Hello im posting this on behalf of someone who bought one of my dogs (accidental) puppies. His new owners called this morning to say he has been crying all night and when they dont go to him he starts howling and screaming till they eventually give in and go to him. He is left in the kitchen at nights but not closed in his crate. They have said that during the day he goes to the crate of his own free will to sleep. I have tried to advise them the best i could. I have told them to practise leaving him on his own through the day by putting him in his crate and sitting with thier back to him till he is quiet then letting him out again then repeating and gradually extending the time he has to wait till he gets out, told them not to give him loads of attention when they do let him out of  the crate or when they have been out of the room for a while. And also training him to go to his crate on command and giving him lots of praise for going there. These are just things i would do with my own dog if it started to behave this way. He is 11 weeks old and they picked him up 4 days ago. When he was here we didnt let him sleep with his mum after the age of 9 weeks and made a point of leaving him alone for short periods through the day to try get him ready for leaving but he probably wasnt worried so much as he had always lived here and knew his mum was just in another room. Just wondered if there is anything else that would help them out. They are very good owners so i know they will put in the effort to try anything suggested.

I just think he is still adjusting to his new home. It's all new to him! I think they just need to persevere, be patient and follow your advice. My first puppy cried every night (more or less) for over a week when I had him. It used to distress me very much, I couldn't stand the howling. But I persevered. I just put earplugs on and apologized to my neighbours and in the end, he settled.

Hi Kim

as they only got this little mite 4 days ago, IMO the new owner should either be sleeping in the room the pup is left overnight or taking the pup in crate into their bedroom.  I never leave pups alone to get distressed - the pup has left mum, siblings, surroundings, people, basically everything remotely familiar to it and arrived in a strange place with strange people, sounds, smells etc. 

Being distressed is only natural in those circumstances and better IMO that new owners minimize the distress by not letting the pup feel abandoned or scared and do that by initially not leaving it alone overnight by either method described above.

By all means they can start to introduce brief periods of separation during the day but IME overnight is too much too soon and in any event the pup will need to be toiletted during the course of the night or early morning so better the owner is immediately to hand to take the pup out to relieve itself.

HTH, Teri :)

Alright thank you for that Teri and Gaelle :) I will tell them this later. They are not housetraining at the moment as he hasnt had his last injection and they dont have a garden he can use till he is vaccinated. The other times he does cry is when they are eating, they pop him in the kitchen while they have thier dinner but he cries then also.

It is worth deciding the long term rules now so that they know what to work toward eg not allowing dog in bedroom etc but allowing the puppy comfort in the early days won't ruin that long term aim and is more likely to produce a puppy happy with it's own company.

Our puppy did a week upstairs with us at night.  This gave him the comfort he needed whilst giving us time to get a rough idea of his bladder capacity and wee timetable!  When he started to sleep downstairs at night we would always put him to bed sleepy and try to anticipate his waking.  I found that getting up about 15 minutes before I thought he was due meant that I could get him outside, wait for a wee, praise him, and pop him back in without disturbing either of us too much.  We managed with a torch too, rather than switching the lights on.  It was a bit trial and error to get the timings right but after a couple of weeks we were pretty organised.  If you're careful you can avoid the shouting stage when your pup makes it sound as though the sky as fallen in!!  On the odd occasion that we missed the alarm I found he was too awake to settle properly and one of us would have to hang around til he nodded off.  I never gave in and took him out again though, bed means 'on your bed and stay there'

I used a crate or gate at mealtimes and he would sometimes shout for attention but I found that if I went and did a few jobs in his room he soon realised that we hadn't gone anywhere and he wasn't missing anything so would tend to just give in and have a kip.  He needed to learn that shouting and wailing wasn't going to get him what he wanted each time but I was also unwilling to let him get too distressed either.  One or other of the children would take a book and sit in his room with him, or we'd load the dishwasher, clean the cupboards - anything just to be there but without touching talking or eye contact.  He soon realised that he wasn't alone but he also wasn't in charge!!  My entire day is structured around the needs of my two dogs (and children obviously) but none of them really need to know that do they!! :)

how about giving them a blanket with mums scent on it

He did get a blanket with mums scent along with loads of toys he had when he was here. Just going to phone them now thank you for all the advice from everyone :)

its not separation anxiety
shes just a pup

I go with Teri's view, I'd rather get a decent nights sleep than a night of yowling pup.

When I got my third dog she was initially seperated at night from my big girls and kept in the kitchen after 2 nights of hell I decided blow this for a game of soldiers I'm sleeping on the sofa with the little toad.
Heaven, we slept through and I caught all of the tinkle alerts.

I did this for 2 weeks and then she graduated to the room with the big girls, they didn't eat her and I need not have worried  :)

Hi Kim
4 days is nothing - my Leo pup is only just starting to settle down..............6 weeks later!  For the first 2 weeks I slept on the sofa, then I started creeping upstairs for a couple of hours in my own bed, and now I'm back upstairs but still getting up once during the night to let him out.  He's an absolute angel in every other respect but he turned into a screaming banshee when left by himself.  He would work himself into such a state I was really concerned for him.  But it's been a case of little and often i.e. leaving the room, shutting the door, re-enter before he starts crying, if he's already started crying wait for him to stop (it may be a case of between breaths!), and pay absolutely no attention to him before leaving or when re-entering the room (not even eye contact), this way he'll learn that it's nothing to worry about, and he'll gradually get the message someone will always come back to him.  I've done this in the house, in the car, at other peoples houses, even out on walks (just slip his lead over something secure, walk a few steps away, wait, then collect him, saying nothing) and it's really starting to pay dividends.  It's frustrating, but I just kept reminding myself how I'd feel to be taken away from my family and thrown into a strange place, and I can guarentee I'd be reacting a lot worse than him!!

When I got my first poodle puppy 4 years ago he too cried the first night so the second night we took him into the bedroom with his basket and lots of newspaper for the floor. The following day my mum suggested leaving the jumper I had been wearing on a chair by his basket in the kitchen as it was an old jumper anyway I let him have it in his bed in the kitchen, it worked a treat and apart from a little whine when we shut the kitchen door no problems. When we got our second poodle pup 21 months later I bought a cage for him at night which I covered over the top with a blanket to make it snug, we had no problems at all this time. I did have the door closed for the first few months and then I left the door open for a while and gradually he moved to sleeping in a basket in the kitchen with my other dog.

I think we were blessed both pups went into a crate ( covered as you said) with a bit of old blanket from Mum & siblings not a sound from night 1. Jake same again he was next to Whistler who was 16 weeks by then not a peep.

Just spoke to the new owners again and things were much better last night. They took his crate into thier room and he went straight to sleep and slept through till 6.40 when he need to go for a wee on the paper in the kitchen. They will be working on his confidence at being left for short periods through the day and keeping him in thier room at night till he has settled properly. Thank you for all the advice again :)