'd also asked the breeder in the morning before I took my pup to the vet when she was last wormed and I didn't get a response, I still don't know WHEN she was wormed with the breeder if she was at all.

She was toilet trained on newspaper as far as I know but she's pretty fond of concrete lol

I don't feed her until she has calmed down but that can take a long time and a lot of the time she gets worse! So if she's getting hysterical I give her a small handful then ask her to be calm and that works. Hopefully she'll be able to settle as soon as she sees the food dish soon. Her food drive is insane! If she smells it she goes mental and howls and cries and runs around the room looking for the food, makes me wonder if I'm feeding her enough. She gets fed a cup of dry food three times a day. I want to give her roo meat as it's really cheap and really lean meat, no fat or gristle But I'll wait a little while I think

[Staffygirl88]

I posted in your other thread. I suggest you ask the Moderator to combine them.

The power went off and the internet cut off for a minute when I was almost finished and it just posted

[koalathebear]

My puppy thinks he's a labrador. He has enough food but he could eat all day if we let him. You just have to make her wait. In the early days, Elbie would sit there quivering and drooling - almost imploding with impatience but over time he learned he just had to wait. There's a lady in Elbie's class at dog school whose JRT will bash past anything to get to food and she has just been forcing her dog to wait and she's seeing the rewards of this and her dog seems to be going better at mealtime manners. Also, it's one of the things your dog will have to master at dog school if she goes - wait for 20 seconds while a food bowl with food in it is placed in front of her ;)

Also, with the pooping. Once we got Elbie pooping outside, it took us a while to teach him how to tell US that he wanted to go outside. He'd just stand by the door and look expectant as if we were supposed to be able to read his mind. We now get one insistent bark to be let out.

[Staffygirl88]

Thanks koalathebear your reply was informative and hopefully it will be helpful. I got this puppy at a very bad time as my dad was diagnosed with cancer 5 days after she was flown down. I've been so stressed out and I'm sure she's picking up on that but I can't help being upset at the moment. I'll just have to try and hide my emotions from her the best I can and hope for the best. I do love the little rascal, just very bad timing.

[persephone]

I want to give her roo meat as it's really cheap and really lean meat, no fat or gristle But I'll wait a little while I think

As a growing pup she needs the correct balance of minerals etc. IF you decied to use roo meat you would then have to provide bones, offal /veg to balance everything out .Some fat and gristle is GOOD for dogs, as is RAW bone,and offal.

Now, a little trick.

When she is asleep .... or outside .. put her meals on 3 little plates or in 3 saucers/bowls whatever. have them sitting in a cupboard.. and simply grab one at mealtime! NO anticipatory carryings-on :p

I do recommend you start her on THIS at mealtimes ;)

[Bundyburger]

She was toilet trained on newspaper as far as I know but she's pretty fond of concrete lol

I don't feed her until she has calmed down but that can take a long time and a lot of the time she gets worse! So if she's getting hysterical I give her a small handful then ask her to be calm and that works. Hopefully she'll be able to settle as soon as she sees the food dish soon. Her food drive is insane! If she smells it she goes mental and howls and cries and runs around the room looking for the food, makes me wonder if I'm feeding her enough. She gets fed a cup of dry food three times a day. I want to give her roo meat as it's really cheap and really lean meat, no fat or gristle But I'll wait a little while I think

She is not 'toilet trained' on paper, she is paper trained. So she probably has no idea where you want her to go outside, so you need to teach her.

Giving her a handful of food when she is hysterical is essentially rewarding her for being silly. It will be giving her very mixed signals and probably why she gets even more worked up because she thinks you will cave in and feed her every time she plays up. Even if you have to put her on a lead beside you and just give a gentle tug of correction every time she goes for the food before you tell her to. From day one, we made our boy sit and wait for his food. Now I can walk out of the room and know that he will not eat until given the command. He will drop, shake, come, sit and stay whenever I ask even when there is food because he KNOWS he'll get it when he's good. Perhaps you can even consider using her meals to train her in the basics, like sit, drop, stay and come? Then you will be channeling her food focus into something else and it could calm her down.

Edited September 20, 2010 by Bundy's Mum

[poodlefan]

I want to give her roo meat as it's really cheap and really lean meat, no fat or gristle But I'll wait a little while I think

As a growing pup she needs the correct balance of minerals etc. IF you decied to use roo meat you would then have to provide bones, offal /veg to balance everything out .Some fat and gristle is GOOD for dogs, as is RAW bone,and offal.

Now, a little trick.

When she is asleep .... or outside .. put her meals on 3 little plates or in 3 saucers/bowls whatever. have them sitting in a cupboard.. and simply grab one at mealtime! NO anticipatory carryings-on :p

I do recommend you start her on THIS at mealtimes ;)

Roo meat is too lean to be the bulk of a dog's diet. For a growing pup, it also won't provide enough energy. My dogs don't even like it.

Feed her in her crate. Make her sit outside and wait while you put the food in THEN release her. Keep her onlead to ensure the wait initially. You can use dinner and her crate as a method to train self control. Rewarding lack of self control (any jumping or yelping) will increase the behaviour.

How often a day are you feeding her. I feed my babies 3 times a day from 8 - 12 weeks

Edited September 20, 2010 by poodlefan

[Azreal]

Staffygirl, I know how hard it can be but as the others have said your puppy is just a baby & the patience & hard work you put in now will pay off when the puppy grows up. Just like the patience you had with your son when he was a newborn waking you up for a feed & nappy change you need to have with this puppy.

I have never heard of buying a toilet trained puppy as I would imagine they need to learn what is expected in your home which would be completely different to what is expected at the breeders home.

You sound like your just exhausted from the work involved in caring for a pup & (like me) you have the added pressure of looking after your child which is a massive job in itself. But please be patient with your other baby, he needs to learn from you right now & you have the dog you want but you need to learn how to bring him out by training him on what is acceptable & what is not.

At the top of this forum there are some good links on training a puppy & how things can go wrong, the basic message which I am leArning myself is consistency & patience. She is a baby, but she s also an animal & needs to learn from you & this will take time.

I am no expert & still needing lots of advice from the members here, but i am leArning how important patience & consistency is alongside with not expecting too much from him just yet.

Read the pinned links above the puppy forum, I found these really helpful as well as all the advice from the dog lovers on this site

Hang in there & remember he is looking to you for guidance & patience no matter how frustrating it gets.

Good luck

[lappiemum]

Hi again.

I've had my puppy for a week and a half now. I'm regretting spending as much money as I did on this dog. I could have bought a car.

She howls and cries whenever I open her food bag and it is extremely hard to try and calm her down because I get so frustrated with her jumping at me because she can smell the food. It was explained to the breeder of this pup that I have a young son and would like a pup with a naturally calm and placid temperament.

She was also meant to be wormed. She was full of worms when I got her! I took her to the vet 3 days after her arrival because she had diarrheoa, paid for medication to thicken her stool but when I get home and let her out of the car, a heap of worms come out. :D I had wormed her that morning before taking her to the vet because I wasn't sure if that was the cause. When I contacted the breeder about the worms, I was told that she had been wormed TWICE! FFS TWICE!!!! WTF!!! I'm pretty sure pups are meant to be wormed every 2 weeks until 8 weeks old, then every month until 6 months old, then every 3 months for the rest of their life? My pup could have died because this breeder didn't worm her properly or often enough. I got no apology from her about the fact that those worms could have killed my dog. And if it had? I hardly think I'd have been compensated in any way. No wonder she was so placid the first couple of days.

This pup was also meant to be toilet trained. She does her business on my porch! And all over the concrete walkways. I do take her to where I want her to go but she BOLTS over to where SHE wants to go ;) I left her at home in her crate for not even 4 hours yesterday, when I got home all I could smell was poo. She had done her business in her crate and had run all through it!!! She had it all over her! My house reeked and my dog and her bed was covered in crap! She had done her business before I left the house, poos and wees so I can't see why she couldn't hold on! :p She has done this three nights this week and I've had enough of it.

Now the pup is outside because I'm sick of her pooing inside and the reek. She still sleeps inside. I wanted this dog mainly for my son. Which is why I spent a lot of money and went to a breeder. I was promised a wormed, toilet trained dog and for the money I paid it's what I expect. I just don't know what to do, she makes me so angry because she poos where she sleeps! It's meant to be instinct not to poo where they sleep and considering she's in a crate, it's even worse. I'm losing my temper with her, she doesn't even look me in the eye when I'm trying to get her to do something. Am I just expecting too much? I know I'm getting frustrated with her and I'm trying to be calm with her, but everytine I think things are going great she'll start chewing on my dining suite or something similar. Should I just leave her outside until she's fully trained and can respond to commands? Also is it normal for a dog from a breeder to be full of worms? And why advertise she is toilet trained when she obviously is not?

Take your dog back to your breeder, or find someone who will give it a loving home.

Then buy yourself a stuffed toy.

It doesn't chew, crap or bark. That is what you are obviously after.

[TsarsMum]

hugs and breathe

its like a newly crawling baby into everything demanding LOL.

i think you should do the triangle of temptaion as well. she will learn to wait and be tied back and not annoying you.

she has worked out more she bugs you the quicker she gets food.

and yes you need to take her out onto the grass every few hours to get her to understand where to go.

and hugs again

[Staffygirl88]

She was toilet trained on newspaper as far as I know but she's pretty fond of concrete lol

I don't feed her until she has calmed down but that can take a long time and a lot of the time she gets worse! So if she's getting hysterical I give her a small handful then ask her to be calm and that works. Hopefully she'll be able to settle as soon as she sees the food dish soon. Her food drive is insane! If she smells it she goes mental and howls and cries and runs around the room looking for the food, makes me wonder if I'm feeding her enough. She gets fed a cup of dry food three times a day. I want to give her roo meat as it's really cheap and really lean meat, no fat or gristle :p But I'll wait a little while I think

She is not 'toilet trained' on paper, she is paper trained. So she probably has no idea where you want her to go outside, so you need to teach her.

Giving her a handful of food when she is hysterical is essentially rewarding her for being silly. It will be giving her very mixed signals and probably why she gets even more worked up because she thinks you will cave in and feed her every time she plays up. Even if you have to put her on a lead beside you and just give a gentle tug of correction every time she goes for the food before you tell her to. From day one, we made our boy sit and wait for his food. Now I can walk out of the room and know that he will not eat until given the command. He will drop, shake, come, sit and stay whenever I ask even when there is food because he KNOWS he'll get it when he's good. Perhaps you can even consider using her meals to train her in the basics, like sit, drop, stay and come? Then you will be channeling her food focus into something else and it could calm her down.

I know it's rewarding her bad behaviour ;) It happens in the morning before mealtime, she gets so worked up and cries and howls it's as though she's starving so I gave her a little bit of dog food when she sat, although she wasn't calm. But I didn't feed her until she calmed down after that, I also practice taking her food from her and putting my hand in her bowl when she's eating, my son does the same and is proud of himself for doing it lol He used to be petrified of all dogs, until he met a Bull Mastiff I have no idea why but he liked the 'big dog' and wouldn't touch any other dog. :D

I have to be firm with her and consistent, it's getting into a routine that's hard as it was screwed up a fair bit lol I'm hoping she'll be fine once she's leash trained, then I can walk her morning and night and drain her energy

Any tips on leash training? Topaz just grabs the leash and chews and plays with it or tries to bolt

[poodlefan]

I also practice taking her food from her and putting my hand in her bowl when she's eating, my son does the same and is proud of himself for doing it lol

Please stop this practice. Feed her in her crate. Children should be taught to leave a dog alone when it is feeding. They don't particularise this behaviour and you'll be teaching your son that he can do this with any dog, any bowl and with your dog with any food.

This is an unsafe lesson to learn. Teach your son to leave your dog alone at feeding time.

The best way to 'drain a puppy's energy' is games and training. She's too young to be walked any distance for some months yet.

Is there a trainer or a dog training club you can get to. You need this dog effectively leash trained before she gets too big.

Edited September 21, 2010 by poodlefan

[Staffygirl88]

Hi again.

I've had my puppy for a week and a half now. I'm regretting spending as much money as I did on this dog. I could have bought a car.

She howls and cries whenever I open her food bag and it is extremely hard to try and calm her down because I get so frustrated with her jumping at me because she can smell the food. It was explained to the breeder of this pup that I have a young son and would like a pup with a naturally calm and placid temperament. ;)

She was also meant to be wormed. She was full of worms when I got her! I took her to the vet 3 days after her arrival because she had diarrheoa, paid for medication to thicken her stool but when I get home and let her out of the car, a heap of worms come out. I had wormed her that morning before taking her to the vet because I wasn't sure if that was the cause. When I contacted the breeder about the worms, I was told that she had been wormed TWICE! FFS TWICE!!!! WTF!!! I'm pretty sure pups are meant to be wormed every 2 weeks until 8 weeks old, then every month until 6 months old, then every 3 months for the rest of their life? My pup could have died because this breeder didn't worm her properly or often enough. I got no apology from her about the fact that those worms could have killed my dog. And if it had? I hardly think I'd have been compensated in any way. No wonder she was so placid the first couple of days.

This pup was also meant to be toilet trained. She does her business on my porch! And all over the concrete walkways. I do take her to where I want her to go but she BOLTS over to where SHE wants to go I left her at home in her crate for not even 4 hours yesterday, when I got home all I could smell was poo. She had done her business in her crate and had run all through it!!! She had it all over her! My house reeked and my dog and her bed was covered in crap! She had done her business before I left the house, poos and wees so I can't see why she couldn't hold on! She has done this three nights this week and I've had enough of it.

Now the pup is outside because I'm sick of her pooing inside and the reek. She still sleeps inside. I wanted this dog mainly for my son. Which is why I spent a lot of money and went to a breeder. I was promised a wormed, toilet trained dog and for the money I paid it's what I expect. I just don't know what to do, she makes me so angry because she poos where she sleeps! It's meant to be instinct not to poo where they sleep and considering she's in a crate, it's even worse. I'm losing my temper with her, she doesn't even look me in the eye when I'm trying to get her to do something. Am I just expecting too much? I know I'm getting frustrated with her and I'm trying to be calm with her, but everytine I think things are going great she'll start chewing on my dining suite or something similar. Should I just leave her outside until she's fully trained and can respond to commands? Also is it normal for a dog from a breeder to be full of worms? And why advertise she is toilet trained when she obviously is not?

Take your dog back to your breeder, or find someone who will give it a loving home.

Then buy yourself a stuffed toy.

It doesn't chew, crap or bark. That is what you are obviously after.

My frustration doesn't mean I don't want her. Coming to that conclusion is a bit nasty imho and if you can't say anything constructive to me then say NOTHING. Go be nasty somewhere else thanks