Try tiring him out...I dont mean by just taking for a long walk, it needs to be MENTAL as well. Work his head getting him to sit, down, or whatever else you want him to learn.
dogs need mental and physical exercise. Screaming at the dog wont help, instead when he starts to chew something give him a toy instead - Nylabones are good, and also stuffed kongs with peanut butter.

Another good thing i heave learned my 11 week old pup is to leave it and take it. That way when she goes to get something I dont like I can say leave it (sometimes lol).

To do this what you want to do it: Show puppy a treat and say "leave it" and put it on the floor, cover it up with your hand. Puppy will try to scratch etc to get it but as soon as she stops and looks at you click. Then say "take it" and let her have it and click again. increase the time - mine got it after 2 10 minute sessions.

As for pooing and weeing - My Roxy is mostly housetrained now but she still does the odd accident. You just have to keep an eye out for any signs and take out regulary. I have given my Roxy a que of "Go Do do" when I want her to go wee or poo. even if she doesnt really want one I say it to her and most of the time she will try and trickle a little wee for me outside.


Good luck - keep us posted.

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Hi, Just wondered how thinkgs are now a couple of months on?? Today I am at the end of my tether with my 11 week old puppy for exactly the same reasons you were. What helped, and what didn't? And how are things now?? Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

Both springers and labs are working dogs with lots of energy, it's been touched on above, but it definitely sounds like she's ready to get out into the big wide world for some quality exercise and bonding time with owners.

You say she went for her first ever walk today, why hasn't she been walked sooner? She needs to get out as soon as possible, start meeting people, strangers, other dogs, cats, cars, traffic (meeting not jumping into), police sirens. If she doesn't, 'unsurity' will turn into 'fear' which usually leads to fear-aggression which leads to rehoming or worse. I'm guessing it wasn't for long as starting at 4:30 means you had very little daylight.

From today, take her out for two or three lots of half hour at first, encounter as many environments, people and places as possible, start with structured on-leash walks, don't remove that leash until her recall is at least 50% outside and even then only in secure areas. Use a short leash for walking, a long leash for recall training and avoid retractable ones, the springer's insanity and the lab's body mass make for one hell of a pulling machine, if you never teach her to pull, it will make life easier as it goes on. Turn 2/3 into 2 good walks, one hour in the morning/or early afternoon and a shorter one in the evening. (Can switch these round or make them longer, this isn't set in stone) but 90 minutes per day MINIMUM is perfect (I appreciate with the weather, not always achievable). You can't overexercise a dog, although when free-running, keep an eye on her back legs as some labs get exercise induced collapse, (My Springer x Lab did) 10 minutes rest if his legs start wobbling is usually enough to bring her back to her usual self.

Peeing and pooing in the house: Keep his day structured and you should be able to catch these, especially the latter, if she's walked and fed at the same times every day, you'll see a pattern and be able to adjust timings to suit you.

Locking her in the garden or crate as punishment should stop, as should screaming. While I completely understand your frustration, dogs don't respond well to any of it and just see it as unbalanced annoyance.

If she is walked 90 minutes per day, you will immediately start to see a change. Remember that while we have Internet and TV, friends, telephones, family, cars, work, shopping etc etc. your dog has just you to depend on. Keeping her locked indoors will create frustration and an energy build up.

I have an 11 month old Greyhound X if I miss just one walk, he'll let me know about it. As it happens, he's currently resting from his morning run enabling me to get on with my day.

*EDIT* Sorry I didn't see how old the original post was, please ignore my assumption regarding lack of daylight. I assumed it was more recent.

OK take a deep breath - yes this is frustrating but with getting back on track on the right start you will soon see improvement.

I am a little concerned that your active little puppy is showing so much conflict behaviour - what you see as the crazy stuff is more likely to be a symptom of not being able to calm herself down.
This goes with the lack of self control she is also showing.

She's a little early with that stuff but it just means that you are in at the deep end a little

Your pupy doesn't necessarily need more physical activity but needs more structure and tons and tons and tons of self control work. This can all be done relatively simply with small training exercises. She also needs to get into a well run puppy class ASAP.

Download Dr Ian Dunbar's Before and After Your Get Your Puppy from here for free! This will get you back on track.

Also the Pet Central blog is running a month of training & socialisation plans for Jan 2011: SYP Month | Pet Central's Pawsitive Dawgs Blog! Simple exercises and weekly goals will help with pretty much all the issues you are experiencing with your pup.

You need to persevere and get down to some serious training and socialisation work - thats what having a puppy is all about

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Anne, owned by Rufus & Tripod

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"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts." - John Steinbeck

"If you don't want your dog to bite you, don't be an a**hole to him." ~ Dr. Ian Dunbar

Puppies are so lovely and so much fun, but they need to learn the rules of their home so they will know what is and is not expected.

Probably the first thing I ever do is establish a routine, especially for walks and also for feeding. They should always be at the same time and a tired dog goes to sleep - and doesn't rip up the carpet or your best shoes, so I would make sure that the length of the walk grows as your puppy does!

Everything you have described sounds about right to me. Puppies do leave puddles and do chase around and springers do get bored very easily (at least in my experience). They are like other working dogs, as others have said. They are intelligent animals who need to be trained and kept active by games, toys and chewing items such as chews.

If she can hold off from going in her crate then she can be house trained - what is happening is that she seems her crate as 'home', now you need to extend that to the rest of your house.

I would start to take your dog out every hour during the day, and praise her when she goes, perhaps saying 'toilet' or something else (could be biscuits - the word doesn't matter) when she does what you want. Once she gets the hang of it - and she will - you can then extend the time stage by stage until she can hold on for a few hours. Saying 'toilet' or similar will eventually mean you can say your special word and she will produce when you want her to, most of the time, but that is some way away yet.

Right now, don't be surprised if she goes on your nice kitchen floor immediately after a walk, dogs do that. She will very quickly learn where to go as long as you consistently do the same things over and over again and take her out at the same times each day. If you have to go out, get in a dog walker to keep up the routine.

Can I just add one thing, the second she goes, she forgets what she did so there is no point telling her off or giving her time out in the garden or crate - she doesn't understand why she has been excluded. The best thing to do is not to react and just clear it up. Praise is a much stronger dog training tool, praise her whenever she does what you want - most dogs only ever want to please you and there is nothing wrong with yelping yourself in dissatisfaction if she bites - her mother would have done just the same!

I can promise you one thing, train up your little girl so she knows what is expected of her and take her to obedience classes as soon as you are able, and you will very quickly be wondering how you ever lived without your girl.

Best of luck
Sue

I know exactly how you feel and I remember last year doing a similar post myself with almost the same title. I was seriously considering giving her up and that seems unthinkable now. Stay consistent and firm and you will get there. Now you can get out and about wear pupster out on walks. I know there are some who limit pups when first walking but for us we needed to wear out a hyperactive pup and that is what we did. When we came back from the walk we then had what we called 'puppy zoomies' where Bo would go beserk round the house for about 5 mins.

This is just a faze and you do not have a devil dog or a bad dog, just a normal puppy. I should know, we've just got another one who is just over 11 weeks and are going through it again

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Bo - Cocker Spaniel x Border Terrier
Badger - Cocker Spaniel x Lakeland Terrier

have just reread my desperate message and just wanted to update that we are slowly getting there! We had about a month of nice behaviour and now we seem to have entered the adolescent stage! eek she's barking alot, recall that was previously brilliant is now not so good and she is not sitting on command 100% of the time and her lead pulling is awful apart from when we walk her in the dark!

But we are still enjoying her and are working on the training as we have neglected her alot recently due to a number of factors so we have stepped up the basics again and are using food rewards more as she is very food motivated!!!!

thanks for all your responses!

Bearing in mind that Labs are bred to retrieve, and springers are bred to flush game, the running around and *biting* does not surprise me one bit. I have a four year old Lab bitch whose favourite way of greeting me is physically holding my hand in her mouth and wagging her whole body.

Get the recall nailed, with the spaniel in there, they tend to get their nose down and hunt. Short sharp training sessions that you reinforce on a walk, don't try and combine the two. If you can't do both first thing, just do a training session in the garden, lots of praise for getting it right.

I have an 8/9 month old cocker spaniel pup here, he's a bit of a b*gga for pulling on the lead, but then we've only just started heelwork training. All I've worked on for the main part is his recall and sit, or 'hup' as it's called for working spaniels. Both of those are really pretty good for a dog of his age, and he's showing a lot of promise.