Hi, i have a 2 year old bitch who had puppies in feb. One of the puppies has been returned to us and we have decided to keep her - she is 12 weeks old now. The problem that i have is that both mum and pup just won't leave each other alone. They are either playing together, sleeping or eating and while they obviously love each other deeply, i just need some ideas as to what to do to get them to calm down a little. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I once had one of my pups back at 4.5 months (owners on holiday) and I had a very similar situation the pup and my girl recognised each other immediately and the pup never left her side, my girl was more than happy so I left them to it for most of the time, what I did do was obviously leave the pup behind when we did our walks or would occassionally take him in a puppy carrier with us and I also would give them time away from each other too.

It's easy to do, just pop up a dog gate so that you can have them in seperate rooms at certain times of the day for you to play and interact with too, it is important that the pup spends a lot of time with you too, if seeing mum makes the pup whine for her or vice versa then close the door so she can not see her.

You also need to take the pup out on her own for garden play and bonding and 1 x 15 min walk with mum and a carry and 1 x 15 min walk with you on her own. Due to her age she will obviously pull more towards her mum than yourself but as long as you give them both seperate time too it will work out fine. I'm really pleased that your bitch is more than happy to spend so much time with her, but look out for her perhaps needing to get away too, pups can be pretty full on.

If you want some calm just seperate them. :-)

Thanks Carrington, have sent mum on a short holiday to my mums so i can have some time with puppy. Pup is very boisterous and is going to be quite a dominant dog as shes constantly challenging my other dogs, so i think i'm going to have my hands full. She was returned to me because the lady who bought her couldnt cope with her behaviour and yet she didnt leave me like it. She was with the lady for 3 weeks and was fed on bakers (she left me with a royal canin puppy pack!) so i put her hyper activity down to the bakers not suiting her but now shes back on royal canin and is still hyper. She also went with her litter brother who the lady has kept.

Ahhh.... wish you had explained all this previously, easy to see now why this pup is so boisterous going with a litter mate and having other dogs too in her new home and also being a bitch (who are generally bossier pups anyway) is a real good receipe for her to now be very hyper and bossy, she's acting like a dog in a dogs world as dogs have been her main interaction.

As breeders when we have a litter we do interact with our pups all the time for cuddles and play this distracts them from just playing with siblings and shows them another way to interact, (which is why she was calmer when she left you previously) there is a world of difference between wild dogs and domestic partially due to the way they are raised with lots of human contact, due to the fact she went with her sibling and other dogs at the house too she's most probably now acting more on being an instinctual dog than domestic pup if you can follow my drift.

In which case you've done the completely correct thing in now having her to yourself and sending her mum away, (well thought out :-) ) that way you can concentrate on calming her play and 'domesticating' her once more with plenty of one to one and human contact again.  When you get the mum back home you can then continue as my first post, you'll soon have her straightened out.

And you can't go wrong in getting rid of the Bakers, can't have helped much either.

Good luck, she'll soon calm down it may take a week or so though she is so used to dog interaction now don't expect miracles straight away, you'll have your pup back to normal soon enough, though I expect she will still be a tazmanian devil at times too.  :-)

Thanks for your advice. I'll let you know how things go.