Separation Anxiety in puppy

50Twuncle

We have a 9 week old toy cockerpoo puppy that cries LOUDLY every time that my wife leaves the room - even for a few seconds - she also terrorises the two cats (who are at least 5 times her size/weight) - She chases them out of the room.
She also pees and poops on the floor indoors (she is not yet toilet trained) - despite being taken out in to the garden approx every hour during the day and every 3 hours at night (she does sleep in a crate in our bedroom) - she always leaves a bit more to do indoors a few minutes after coming back indoors.
We are at our wits end with her and are considering returning her to the breeder !!
Any advice welcome

Paradigm

At 9 weeks old you can't have had her for much longer than a week or 2, just what are you expecting?


Have you had a puppy before?

Fosterdog

Without meaning to sound harsh if you are considering taking her back at the first hurdle then maybe a puppy is not the right pet for you and she may well be better finding a new home while she is young enough to get over the trauma quite quickly and with someone who is prepared to put in the time and effort to socialise and train her properly. Between now and twelve weeks old are the most important weeks in a pups life for setting them up for a good future.

50Twuncle

Paradigm wrote: »

At 9 weeks old you can't have had her for much longer than a week or 2, just what are you expecting?


Have you had a puppy before?

No - my wlfe has had rescue dogs, myself - just cats
We've had her 10 days

50Twuncle

Fosterdog wrote: »

Without meaning to sound harsh if you are considering taking her back at the first hurdle then maybe a puppy is not the right pet for you and she may well be better finding a new home while she is young enough to get over the trauma quite quickly and with someone who is prepared to put in the time and effort to socialise and train her properly. Between now and twelve weeks old are the most important weeks in a pups life for setting them up for a good future.

We realise this - hence the dialemma - she can be trained - but it is the constant crying that concerns us - she is missing her litter and mum and we need to replace them with ourselves
I have a hospital appointment tomorrow and she will be left on her own for about an hour - we dread to think what state she will be in by the time we return
We ARE prepared to do ANYTHING to keep her - we have her booked in to puppy training in 2 weeks - but don't know whether we can last that long.....
We took her for an initial assessment at puppy training on Friday and (of course) she behaved - did exactly as she was told etc etc

GwylimT

This is what puppyhood is like I'm afraid.

The cats. You cannot let her annoy the cats, that simply isn't acceptable. I also speak as someone with a cat and a dog, so I have had a puppy and a cat a few times.

Crying, this is normal. When ours are puppies we leave the room with absolutely no fuss, return a few minutes later, give pup a quick stroke and regularly repeat the process. Remember they have never ever been alone, so its a very stressful time for puppies.

Toileting, you know she is saving some for inside, so keep her outside for much longer until the second wee/poo is done. What reward are you giving each time a wee/poo is done outside?

Personally I wouldn't leave such a young puppy for that long, can your wife not get time off work, or can a neighbour watch her? She is at the prime age of seperation anxiety as you have seen, leaving her for an hour could lead to it being almost impossible to move past seperation anxiety. Yes, no your problem if she is rehomed, but it would be a huge challenge for her, which isn't reallt fair on her, or the new owner her breeder would choose.

Puppy classes, yes, they're good as gold at the classes and pains in the bum at home, its because owners are too soft, so pooches know they can get away with murder.

Did you look into the breeds? Poodles are high energy and very intelligent dogs that need a lot of stimulation, what sort of cocker was the other parent? Again, most cockers are known for being bonkers, thats why mongrels can often be a risk personality wise. So pup is going to need very strict boundaries to have manners, generally training is fairly easy, its the manners aspect that are the tricky bits to master.

Fosterdog

I know it can be tough, I've fostered a lot of dogs with varying levels of "issues" but the two most difficult by far were a four month old pup who had just been kept in a garden and an 11 month old who had little basic training and even less socialisation. The four month old was still young enough to work with and in just two months he was a different dog and after a further two months went on to a fantastic new home where he is still a happy well trained boy.

The 11 month I have since adopted, she is now 16 months and is still a work in progress, she missed so much of her vital socialisation when she was young enough that she has been left as a borderline dangerous dog, not good when she is a large GSD, she has come on in leaps and bounds but there are no quick fixes and we may never have a well adjusted dog that we can take to the beach etc. We can only do our best and keep putting in the time and effort and hope that one day we can undo all of her problems.

Back to your dog though, if her toilet training is not the best but you know that she will hold some back, have you tried taking her out, praising her for what she does do, take her back in the house for just a few seconds and take her back out again and big praises again for toileting. Rather than taking her out every hour cut it down to every twenty minutes, take her out for five minutes then back in the house. If this starts to work slowly increase the time between breaks by no more than five minutes at a time. This is the only method that worked with our girl.

Does she toilet in her crate? It is quite rare for dogs to do this and could be the sign of something wrong, has she been checked by a vet? Have they done a urine dip test? It could be like when humans get a bladder infection and within seconds of a wee need to go again.

The crying, is it only when your wife leaves the room? If so the rest of the family need to work on bonding with her. Try distracting her with a game not as your wife leaves the room but just before. Again build up the time she is away start by leaving the room for a second and coming straight back in then add a few seconds at a time. Also try getting her to leave your wife by following you in to another room.

You need to work on tiring her mind as well as her body, lots of short training sessions throughout the day, maybe feed her from a Kong or treat ball so she has to work for her food.

For tomorrow, yes she will probably be stressed being left and it is too short notice for any training to work, it is something you will just have to deal with. If she is better in her crate try crating her when you go out, no good for long periods but an hour shouldn't be too bad especially if crate time us usually bedtime she may settle well.

With her being so young now is a great time to start on training and she should pick up new tricks and commands easily, it works well for creating a bond, tiring her mind and training her all at the same time. Working on a good leave it command should go on to help with the cat chasing too.

50Twuncle

Fosterdog wrote: »

I know it can be tough, I've fostered a lot of dogs with varying levels of "issues" but the two most difficult by far were a four month old pup who had just been kept in a garden and an 11 month old who had little basic training and even less socialisation. The four month old was still young enough to work with and in just two months he was a different dog and after a further two months went on to a fantastic new home where he is still a happy well trained boy.

The 11 month I have since adopted, she is now 16 months and is still a work in progress, she missed so much of her vital socialisation when she was young enough that she has been left as a borderline dangerous dog, not good when she is a large GSD, she has come on in leaps and bounds but there are no quick fixes and we may never have a well adjusted dog that we can take to the beach etc. We can only do our best and keep putting in the time and effort and hope that one day we can undo all of her problems.

Back to your dog though, if her toilet training is not the best but you know that she will hold some back, have you tried taking her out, praising her for what she does do, take her back in the house for just a few seconds and take her back out again and big praises again for toileting. Rather than taking her out every hour cut it down to every twenty minutes, take her out for five minutes then back in the house. If this starts to work slowly increase the time between breaks by no more than five minutes at a time. This is the only method that worked with our girl.

Does she toilet in her crate? It is quite rare for dogs to do this and could be the sign of something wrong, has she been checked by a vet? Have they done a urine dip test? It could be like when humans get a bladder infection and within seconds of a wee need to go again.

The crying, is it only when your wife leaves the room? If so the rest of the family need to work on bonding with her. Try distracting her with a game not as your wife leaves the room but just before. Again build up the time she is away start by leaving the room for a second and coming straight back in then add a few seconds at a time. Also try getting her to leave your wife by following you in to another room.

You need to work on tiring her mind as well as her body, lots of short training sessions throughout the day, maybe feed her from a Kong or treat ball so she has to work for her food.

For tomorrow, yes she will probably be stressed being left and it is too short notice for any training to work, it is something you will just have to deal with. If she is better in her crate try crating her when you go out, no good for long periods but an hour shouldn't be too bad especially if crate time us usually bedtime she may settle well.

With her being so young now is a great time to start on training and she should pick up new tricks and commands easily, it works well for creating a bond, tiring her mind and training her all at the same time. Working on a good leave it command should go on to help with the cat chasing too.

No - she hasn't made a mess in her crate at all
She is full of boundless energy - virtually a duracell dog - very hard to tire out
She eats mud as well

arbrighton

You've got a nine week old puppy. Comes with the territory. Naive to think otherwise

She cannot be left for an hour if she can't manage a minute or two.

sheramber

Welcome to the world of puppies.

it is common for them to toilet twice so don't bring her in after the first. Wander around the garden for a while until she goes again. Reward her where she goes, not when she comes back in.

Boundless energy is normal for pups but particularly for a cockerpoo. Did you not research her breeding before buying her?

It is normal to eat mud and lots of other 'orrible things. Puppies are like babies- they test everything with their mouths and don't know what is good and what is not. One reason why they need to be watched constantly.

Taking on a mature rescue dog is very different from a young, immature puppy. Invest in a good , positive training puppy training book such as Gwen Bailey's Perfect Puppy

jrtfan

Mud, their own poo - you name it, pups will give it a try. Maybe keep one of her favourite toys to hand when you take her into the garden, so that you have something with which to distract her if she does anything undesirable?

My last dog, when he was a puppy, would start to howl if I got into the bath, until he worked out that he could see me if he stood on his back legs and looked over the rim.

You'll need to have lots of patience and, very importantly, make sure that you're consistent with any training you give her. Loads of positive reinforcement whenever she gets something right - big fuss, happy voice, maybe a tiny treat as well if she's food-motivated. Keep calm if she get anything wrong. She will learn very quickly at this age.