Q&A I wish I had read when I was struggling with puppy blues

[vf6cruiser]

@flocy Yeah! I'd say 80% of the battle is adjusting to life with a puppy.

SO glad you feel more positive about your guy! 6 months was such a sweet time. 7 months is when adolescence hit us like a truck, but we survived and so can you.

 

[christiancowboy]

@vf6cruiser This is exactly how I am feeling right now!!! I'm thankful that I'm not the only one who thinks that, but I do still feel pretty guilty because all my life I've wanted a dog and now I feel regret when I actually got one. By the way, what is an adolescent puppy like? How can it get worse than this.. (joke)

 

[vf6cruiser]

@christiancowboy It's not worse imo, but different. It depends on the dog. Adolescents become much more stubborn and start testing their boundaries. That means they will hear a command that they have successfully obeyed 900 times before and not do it. Or do it very reluctantly, after you repeated the command 3 or 4 times lol. So there's a marked regression in training. Many teenagers also become less interested in food while outside. Our boy realized he can simply plop his butt on the ground and put his weight on it if he doesn't want to move. He does this when he sees other dogs and he used to whine at the same time (was never vocal before).

Then the hormonal stuff... humping, increased attraction to females for the boy pups, first heat for the girls. Maybe a bit of leakiness when excited.

Our guy also became destructive for the first time in his life. We've gone through a lot of plushies, some of which have been with him from day 1. RIP Panda.

They also hit another fear period during this time, so they'll spook at random things. Mason barked at a lady for the first time... because she was standing next to my husband? I have no idea what he was thinking. He was also terrified of a cartoon chameleon advertisement at a bus stop and still side-eyes that advertising panel three weeks later, even though it's now a picture of a woman.

All this was super frustrating the first month (7 months old) and then it started to get a bit better. We also got used to his new antics and just roll with the punches

Edit: forgot to mention that a lot of teenagers become more vocal. Many people complain about their dogs barking at apparently nothing. Thankfully, we don't have this problem, but if your puppy is already vocal, you might have to deal with it.

 

[mooncer]

@vf6cruiser This is my adolescent puppy to a T. He also learned that he can lie down on walks to wait and greet dogs that are passing by. We are constantly repairing torn up plushies because he destroys so many that we refuse to buy anything new. But I love him so much.

 

[trish4christ]

@vf6cruiser Oh man, this thread makes me feel so much better. We’ve had our little entity of mischief for just shy of a week and man my partner and I are TIRED. I watch him during the day and my partner does night crate duty.

I do feel like we love him already but we seem to be on a three-second loop of ‘oh GOD where is he’ and every little noise he makes in his crate at night makes us freeze and stop breathing until he settles again. It’s been ruff.

 

[nimmielza]

@trish4christ Oof, I wish I had help. Night time is the hardest.

 

[trish4christ]

@nimmielza He (my partner) has been a godsend honestly— our lil ball of mischief seems to be doing okay through the night now as of the end of week one, still needs to get up to do 1-2 potty breaks but no longer just screams at the top of his dog lungs for ten minutes before he understands in his little dog brain that it's sleeping time and gives up the fuss.

We've tried both ignoring his fussing and doing the 'okay-we're-standing-outside-doing-nothing-for-two-minutes' rinse and repeat twelve times before something just clicks and he goes to sleep no-fuss. I'm tripling my caffeine intake. Rip me when the withdrawals kick in.

 

[nimmielza]

@trish4christ That’s Coconut. She’s a Shih Tzu so she has a tiny bladder but every time she whines, I get up to take her potty and she decides to lay in the grass...it’s 1am Coco, get up. I know she can hold it for three hours...ru all still doing that at night?

 

[trish4christ]

@nimmielza Rocket’s (mini Aussie) the same, though it seems like more and more he does actually need to go when he wakes up. There were a couple nights where my partner took him out over and over just to have him lay on the lawn and chew the grass for his two minutes like some sort of doggie protest.

We play with him for about 20 minutes before bedtime to tire him out, but we also take his water bowl away about 1 1/2 hours before bedtime and that seems to help!

 

[nimmielza]

@trish4christ That’s Coco. It’s dark, cats are screaming and shit is falling out of trees on me and she’s laying in the grass...playing. And it’s like 2:30am. I think she can hold it for about 2hrs but she does eventually go...I just don’t know when to ignore her or take her out. My trainer said to let the whining die down and then take her out. I’m so tired though. I’ll try playing with her for a bit!

 

[path89]

@vf6cruiser Thank you so much for this. I wrote about my stress in a dog training group and was met with hostility and “return the dog, what did you expect”, which further stressed me out and upset me. So thank you thank you thank you! I love her and expected this, but it’s a change

 

[linda777]

@vf6cruiser I had ALL of these feels. I did not like my puppy for the first 3 months. Slowly and surely, it does get better. My puppy is 6 months and I love her so much!

 

[garrettholliman2001]

@vf6cruiser Thank you for this! This sub really helped me out when I had the blues. I wanted to give my puppy back the next day haha! Thanks to the quarantine, I got to spend time with her 24/7 (not exactly easy, but enforced naps always gave me that peace that I needed from time to time). Months later, she’s well-trained enough to roam the house without being restricted to one room and I get to enjoy her teen puppy stage with no regrets

 

[littleprincess]

@garrettholliman2001 I'm currently going through the same thing. How does one enforce a nap? Crate?

 

[garrettholliman2001]

@littleprincess I let my puppy play and run around for about two hours. Then I place her in her crate (if she doesn’t go herself) and just lock her up in my quiet bedroom for 30 minutes to two hours. If I hear her crying after 30 minutes of nap time, I let her out to play again. Sometimes they whine, but it can be because puppies just want to play and be around you all the time, not understanding that they’re probably exhausted. Eventually, the sleepiness takes over them and then they wake up happy and refreshed to continue playtime! Oh what a life lol

This has helped me get some “me time”. And it has helped her keep calm and stay attentive whenever it’s time to train! Sometimes sleepy puppies are very hyper and fussy, it can be hard to tell hahaha

 

[michealjordan]

@vf6cruiser I appreciate your post and I hope this all follows suit

 

[aidenb]

@vf6cruiser I love my boys and I'm happy I got them at 8 weeks old but no force on this Earth will ever convince me to get a puppy again. If aliens came to the planet and handed me a puppy and said accepting and raising it would clean the environment, cure cancer and stop war... I would really have to think about it.

 

[vf6cruiser]

@aidenb I used to feel exactly that way. The scary thing is, at some point other puppies start to get awfully cute again and then you start to think, "Maybe it wouldn't be too bad... (dog's name) could use a friend..."

I'm not doing it, but I know a lot of people would!

 

[arunnihar]

@vf6cruiser Oh, man. The puppy blues are so real, and there were definitely times I felt like I had no personality outside of being Costello’s mom. But now he’s 2, the light and love of our lives, and his only horrible trait is a fear of the dishwasher. It gets better, and the snugs and kisses are so worth it!

Some of my tips (coming from someone who shared the puppy with her boyfriend/fiancé/husband but was the one who lived with the puppy):

-podcasts or TV at night while you fall asleep will be soothing to puppy in his crate. Cos needed to hear voices to know he wasn’t alone, even though he was in the room with me

-ENFORCE NAPS. An overtired puppy is an asshole. I learned from this sub that you have to teach a puppy the appropriate things to do when they feel tired, because they don’t know how to act. I followed a 1 hour of play to 2 hours of nap schedule, and it saved my sanity and taught him that there was a time for everything. I would even sometimes put him in a travel crate and nap with him on the couch so he would associate naps with good times.

-don’t train your puppy to go on a certain surface or your life will consist of finding pine straw to poop on. Miserable when raining. He did eventually branch out into other surfaces.

-STRONGLY consider a puppy pen. Since I was on my own, I had things to do (like cook, shower, do laundry) and couldn’t keep an eye on him 24/7. Having the pen allowed him to be in a safe space with toys that he could play in, but gave me the peace of mind to know he was contained and not in danger. Side note: we thought a tarp underneath was a good idea in case he had an accident in the apartment. In hindsight, we think it might have delayed his potty training some, because the smell lingered on the tarp for him.

-your dog WILL eat something they aren’t supposed to. Keep hydrogen peroxide on hand with a syringe (you can get them for free at the pharmacy), and keep a vet with an after-hours line on speed dial. They can tell you how much to dose, but it’s usually 5mL/10lbs or so. Don’t quote me on it. Hydrogen peroxide cost $0.50, which was much less expensive than a $5000 surgery to remove the damn sock he ate in front of us.

 

[vf6cruiser]

@arunnihar Great tips! Hope some other puppy owners will read these