Just came here looking for the last resource of advice. my wife and I have a 12 week old golden retriever puppy. To make a long story short, we never planned on getting a puppy as we have 3 dogs already, but the entire litter was adopted by her family and we felt like leaving just 1 puppy left, was, well sad. Back to my points, we do not feel like we can get this puppy trained, we’ve had her for 4 weeks now, the accidents continue to happen in the house, she doesn’t seem to know her name, leash training is going horribly, and overall just doesn’t seem to be clicking.
Potty training – we’ve tried multiple different attempts at potty training her in different ways, including some $40 training app she downloaded. we’re currently on the idea of special treats for when she pees outside and that’s the only time those treats are given to her. My wife hates the idea of bells on the door because she works in the vet field and has heard too many stories about the bells getting used for attention and not to go outside, so as much as I’ve heard it works, we’ve exed out that one. She continues to have accidents in the house and just can’t predict when they’re going to happen, they have become less frequent the older she’s gotten, but there’s no sign of her telling the difference between carpet and grass regardless of how often we make sure she goes outside.
Recall – her recall is pretty much nonexistent, while we know she’s only 12 weeks and it’s not going to be anywhere near perfect, she doesn’t even seem to know that we’re calling for her. We have sat there with her and just her calling out her name just to maybe get a slight look or a headtilt, but that’s all. Our 5 year old GSD knew her name within days around the same age and by 4/5 months could be off leash in the backyard and we knew with a yell of her name she was at the door within seconds.
Leash training – horrible, not sure how else to explain it, we’ve started trying to walk laps with her in the backyard on the leash (because we don’t take her on real walks yet due to not being fully vaccinated yet) she just bites at the leash and feels like she needs to be dragged, even when bribed to take some steps with treats.
We love this dog, BUT we’re tired, and we also understand at the end of the day she’s ONLY 12 weeks old and she’s still just a baby at heart, but are we insane for thinking that she should be better at this point? Or is this just the puppy blues??
(I should also mention the rest of the litter her family has is potty trained by this point, and one of them seems to be almost fully leash trained, while knowing sit and shake too.)
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