How does anyone do this?

[weltonsee4]

@bitz I have a mini schnauzer who is now 7 months old and felt the same at the start. Forced naps were a life saver and we realised that he has bad FOMO so to counter we had his crate in the living room with a blanket over it so he couldn’t see us. Being able to hear us helped a lot. We found that sitting quietly watching tv while he was napping helped to settle him quickly and meant we could still do things we wanted to do. If you feel she’s getting too much sleep then it’s only just enough!

Also as much as it pains you ignoring them when they are making a fuss in the crate is so important. Another thing we did was every time ours cried in the crate he got taken outside on lead for the worlds most boring pee ever. No sniffing or enjoyment. Then straight back to crate so he learned fast that he would only get attention when crying in the crate if he needed to pee.

Another thing that helped was he loved sniff games. Feeding inside the crate helped to make him associate it with something good in the early stages helped as well.

Also don’t be disheartened by her not cuddling. Mine wasn’t really a cuddle bug until around 6 months and now won’t leave me alone! Don’t worry soon you will have a snuggle bug who doesn’t understand personal space.

 

[rtjmrt]

@bitz I’m going to pipe up here as an owner who has a load of photos of our puppy sleeping in our laps. Do not believe the photos.

In the first week or so, our puppy really struggled to settle herself. However, this meant that the only way we could settle her for a nap was to sit in her pen with her, get her to fall asleep in our laps/between our legs, then sneak away to let her sleep. This was how we had to do enforced naps (which came with physical tantrums) for the first couple of weeks until we could wean her off our laps and into her own bed. And then there was her when she was awake…

The biting everything, seemingly endless energy and oh my god the refusal to give any audible cues that she needed the bathroom meaning accidents everywhere. My husband (who has had solid mental health until now) started suffering from serious anxiety attacks the week we got her which meant for the first weeks we were having to consider whether we would need to give her back to the breeder for the sake of his mental health. We had the deadline of her initial insurance needing renewal 5 weeks in to make the decision. That was only two weeks ago but even now I’m so glad we committed to keeping her because we are finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

She’s 16 weeks now and in the last couple of days we’ve really turned a corner. She’s now out of the pen by default and only in for forced separation (in instances of biting etc) or when we can’t give her any supervision. Being out of the pen means she now signals by the door when she needs to go out so, even though she’s still silent about it, accidents have drastically reduced. We’ve started being able to read the differences between biting because her teething is giving her jip or because she’s over-tired which means we can now (mostly) stop biting by either getting one of her frozen chew toys or an enforced nap.

Honestly most of the improvement has been in our being able to read her correctly (which has taken time to get to know her) rather than any real changes in her. And we still have bad days - we can usually tell by around 11am whether a day will be a good or a bad one.

All this is to say, just because you see the cute lap puppy photos online, remind yourself that that’s only because people don’t share the negatives. We’ve shared with family her adorable face when she’s sleeping on our laps looking like an angel, but we didn’t share the picture of the poop-nado we had to clean up 5 minutes before, or the state of my hands after trying to get her lead on when she is in a biting mood and there were no status updates about the day my husband’s anxiety got so bad he had to leave the house for an entire morning to go for a walk with his mum and just get away. Those people sharing the photos you see are probably having the same hard time of it - those just aren’t the moments they’re choosing to share.

It’s why I’ve appreciated this subreddit so much. Unlike other social media, people here are comfortable to share the negatives of puppy ownership and confirm it’s not all adorable all of the time without shaming you for it.

 

[jacojacojaco]

@bitz Got my girl at 9 weeks old and I remember feeling this way. I remember telling my friends “She is SERIOUSLY a full-time job. I have to care for her around the clock!” And I don’t think anyone really understood how exhausting and crazy and HARD the whole thing was. So I totally know how you feel right now.

A few words of advice:
1.) Keep doing your best to deter the biting, but honestly once the teething phase is done most dogs just slowly stop biting on their own. You can think of teething as something you need to wait out more than you need to fix. They are going to bite so long as they have their baby teeth, so don’t feel like you’re “failing” if the biting doesn’t slow down for a while. You can’t fix teething the way you can fix leash pulling/other behavioral problems so try not to let it give you too much stress.

2.) From my puppy-raising experience, the first 2 months are the worst. Every month after than got a little better. So it definitely gets better! You’re just in the hardest part right now. By 8 months you’ll look back on this and be proud of how far you’ve come. So as hard as it is, try to focus on getting through a couple tough months because it definitely will not be like this forever!

 

[duuuuu]

@bitz You've got the puppy blues! It's normal and fades. My little demon corgi nearly did us in, but she is so precious now. If not already, get a kong treat toy and freeze a few the night before with her wet food. Also not just toys but chews, bully sticks, ears, etc. Keeps them quiet in the crate or anywhere. I have no idea how dogs make it in the wild rhrough the puppy stage; they are vacilraptors trying to kill themselves every minute. Your puppy and you are not broken. Slow and steady, lots of postive training, remember this is a baby and will do dumb baby things. It gets better and is worth it!