I don’t know what to tag this. Puppy, training, puppy blues, HELP lol. We are at a loss for what to do next. We have a 10 week golden mountain doodle, We got him at 8 weeks and he took to his crate really well and potty training also. He’d sleep in his crate at night and nap there during the day with minimal crying (we stayed with him til he settled then slowly started increasing distances). He was pottying outside most of the time and we even had a stretch of a few days without any accidents. He has never gone #2 inside, and has never gone in his crate.
We tried an xpen and tried to get him trained with that but he absolutely hated it regardless of treats, chews, us staying in there with him, so we stopped that and just went with his crate for daytime naps because he was doing well with it, and that worked well. We also have a dog sitter the entire time we’re at work, so he has only been alone in small stretches. He was also always bitey which is normal but it’s getting worse. We will redirect to a toy and if that doesn’t work we stand up when he bites us and if that still doesn’t stop it we leave the area for a short period of time.
Everything was going well until a few days ago he started getting MUCH more vocal, more bitey, and will only sleep in or out of his crate for 30 minutes at a time if that, and has been peeing every 5 minutes inside (unless he’s fully settled). He can still sleep 7 hours at night (last night lowly whined on and off for 30 minutes or so at 1am but no barking and fell back asleep until 5:30).
This all started on Friday, and Sunday we have been going to church for 1 hour. Last week was fine and he was still asleep when we got home. We wait til he’s settled and asleep in his crate and then leave, but this time he woke up as soon as we got to church and I guess was awake and barking for the whole hour.
He gets insanely excited about food and treats so we haven’t been giving him much in his crate to keep it as a calm space. Chewing also hypes him up so we haven’t been giving him any chews in there since he was settling well. We have 3 sides covered and put white noise on for him. When he sleeps at night I am visible in the bed and about 2 feet away.
We have been tether training him just while we eat. We are right near him but the tether cuts off right at where he’d be able to touch us, so he can still sit or lay down next to us. This worked well, he’ll bark and whine for a little but ultimately lays down. Saturday he fell asleep and stayed settled even when we cleaned up dinner, but Sunday he got up and started barking and whining nonstop. We are in the same room and visible the entire time.
With peeing, It seems crazy to think he’d be revenge peeing this early but even the sitter who regularly works in shelters thought he might be. He’d look right at her when she’d stop playing because he’s biting and just let 5 drops dribble out.
I assume him biting more is also from lack of sleep, but he won’t sleep anywhere. He used to settle on the floor or couch with us and the sitter, and even get up and move to the other side of the room from us and sleep but he won’t even fully settle there anymore either. He also doesn’t want to be held all the time so we’ll hold him and he’ll settle but when he wants off we let him off and don’t want to force him to be on us, but as soon as we let him off us it’s biting and hyped up.
We want him to sleep with us in bed eventually but also don’t want to create separation anxiety by giving in now, unless people think it could actually help. We do also have a puppy room that we are working on building up, but at this point we can’t leave him for more than a few seconds in there and it seems like it’s the only thing left that we have a chance with so we don’t want to screw it up but at the same time we have to find a way to manage him in the meantime.
I’m starting to think we are horrible parents and it will never get better. Could any health problems be causing this? We’re keeping an eye on the peeing today and will call the vet to check for UTI if it’s the same as yesterday but could there be any other reasons for this regression besides UTI or just being a puppy? we make sure his needs are always met, and we were only putting him down for naps when we could tell he was tired or at the first sign of his nipping signaling it’s time. If he settled himself we would let him do that outside of the crate.
I understand the 1 hour awake while we were gone could have scarred him on the crate, but he won’t settle anywhere else either that he used to so I don’t know what else to possibly do. If you read this far thank you
ETA: he gets a treat every time he potties outside (right after while he’s still outside) and he knows sit. He will sometimes just sit on his own and we make sure to reward him and praise him for being calm. He was starting to learn lay down and would randomly just lay down while we were doing things too. He has been doing this much less the last few days.
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