Screaming Staffy - Help!

[SheWolf]

Okay well I am going to say it as it is, what are you thinking when you say you are going to leave a Stafford pup in a crate night and day? That is not how to crate train a dog. Puppies need their liberty and your ignorant comment that by locking her in and letting her scream it out really demonstrates that you must be a first time Stafford owner.

Do some research and get some assistance with the proper way to crate train a dog. The dog must learn to regard the crate as her 'territory' or 'space', not as a tool of punishment. Puppies need large amounts of liberty (freedom).

Having had Staffords for over 35 years, I can emphatically tell you that they need lots of exercise and to be part of a family environment, not segregated in a crate, if you plan on keeping her crated while you are at work long term do the right thing and give her up right now to rescue.

Another disaster for a harmless puppy, just waiting to happen.

How about you read my post properly and not jump straigt on the "you're a bad dog owner" bandwagon? We did plenty of research and have managed to get many mixed reports about whether staffys are good in aprtments or not. The common consensus is that provided they get enough exercise and human interaction they will be absolutely happy in an apartment environment - which she will! Also, I came here for advice, not a scalding! We are not deliberately doing anything to harm the puppy or teach her bad habits, but are simply looking for advice from fellow dog owners. It seems different people and dogs have different ways of teaching and learning. And we won't be leaving the puppy in the aprtment alone during the day - she will be going to work with my husband, and on the occassion she cannot do that, we have a neighbour who will walk her in the middle of the day.

I see you have chosen to pull up each post you have disagreed with and rebuffed the contributer, mine included. When you ask for advice on an open forum you are going to get replies that you may not agree with, but that's part of seeking an honest opinion; As for re reading your post, I'd rather not as my tolerance for people treating living breathing puppies as stuffed toys is almost non existent these days.

The fact that you have even considered dumping her at your husbands office in the night to 'scream it out' so no one will hear tells a story in itself -

Likewise you comment you did your research and it MOSTLY is okay to have a Stafford in an apartment, how many Stafford owners did you run that by. I may seem harsh, but when you work in Stafford Rescue and have spent a number of years at the RSPCA you can see it coming.....

All too hard, puppy that doesn't want to spend 20 from 24 hours in a crate develops anxiety problems - deemed a 'problem' dog.

A dog crying to get out of it's crate can be a dog letting you know it needs to pee - how else does it let you know? So your 'theory' about not toileting it in the night is a load of hogswash - you need to get out of bed and toilet it when it signals you whilst it is a puppy.

You state you are a novice dog owner, but you obviously only want to do it your way - 'non release' on crying, just how does a novice dog owner determine a 'sooking' cry from a 'I need to pee' cry?

Good Luck with it, PLEASE, PLEASE remember this is a puppy, a pack animal who cannot hold it's bladder for 8-10 hours at 8 weeks old.

Edited August 8, 2011 by SheWolf

[Christina]

Basically pups/dogs should not live in crates.

Use for not peeing all over in the night & for a safe place when you need to do things like mop your floors or have little visitors etc.

For the rest of the time make a room puppy safe, put a barrier or gate across the door for when you can't watch pup or have it treking around the house at your heels & leave the crate open with all the nice things in that room & let him get used to going in there.

For my little tiny pups I make a huge pen about 10 feet long as it is dangerous to let them run unattended for a bit longer, they can get get heads stuck under the lounge for about 8 weeks but I would not be putting any breed in a normal dog crate & certainly not a carry cage for anything more than overnight or safety.

Many pups do scream at night, they are upset & babies, it stops. Your pup needs to run around & play like a puppy with less time in the crate.

[toofarnorth]

;) A little tip, dont let your pup chase the neighbors cat. This is likely to end in disaster at a later stage if you dont nip it in the bud now.

[BC Crazy]

Agree with dancinbcs, persephone & Bailey's mum.

Toilet outside,not inside & definitely not in the Crate !!

Totally defeats the purpose of using the crate. Would you like to sleep in the toilet? Same thing for pup.

Also sounds to me like your little one is spending far too much time in his crate. The more quality time you spend with your

pup now, will pay off big time when he is older & the better relationship you will have with him. This is the time to bond with

each other. Thats why littley's are called 'time wasters', I can't think of a better way to waste it.

If you feel you can't cope, with the puppies best interests at heart,give him back to the breeder.

Edited August 8, 2011 by BC Crazy

[TsarsMum]

No You should never put a toilet area inside the crate. That defeats the whole purpose of using a crate for toilet training. You are making her soil her sleeping area and will cause her to be terribly stressed. If you want have an indoor toilet area, have it away from the crate and get up to take her to it. Otherwise put the crate in a small room and leave it open with the toilet area at the other end of that room. When she wakes she will need to toilet immediately. At this age she will be flat out to hang on for even a few minutes and making her do so could cause UTIs.

Having said that I do not recommend teaching a dog that size to toilet indoors at all. It is alright for little toy breeds because they will never grow big enough to make a real mess and can be toiletted indoors like a cat for ever but you will not want a dog as big as a Staffy toiletting indoors as an adult and if you let it go inside at all it it much harder to teach it to go outdoors later.

I totally agree.

i think you are not sounding ready for a puppy.

i think you need to get some help now you have a bull breed dog in an aparment. whom who dont have any understanding of its needs.

maybe someone will put a link up too those books about puppy raising.

CALL THE BREEDER AND GET SOME HELP make the call now to get some help do the right thing. get up in the night to this pup. or send it back so it can be rehomed. and do some reserch and get a breed more suited to what you want and maybe an older dog.

this is a baby like a baby human it wakes needs to go to the toliet and needs love and reassurance.

[Baileys mum]

No You should never put a toilet area inside the crate. That defeats the whole purpose of using a crate for toilet training. You are making her soil her sleeping area and will cause her to be terribly stressed. If you want have an indoor toilet area, have it away from the crate and get up to take her to it. Otherwise put the crate in a small room and leave it open with the toilet area at the other end of that room. When she wakes she will need to toilet immediately. At this age she will be flat out to hang on for even a few minutes and making her do so could cause UTIs.

Having said that I do not recommend teaching a dog that size to toilet indoors at all. It is alright for little toy breeds because they will never grow big enough to make a real mess and can be toiletted indoors like a cat for ever but you will not want a dog as big as a Staffy toiletting indoors as an adult and if you let it go inside at all it it much harder to teach it to go outdoors later.

I totally agree.

i think you are not sounding ready for a puppy.

i think you need to get some help now you have a bull breed dog in an aparment. whom who dont have any understanding of its needs.

maybe someone will put a link up too those books about puppy raising.

CALL THE BREEDER AND GET SOME HELP make the call now to get some help do the right thing. get up in the night to this pup. or send it back so it can be rehomed. and do some reserch and get a breed more suited to what you want and maybe an older dog.

this is a baby like a baby human it wakes needs to go to the toliet and needs love and reassurance.

I also agree... do not let your puppy toilet in her crate, this is where she sleeps & shouldn't be her toilet too ,you need to get up every 2 to 3 hours during the night to let her pee... Puppies are alot of work, & you need to be prepared to put the time & effort in to care for her & train her properly. If you feel you are not coping & aren't prepared to put the work in, then maybe it would be better to send her back to her Breeder now for rehoming.

She shouldn't be spending so much time in her crate...if you need to confine her during the day when you are unable to watch her, buy a puppy pen & put her toys, food ,water & bed in it. Atleast this will be better than being cooped up in her crate all the time.

Good luck, but please remember that this baby is totally relying on you to love her, reassure her,& train he properly....if you feel you can't give her these things & not coping please send her back to her breeder.

[**Super_Dogs**]

Puppies are hard work!!

Like others have mentioned, it is not recommended to have a tiotet area in the crate. If you do not want to make tiolet trips during the night attach a pen to the crate, keep the crate door open, and put the tiolet area outside the crate in the pen area. When you pup can last the night without tioleting, remove the pen and tiolet area and shut the crate door.

There is an excellent DVD called 'Crate Game' by Susan Garrett which I highly receommend for crate training.

[Mason_Gibbs]

The focused puppy Clean Run gives lots of good ideas on how to raise a pup. Will take 3-4 weeks to get here which will be too long a wait for you.

[Rileys mum]

ok..what im going to write here is not intended to be rude or upsetting to you so please dont take it that way.

Firstly, if you want to crate train your pup (as you say you want to do) then you cannot let your pup soil its crate at night. It is going to cry in the night if it needs to go to the toilet...its what puppies do. How else is she meant to tell you she needs to toilet? Its not so much the fact of letting her out to toilet that will teach her that crying gets her out of her crate (as you seem to think it will) it is more how you deal with her once you put her back to bed. She may cry again when you put her back to bed but just repeat the advice that has been given to you in previous posts for when you put her to bed initially. By not letting her out in the middle of the night you will NEVER teach her to hold on. she will just learn to toilet when she feels the urge. Having a puppy hold on is something that is taught (very successfully through correct crate training) Also, puppies and dogs find it EXTREMELY distressing to toilet where they sleep. Please dont put her in the situation where she is forced to toilet in her crate... it will put your toilet training effors backwards more than i can explain.

Now...it also appears to me by reading your posts that possibly you actually dont want to 'crate train' your dog but rather want advice on how to keep it quiet when you keep it in the crate as a cage/confinement space...Sorry but you will be VERY hard pressed to find anyone here who will support this. It is cruel and just not fair on your pup. This initial stage is where you bond and have fun with puppy. If the above is correct, can i suggest possibly investing in a portable dog run type set up. It will give your dog a secure area it can be in while you are out but also give it more room to move and you can have a clear seperate area for your dog to toilet if that is the method you wish to use.

As i said initially, i dont want you to take what ive said as nastiness, i dont for a second think you are wanting to deliberately hurt your pup. Take the advice you have been given and really have a think about what you want to do. The advice given by others is very good and comes from very experienced people who have raised and dealt with puppies many many times. Good luck with your girl.

[k9angel]

Please don't allow her to soil in her crate, no matter how big the crate might be.

I am not picking or being nasty, just trying to get you to see it from her point of view and to help you both in the long run. So please don't be offended.

And besides, they can be smelly little buggers when they do their number 2's. She'll stink out more than her crate, that's for sure. ;) Not nice for you or puppy to sleep in.

Try setting up some newspaper in the laundry or bathroom and take her to do her business there, if you cannot take her outside. Once she's finished pop her straight back into her crate. It shouldn't take her long to get into a routine. Start her training now, stay patient and to keep it up. Persistance pays as they say ;) If she starts to cry or carry on after she's been to the toilet, just ignore her, I know it's hard but she'll go to sleep eventually. You'll soon learn to distinguish the difference between the "I want to get out and pee" cry and the "I want to get out and play" cry.

You want to get her into good habits now while she is young, because they'll be harder, if not impossible to break when she is older.

[megan_]

Can we please refrain from using angry faces when someone is asking a question? Way to make someone feel terrible and just stop asking...

The pup could be crying because it is lonely or wants to go to the loo. When they're tiny you need to get up a few times to let them out - do this before they start crying, otherwise they might think you're rewarding the screaming.

Feed the pup in the crate and treat/praise when they go in there. Don't always close the door.

[Ci]

It is perfectly normal for a pup to wake up a few times a night. They are babies. And she is in a new world and new place. And a stafford!

Pups don't get control of their bladders til they are about 6mths old. Try as they may to be good - they are going to have accidents. And they need to go every few hours.

Leave the crate door open so she can go in and out as she wants while she gets use to it. Let her familarize her self with and that it is her little den. Don't make her feel like every time she is in there she is trapped.

Play in there - feed her in there. Give her free access to it. Make sure that crate is big enough for her to feel OK in there.

I am just wondering from your early post - are you planning on leaving her crated all day when you are unable to take her and at night?

That's a hell of a lot of crating for any dog!

I personally don't use or agree with crating in those terms. I have no problem with a crate where the door is left open and the dog can go in and out as pleases and it works well for some dogs. For others crates do not work. And I can understand any dog not wanting to be locked in crate if it is for hours on end.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Ci

[Dogsfevr]

We board alot of Staffys & yes great screamers but above all very clean dogs who dislike soiling in the "space"

As much as you don't want to get up it isn't an option ,puppies mean work & there is no easy option for long term enjoyment.

We as a breeder start toilet training pups from 5 weeks,when they ask to go out of there pen we take them outside or to the area set up,they learn very quickly that toileting in the bed/pen is not allowed .

Your pups whining may well be a follow on from what has been established by the breeder .

You need to decide what the long term toilet plan is now & start the rules from day one,i presume toileting in the crate isn't the plan for the next 12 yrs??

So you need to set the rules now otherwise you will be retraining again in a few months time & it will become harder & harder when there older & been taught to toilet in a way that is underisred latter on.

The biggest toilet training failuers are confusion from day 1 .

Also if your partner plans to take pup to work be prepared for pup to play up when left .Many people take there pups to work & then when suddenly left all hell breaks lose & no matter what a determined Staffy can be a seek & destroy missile,

Also be aware Staffy's are well known for breaking out of there crates that is why the airlines have set crate rules for them so i would be careful in leaving your little one unsupervised in a crate or make sure your crate is escape proof

[Teebs]

My staffy can get out of every crate i have ever put her in, she just puts her head down and rams it till it breaks open.

For toilet training i taught mine that crying means they go outside, Atlas was 7 weeks old when i got him and in all his life he has messed inside ONCE - when he was very very sick.

Kaos wasa bit harder to train.

But both my dogs as puppies got taken out every few hours to toilet during the night, rain hail or shine, they learned that it was not play time and they had to go when i took them out, i would stand there until the went.

They now still cry when they want to go out, and i dont get mad about it, they have to have some way to tell me they need to go~

[Rileys mum]

hehe..they sure are little escape artists. My best friends Staffy broke out of his crate and literally tore the front door off her house. He ate the door into pieces. She had only left him in his crate for about 30 mins while she popped to the shops too. I could not believe my eyes when she showed me what he had done and in such a short amount of time. I never would have believed it had i not seen it lol. Hes a beautiful dog but suffers bad separation anxiety despite her efforts to help him.

[Sandra777]

She woke about five times during the night but managed to settle herself within 15 minutes each time.

5 times, screaming for 15 minutes at a time = one VERY stressed and unhappy puppy. Did you take her out side to pee on any of these occasions.

Letting her out of the crate when she wants to toilet is teaching her to tell you when she wants to go - one of the foundation stones of house training. Ignoring her is teaching her not to bother telling you, just go because you won't provide what she needs - which is OUT to PEE please!

Don't care if the crate is as big as a small house, she must not be forced to toilet in her living space, that is plain cruelty.

[Stevie's mumma]

Good Luck, I'm sure you are doing your best, and congratulations on your new family member!

[DaisyDog]

We board alot of Staffys & yes great screamers but above all very clean dogs who dislike soiling in the "space"

As much as you don't want to get up it isn't an option ,puppies mean work & there is no easy option for long term enjoyment.

We as a breeder start toilet training pups from 5 weeks,when they ask to go out of there pen we take them outside or to the area set up,they learn very quickly that toileting in the bed/pen is not allowed .

Your pups whining may well be a follow on from what has been established by the breeder .

You need to decide what the long term toilet plan is now & start the rules from day one,i presume toileting in the crate isn't the plan for the next 12 yrs??

So you need to set the rules now otherwise you will be retraining again in a few months time & it will become harder & harder when there older & been taught to toilet in a way that is underisred latter on.

The biggest toilet training failuers are confusion from day 1 .

Also if your partner plans to take pup to work be prepared for pup to play up when left .Many people take there pups to work & then when suddenly left all hell breaks lose & no matter what a determined Staffy can be a seek & destroy missile,

Also be aware Staffy's are well known for breaking out of there crates that is why the airlines have set crate rules for them so i would be careful in leaving your little one unsupervised in a crate or make sure your crate is escape proof

My BC X Staffy hates hates hates having accidents, on the very rare occasion she has an accident she is always so ashamed.

[Red Fox]

It seems different people and dogs have different ways of teaching and learning. It doesn't mean one way is superior to the other. She is being taken out every two hours during the day and last thing at night/first thing in the morning to toilet, and her crate is large enough that we have been able to set up a corner with newspaper and astro turf (to reinforce the grass message) so that if she needs to go during the night she can without soiling her bedding. This is a solution that works for us and has so far seen no nasty accidents. Eventually she'll be able to hold on during the night, once she gets older. I don't want to take her out at night when she cries, as that will simply reinforce that crying = release. I have discussed this technique with our vet and he is in agreement that it is a good approach.

This might be working for you now but I can tell you that it will come back to bite you on the arse sooner or later. It may seem like you are reinforcing the grass message, but you are more like reinforcing the it's okay to crap in your crate message.

You really need to start as you mean to go on, so if she's toileting at the other end of the crate as a pup she will continue doing so as an adult. Whether she can hold on physically then is irrelevant, if she has been taught she can go in the crate she won't hold, she doesn't need to.

Are you comfortable cleaning up crap from the crate of a full grown adult SBT?

Personally, I'm not. Nor am I with the thought of a dog eating and sleeping in the same area as they crap. But hey if you can deal with that go for it, it's your dog.

As for taking training advice from a vet - they are a vet trained to advise you on health related matters, not a trainer. Would you take behavioural advice from a doctor? Just a thought...

The approach you are taking during the day (taking pup out to toilet every hour or two) sounds pretty good though.

I also fail to see where others are getting the idea that this pup is crated too much? From my understanding the OP's husband will be taking pup to work with him during the day and pup is crated at night, I see no mention of her being crated all day ..or did I miss something?

[dancinbcs]

Can we please refrain from using angry faces when someone is asking a question? Way to make someone feel terrible and just stop asking...

I am usually very tolerant and willing to offer advice but just get so sick of new puppy owners who do no research on how to raise and toilet train a puppy BEFORE a getting one. If you don't know at least the basics of how to raise a puppy, don't get one. The OP has admitted she has never raised a puppy before but has these stupid and cruel ideas about how to do it and will not take the advice offered by many experienced dog owners on here. Anyone treating a puppy badly makes me very angry.

This puppy would be far better off returned to the breeder who should also be rapped over the knuckles for selling a puppy into this situation in the first place.