Can anyone give some suggestions before we lose our tempers?!

We brought our new Cocker Spaniel pup home 10 days ago, so admittedly it's early days yet. But he's VERY wilful and we're finding that the methods we used with our now 6 year old Springer as a pup, don't seem to work.

We have a crate for him which is on the landing outside our bedroom, and he is now learning to sleep for longer at night and when he wakes durng the night goes back to sleep after we've taken him out for a wee. But when he wakes up at about 5.30-6.30am and it's daylight he won't go back in his crate without whining, yelping. barking and howling. We ignore him and only let him out when he's quieter, but that is generally a case of jumping in when he draws breath as he won't give it up.

We can leave him in his crate when we go out for an hour or so, but unless he's sleepy he makes a huge fuss, barking, whining and howling until we get back (we've recorded him!). e're going to go back to square one and leave him for a few seconds, a few minutes and gradually build it up, but I'm worried this may not have the desired effect.

When he's fully awake he gets totally hyper biting everything he comes into contact with (us, clothes, general objects) and will not respond to either ignoring him, or telling him no and pushing him away.

He's also very vocal about everything and barks, whines and yelps whenever he's nt getting his own way. This is something I haven't come across with other dogs and have no idea how to quieten him down.

He's extremely confident, nothing scares him and is happy to be in a room on his own when he's sleepy, which is why we find it strange that he gets so worked up when left on his own otherwise.

Our other dog is a very sensitive soul and us raising our voices to the pup is also stressful to him, so we need to find an effective way of teaching the puppy ASAP. Our older dog is also epileptic so we try to make sure he has as little stress as possible - we realised there would be upheaval for a few weeks/months with a new puppy, but we're worrying that we're not managing to calm the new pup at all yet and desperate to be able to take him out for walks to wear him out a bit!

We subscibe to the reward school of training, but how do you stop them doing something wrong if ignoring them won't work? He does appear to learn some things quickly, he just can't understand that he can't have his own way and shouting about it won't help!

Apologies for the lengthy post but thought I might as well mention everything!

Thanks v much

Animals tend to work around their biological clock which is tuned into nature, hence if they see daylight they believe it is time to get up.

Have you considered black out curtaining?  Alternatively once you have let him out, put him back in his crate with a special treat ie a stuffed kong.

Puppies need gradually exposing to alone training ie being alone for a seconds, then minutes then tens of minutes whilst you are still in the house before you actually leave.  Again, give him something that he never gets at any other time so that he looks forward to your absence.

Pushing him away physically is like an invitation to play.  Reprimanding him is giving him attention, remember dogs like any attention rather than being ignored so if he does get too much, just remove what he wants ie you for a few seconds.

There is really no need to raise your voice to your puppy.  He is not deaf and if he was it would be even more pointless.

What are you feeding and what is your daily schedule roughly like ie have you made a diary of when he sleeps, when and how long you play with him train him, how long do you expect him to be on his own etc.

You may find that when you write that down it may reveal more than you thought.

Have you joined a reputable class so that you could get some advice and share your problems with others?

He sounds perfectly normal to me and sometimes we forget just how exhausting a puppy can be if we have not had one for several years :D

I've just purchased a great package from Gwen Bailey who is a dog behavourist, it's called training for life, you get a video, six booklets and a tape cassette to play to your pup, it really is worth getting, it's for pups 8 weeks to 5 months old.  It shows you how to stop your pup mouthing things you dont wont it to, how to stop unwanted behaviour, you can get it off amazon.  By the way i think you are doing the right thing going back to basics with the crate training.  What i done with my pup when she chewed on things i didn't wont her to was to disracted her with toys whenever i seen her biting something i didn't wont her to, now she will just chew her toys or boys asoon as i say no and then replace the thing she is chewing with her toy or bone, then when she chews it i praise her.

Warm regards Susan

I think that Thome has the right idea and above all you need to find things to keep him busy. I found that doing 5 minutes training then expecting my pup to sit quietly with a chew for a bit, every hour worked quite well. At that age they have a short attention span, so there is little point doing anything for more than a few minutes. The other thing is not going back to the dog in its crate if it is making a noise. I know that this can be easier said than done!

Good luck and bear with it it does get easier.  

Thanks guys. You're basically enforcing everything I already knew, we just need to keep on at it. We've started hiding titbits in his crate when we go out/go to bed and he's loving that, and using titbits to train is working well as he's very food motivated at the moment. Our other dog was toy motivated so that's what we started with and the pup was no-where near as interested.

The hardest part is that my husband works from home - good in that he can be with the dogs most of the day, but it means the pup has to learn that he can't have attention all the time as there's work to be done! He does seem to be learning that though - he definitely picks things up quickly, but is just very wilful when it comes to getting what he wants!

How old is he? You sounded like you were talking about my pup!! He is very vocal & very greedy!! But he is only 10.5 weeks old.  I comparing it to the "terrible two's" phase in children. When they have more energy, but they arn't at play school yet. We run out of idea's. I think all my pup needs is a good run in the park, then he will behave! A tired pup is a happy pup!  But he can't go out for another 2.5 weeks!! Good luck, its hard work, but it will be worth it.

He's 10 weeks today! We actually had two very good nights Sunday & Monday, and then last night it all went pear-shaped - wouldn't settle when we'd let him outside for the loo in the middle of the night, and was up and down all night - wouldn't be so bad if he would get bored of barking and howling every so often....

We fed him later than usual and didn't play as much in the evening so I'm hoping it's just a combination of those two.

He's still not at all good at being left, and we haven't had the opportunity yet this week to get back to basics again and start at just a few seconds and build it up. Much as we want to enjoy his puppyhood, we're just looking forward to full nights' sleep and being able to leave him on his own without fear of him annoying the whole road!

What breed have you got?

He is a Golden Retriever.  We also have a a G/R bitch who is 15 months & very good!! She has never barked at night, but she slept with us after crying one night. Now she sleeps in the kitchen in her bed & loves it.  We had a crate for Alfie (the pup) at first, but after a few sleepness nights we let him sleep him Abbey (the girl).  He has been an angel every since! We put paper down for him & the last 2 nights he has barked once then gone quiet.  We come down in the morning to 1 tiddle on the newspaper.

How is your other dog with your pup?  Maybe he will be quiet if he can sleep with the older one. As long as the older one doesn't mind.  We never crated out first one, just confined her to the kitchen, which is puppy proofed.  We only brought the crate because we didn't know how Abbey would be with a puppy. Once we were sure she loved him, we let them sleep together.

Yeah, what you've done would the ideal for us too - our older dog is a Springer and he's very good with the puppy, although not sure he'd tolerate him sleeping with him yet. Jarvis (the pup) does like to curl up near him when they're just around the house, but Rolf (our Springer) seems to like to be in his bed on his own. He sleeps in his bed in our room as he's epileptic and we want to be able to get to him quickly if he has a fit. We could put Jarvis's bed next to Rolf's but we'd then have to contend with accidents in the bedroom, and it's not really puppy proof enough for us to feel happy falling asleep with him loose in there - he's a bit of a chewer!

I don't want him to get used to being allowed out to the toilet at night, as I can't face getting up each night when he's grown up! So having him outside the crate would probably be better as he won't go if he's in there and will just cry to go outside - I suppose he might just stop waking if he doesn't need to go though. Do need him to be used to the crate though as he's such a chewer he'll need to be put in there when we go out!

Little treasure....I know we never had any difficulties with Rolf, and I'd always thought Springers were more mental than Cockers!

Just because he isnt allowed out for a run dosent stop you carrying him about and taking him for a ride in the car. Just seeing lots of different things will be tiring for him and it is a really good start to socilisation. 

We're already taking him out when we walk our other dog, and he's very good in the car.

Latest update: we decided that with him on our landing where he's been for about 10 days, it's hard to be able to ignore him when he's barking etc at night, so last night we moved his crate to the hallway and dug our heels in to ignore him. I anticipated a bad night as it was a bit of a change for him, and thought it could be a while before he calmed down.

Anyway after 3 HOURS SOLID of barking - literally like machine gun fire there was that little let up - he still showed no signs of calming down. Someone had suggested walking around near him but ignoring him so that he can see you're there but isn't getting any attention. We tried this a few times but it made no difference. Eventually we went down and when he drew breath took him out and he had a wee, then came back in. My husband stayed with him till he was nearly asleep and eventually he slept for about an hour and then it started all over again. So that we could get some sleep we finally took him back out for the loo, then brought his bed into our room, and he settled in there for a couple of hours till we had to get up.

I have had two Springers & two Cockers in my lifetime and never experienced a dog that will just not give up like this. We can't have another night like last night as it's not good for him, our other dog or us. I feel our options are to leave him in the hall again tonight in the hope he won't be as bad as last night, move him back up to the landing in the hope that the bad night he had there two nights ago was just a glitch, or give up and put his bed in our room - and hope we wake up whenever he gets out of bed so that we can take him out to the loo, and stop him chewing things. The final option I think is most likely to mean calm nights, but it then means the only time he'll be in the crate is when we go out, and as he's already to happy about being left I think that will make it worse.

Has anyone has a dog that has made this much fuss for as long (or longer) at night? How can we calm him down? He was knackered when we went to bed so we thought we had a good chance of him sleeping, and I settled him in his bed, but it made no difference. I realise you have to persevere at these things, but 3 hours solid barking/howling at night is not easy to continue unless you live in either a fully soundproofed house, or a detached house in the middle of a field! Not to mention the fact that we have to get more than 2-3 hours sleep a night since we both work full time.

I think you deserve a medal - the George Cross at the very least - for persevering - best of luck - I last about 10 minutes when my pup cries...

Blimey, I'm so glad to hear someone say that! Was expecting a host of responses about how we're just not sticking with it long enough.....

I feel for you, you seem to be doing all the right things, but he's just being a little sod and really pushing you to the limits.  I hope it gets better for you.  Caz

My word he is showing his cocker determination!

OK now I cannot make any guarantees and I know that there are plenty of people out there who will have a problem with this, but I acutally take a pup to bed with me for the first couple of days and gradually move it away as it gets used to its new environment. I find that I can sleep with the pup on a rug on the covers beside me and if it wakes up I feel it moving and also wake up. Anyway after a couple of days when the pup has a routine and all are getting a good nights sleep the pup goes in to a large deep box or a crate beside the bed, so that if it makes a noise I can just reach over and reassure it. 

My theory is that it is an enormous shock to a pups system to suddenly be seperated from its pack at such a time and that some of them literally cannot sleep without the feeling of being with the pack. Most people would want a new born baby close to them so why should it be different with a pup, whos instinct to be close to others is probably stronger?

Hi, I am answering this from the privileged position of having middle-aged dogs and a full night's sleep - when I am on here posting about a new pup that gets up early, feel free to laugh!

If the problem is one of separation, then Bluebell has a point.  You talked about instituting a programme of training the pup to be alone.  Until that training is in place, your pup doesn't know how to be alone at night and so this makes it a priority.  As you rightly say, it is important to get working on this for the sake of the dog which has epilepsy and needs stress free nights (as do you!)

However, from your original post, it seemed that on the landing was working until about 5.30 - 6.30am, so that's a start.  If that no longer works, I would bring him as close as it takes to get him back into the comfort zone and sleeping until 5.30.  When he's more confident at being alone, you can think about gradually moving him out.

Then you have to deal with his early morning start, which is a tricky one and various suggestions have been made on other threads.  I think I'd opt for choosing a fairly early time like 6.30 at which point I'd suggest one of you gets up with him.  Which means that any noise before 6.30 am will just have to be ignored and that means really ignoring it and not changing to telling him no, which is interaction at least and acts like a sort of jackpot reward for all his efforts.  It may be quite hard now because you mention once that you had to go down to him in the hall one night after hours of barking (which is not a criticism, originally my pup was going to be in her pen at meal times, she went berserk so I let her out.  She laid quietly under the table.  She got bored of that as she never gets anything from the table and now lies in her bed at mealtimes.)  The barking may also get worse before it gets better but that doesn't mean it won't eventually stop.

Whichever way you decide to go (hall, bedroom, landing, bed, crate, no crate, ignoring, becoming nocturnal), it will take time.  Your pup will get there - after all, do you know anyone with an adult dog that they've had from a puppy which still barks all night? 

I sense that I'm only telling you what you already know, it's just the whole sleep deprivation thing making you feel overwhelmed!

Best wishes.

PS I'm not saying you have to get up at 6.30am forever by the way, hopefully you can eke this out.  Or pup may get more snoozy - my last one did.  Now if someone gets up at 6.30 she wags her tail politely but doesn't get up!

Have you got room in your bedroom for the crate? If the puppy is in the room but in the crate, you don't have to worry about him messing in the room, and he can see and smell you and your other dog so hopefully won't make such a fuss. He sounds like a right nightmare though, good luck to you!! I don't think I'd have that much patience!

Yeah, we tried him in his crate in our room initially but he still kicked up a stink...

BUT! I'm happy to report that on trying him just in his bed in our room last week, he went to sleep with no fuss at all, only waking up when he needed to go out!! He's been there ever since and apart from taking time to settle down if he's still very awake at bedtime, he's been great and is sleeping for longer and longer periods between toliet breaks - record stands at 6 hours as of this weekend!

He's also getting a lot better at being left in his crate when we go out - we've got him a new kong type toy that we stuff with treats and whether it's that or not, there's been much less fuss.

And what with being able to take him out for walks from this weekend we're much happier!

Thanks for the support everyone - much appreciated!