Our chocolate labrador puppy is now 11 months old.
We've had some difficulty with trying to get him to settle in the past and have now started training with Canine behaviourists.
One of the things they've got us doing is capturing calm and rewarding when he pops his head down and relaxes.
He will offer this without prompting which is great! But he can only manage maybe a couple minutes before getting restless. He'll then get up, maybe lie down a few more times but eventually get frustrated and start chewing furniture.
If we pop him in his pen when we are in the room, he'll flop down and sleep. So he is tired, but he just cannot seem to settle outside of his crate or pen.
Any ideas? I feel awful having to put him in a pen or crate constantly. I'd love to have him settle in the same room while we watch TV but he is just so restless.
We can't use a bed or towel etc to mark a "place" to settle as he gets far too excited and chews all of them up which is another problem we haven't yet tackled. He is quite the handful!
Is this normal adolescence behaviour?
He gets two decent (~50m) walks every day morning and evening, as well as training and play. We're also trying to fulfill his breed specific needs by doing retrieves, scavenger hunts, letting him run around in secure dog parks etc.
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