ARottMweilerY said:
Welcome to the forum
, I'm new here too, just joined yesterday. I'm a professional dog trainer & behaviour specialist, so can try an help as much as possible. 5 weeks is really really young to get a puppy, it's better to get it at at least 6,7, or 8 weeks, 5 weeks they really haven't experienced and learned all they need to know before they are sent off to a new home. We are raising a litter of puppies at the moment. Since you have to take up from where the litter mates and mother left off, lol you'll have quite a bit to do. Don't worry though, we'll get you through it! A bit of advice right now... Is your puppy interested in any kind of treats right now or anything? Is it on puppy food yet? I'd start doing things like giving a treat everytime you see the puppy do something you want. Reward big time for every time the pup comes to you. I know they tend to follow you around lol, but it will get to the point where at some time they will get more confident and start leaving you more and more. When that happens you'll be happy you did it. If using a crate, don't reward ANY noise or anything you don't want. This includes yelling, hitting, and such at the crate. Completely ignore the behaviour, don't even look. Reward the pup when it's quiet / every time it's quiet in the crate. Only let the pup out when it's quiet. I can give much more advice lol. But I'll leave off right there. If you have any questions, please do post! We are all here for you and will help in every way we can. Once again, Welcome!
~Amy~
Thank you all so much for the warm welcome and the advice! it is much appreciated!
Ill give you guys a little blurb on Sara and her behavior and background,I guess I should have done that above lol...
(Amy, I will probably be pming you alot lol)
Heres Saras profile:
She was in a litter of pups at a barn in the middle of nowhere, outside in a horse stall, so we took her anyway despite her young age. To our surprise (pleasant!) She is so well behaved compared to most pups I have seen- my old roomates had dogs, and their behaviour as adults didnt compare to this puppies lol. Of course, they were not handled correctly, or trained properly so Im sure that had a huge amount to do with it.
Potty issues: None. This dog is too good to be true. She whines when she needs to go out (weve come to know her "i need to go" whine, her "im hungry" whine, and her "get me the hell outta this crate" whine.Shes very clockwork about going, and weve only had two accidents in the house- one the other day when were gone just a little too long (we lightly feed her now before i go to work..shes alone for roughly 4 hours during the day) but since then and we fed her lighter we have had no accidents. She peed last night in her sleep on the carpet, but I think that was understandable, we took her right outside and she went again. She lets us know when she needs to go out and waits until we get her outside. She goes the second she goes out, 1 and 2, and thats it.
Now, the biggest issue we do have with her is the "get me out of this crate whine". We ignore her as much as we can, I am giving her a plush toy tonight to try and ease her, I think (let me know if this is feasible) that she is just lonely and misses her littermates, the other night we were at a friends house, who took another pup from the litter, and they settled right down together the second we put her on the floor. Last night we let her get out a bunch of energy before she went in her crate. We praise her with "good puppy" "good sara" when she does good and we ignore her to the best of our ability (hard at 3 in the morning when abrubtly woken). She has started understanding though, and last night we were woken twice for her to go out, and she settled down after a few minutes of being in her crate. So i think shes learning that its a losing battle.
Food, we gave her esbilac for a few days, along with a little wet food, and now she is completely on dry food (Nutro Natural Choice). She is completely awesome about eating her food.
She comes to us when called outside, yet she is getting brave enough to go off on her own and find new places to poop. But she comes back to us, we can run and call her name and shell run after us.
She may be older than 5 weeks, this was the estimate the farmer gave the other girl who got a pup. I looked at a chart, and her behaviour seemed to match the chart for 5 weeks, but she may be 6. We are vetting her this weekend just to get a check up and see where we are age wise
I already dewormed her with Pyrantel Pamoate (strongid) and we are gonna get her on her heartworm prevention asap, Im in florida , mosquito hell. Heartworms are so sad to watch a dog go through and sadly so darn preventable.
Once again, thank you all so much for your advice and welcomes....feel free to give me any opinions on anything, I appreciate it very much! (I do not offend easily when people are helping me)
So if you see something that we should be doing differently, please speak up.
For the whining, do you think that she will slowly start understnading that this is the law of the land (her crate) as long as we dont give in to her when she cries? e have been trying our best. If she has already pottied and ate, I do try to ignore her as much as I can. (sometimes when I am half asleep I mutter out select words at her when she whines for no reason)
Other than that, I ignore her, I look at it as her being demanding and obnoxious and trying to boss me around.
Ok, Ive typed a book. If there are any questions, or concerns, do not hesitate to ask or tell me
