Thought I'll share some recent successes that we're seeing with our 10 week (tomorrow) Labrador. We had him for a week now and boy was it tough. A mix of ups and downs, with me being close to tears on multiple occasions. But! With the help of this subreddit and constant research we are getting a bit better with everything! Things I want to celebrate today: – we have successfully clipped his claws this morning when he was chill and mellow. It was the first time I was doing it and I think on one claw I was a bit close to the quick because he yelped when I applied pressure, so I stopped, waited for him to settle and then trimmed a bit further away from the quick – we started enforcing naps and trying to calm him down. When he's getting a bit mental after being up for some time, we put a toy stuffed with the remainder of his meal in his crate and close the door. We can then focus a bit on doing things in the flat. As long as we stay close he doesn't whine. He sometimes whines for attention but we just ignore it. – after sleeping in the living room for a week, I have finally started sleeping in the bedroom. We make sure that the pup settles and falls asleep with one of us near the cage (further away each time) and then creep out like cartoon burglars 😂 – we started recognising his vocalisations. It looks like whining means "come on, gimme attention" where as barking tells us that he needs something. – he's starting to go to his crate when we tell him "crate" which is amazing. He also knows "sit" and we're working on "down" but this one seems to be a bit elusive to him. – we're capturing calm when he's just lying in the floor chewing the bone, or being calm in his crate.
Next steps will be to keep reinforcing "crate", teach him "down" and start working in his recall. Hang in there, everyone! It gets a bit better with every day!
submitted by /u/Limp_Parfait
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