Puppy is exhausting me already!

So I have two weeks off of work for Christmas vacation and I have been looking forward to spending it relaxing, reading... and of course spending time with our new puppy. However...

I'm worried... she's exhausting already! Today, naturally, I didn't have to work and she is just everywhere! In the morning/afternoon we had to take her to get her shots, we went to Petsmart and "explored". We went running for a half hour, took a walk... played with her toys, played in the backyard, pracaticed "sit" and tried to learn "lie down" (with no luck)... she tried to chase the cats (sigh)... and she doesn't get tired!

When we first got her she wasn't feeling good so she was more chill... now she's feeling great and is super hyper puppy... how am I going to survive? Will she do this for the next two weeks or will she settle down and relax? She's only 8 weeks old, I thought she was supposed to be sleeping more!

Edited to add: I don't want anyone to think I don't realize she's just being a puppy - I do. I remember very well how Jordan was when he was a kitten... but puppies and kittens are completely different. I think my main thing is: when having Lola around the cats I'm supposed to have her tired out and content and it feels like she's unable to tire! That and I really don't know what to do with her for the next few weeks... I can barely find the time to clean the house with her by my side (she's been on a leash by my side every time I'm home for the last week and a half) and when she's in her room or crate (we're slowly crate training so she's only been left in her crate for about 5 minutes alone) she cries and howls.

8 weeks old? Chill within 2 weeks? I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but she may not chill out for 2 years!!

I got my Sam at 8 weeks old. After 30 days of him not chilling out, we went back and adopted his littermate brother Spike. Sam at least then turned his energy to his brother and we got to rest at least a little bit.

Have fun for the next 2 weeks!!!

Daisy our lab just started to calm down and she is 2.5 yrs. When you say running do you mean playing in the yard or you running with the pup beside you? If you are running please be careful with a puppy that young. They shouldnt be running with you until they are older as it can contribute to hip displasia. They need to be able to stop and rest when they want to. Good luck with the youngster though. You think 8 weeks is bad wait until 8 months when they are stronger and harder to tire out.

Lol, I kinda wish Jordan would get over his attitude about the puppy so that they could play and maybe give me a break from being Lola's playmate all day long! I dunno... I think it was deceptive that the first weekend we got her she was sick so she napped with me on the couch and basically stayed by my side, kind of like my cats! Now... no more napping unless we're in the car.

As for running... we run around in the backyard and yes, we did run a bit with her by my side but I'm not a runner by any means so we stopped quite a bit so that *I* could catch my breath... she would have been happy to keep going but I wouldn't let her. Plus she liked to sniff around so we had to stop and investigate, you know how puppies are.

Our current puppy was also sick when we adopted her, so I know what you mean about it being a shock when they are finally better and you get to see what their “normal†energy level is. Jilaiya is just under 8 months now and anytime we think she is about to get tired all she has to do is drink some water to be totally refreshed and ready for more. Even the day of her spay she was doing somersaults with an Elizabethan collar on and tried to jump through the window on our storm door as soon as she got home! She is such a smart girl and I love her to death…but I wonâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t miss the puppy stage!

Ohhh hun welcome to the world of dog-ownership! Yup. Probably two years before things start to calm down consistently.

However, they will get better - but to warn you, worse before they get better. Especially around the ages of 9 - 12 months. Adolescence. You think it's bad in humans? Wait till your Lola gets to teenage-hood!

I know how tiring it is, I know it is, but trust me, once they calm down and chill out, you'll miss their antics! Ours have just started to chill now, at 18-20 months old. And ahhhhhhhh initially we thought they were sick! We took them to the vet - he said they're just growing up!!

You're lucky you have a small dog. You should try it with two big ones. Man, they reckon having kids is hard! Puppies run circles around babies and wear you out until you swear you'll never get another one. And then they grow up and you kinda wish they were puppies again.... or not!

Hang in there - it does get easier, but not for a while

Originally Posted by KitEKats4Eva!

You should try it with two big ones.

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My Sam was 11 pounds at 8 weeks and was 14 pounds by 10 weeks (my "pups" are now 75 and 95 pounds). He TRIED to play with the cats but simply man-handled them and the cats weren't all that happy about it.

And running with the pup? If you leave them alone they will run on their own. There's nothing you can do about that. Dysplasia happens more often in large breed dogs so if yours is small, I wouldn't worry so much about it. Probably a greater danger with running with a puppy is that, until they are leashed trained, they tend to zig and zag ahead of you. The week that we got Spike, hubby ran with him in our yard. Spike zig-zagged ahead of him, tripped up Steve who fell on top of Spike. Spike wound up with a broken nose and damaged nerves in his face. We were VERY fortunate that the nerves healed themselves after about 4 months, otherwise we were faced with surgery. He lost the nerves to one of his tear ducts and his nostril, neither of them were producing any secretions. We had to do eye drops and saline nasel spray until the nerves regenerated themselves.

Our boys just turned 3 and while they have calmed down a lot, they still go off into hyper land once in a while. Spike is worse and of course he's the larger of the 2. Nothing like having a happy 95 pound puppy run across the room and leap into your lap (ouch).

Ari, Bailey, and Jordon! How wonderful to see you! Congratulations on your new family member

Yup yup yup to what Sarah said. Welcome to the dog world! The little stinkers will drive you nuts! Privacy? Personal space? Free time? Huh??? Kissed it goodbye when I got the best friend I ever got for $90 from the pound. Thought another dog would keep him company and play with him so I could do something other than play 'stupid ball' when I get home from work. Yeah right. They both want to play different games with ME.

But I would not give it up for anything. I can put up with the occasional dog vomit, black spots dabbed behind the ear that smell like something long dead, the muddy paws, the shredded toys, the dog fur in everything, because if you have a weakness for canine love there is no substitute. They make the best buddies. They are never too tired to play or hike or romp, there is no such thing as bad weather, and if you are gone for an hour they make you feel like a celebrity when you come back.

Use the time to teach the "sit-stay-come" routine. And watch her every second. You have the perfect opportunity to catch her in the act of doing things that you do not want her to do (sniff in the garbage, head over to the treat tray (ooops I mean cat litter box), drag the dirty laundry out of the hamper and 1001 other things a curious and happy puppy will stick her nose into.

And prepare yourself for the "my puppy nips me it is driving me nuts" and "my puppy eats its own poo" stages, they will be upon you shortly.....

Lol, too bad this thread didn't exist *before* we got Lola... I could've shown it to my husband and maybe we would've gotten an older dog. Well... she's too cute tho... maybe we'd still have ended up with her!

Ha, that is true... she will run on her own. A few times we've let her off the leash in our backyard and she gets what Jordan and Baylee used to do when they were kittens - zoom around everywhere. She runs as fast as she can in gradually large circles... her ears flopped and her tongue panting. But she loves it... sadly it doesn't tire her out!

And I will work on Sit-Stay-Come with her... the Stay part is hard for her and we're working on Lie Down but that's hard for her too... whenever she Sits and I let her have whatever she's doing she pounces on top of it so transition into another step is hard, but I'm determined, lol! I need to find a clicker and a clicker training book and see if we can figure some things out on my vacation.

Originally Posted by DawnofSierra

Ari, Bailey, and Jordon!

How wonderful to see you! Congratulations on your new family member

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Hi! Good to see you... love your signature, btw!

I hope you don't mind me hogging the thread but I would hold off on the "lie down" (you may just want to use the word "down") until the other commands are reliable. The best you can hope for is teaching one new command a week (maybe more like a month depending on....whatever). The first one you have to teach is "sit". Then once she has that down pat you can put up your hand like a crossing guard and say "stay", back away from her and watch her, probably you will be lucky if you can get 5 ft away from her before she wants to bolt towards you. Once you have figured out where her comfort distance is you can back up to that distance and then say "come", This has the huge advantage that she wants to come to you so you are giving her a positive association with the "come" command.

Take her out about once an hour and have little teeny treats (cat treats will do, they are the perfect size!) ready for when she pees/poos. While she is doing her business use some kind of cue word (like 'go potty' or 'hurry up') that she can associate with it. Sing the Star and Stripes forever when she is done and reward her with a treat, this will have a big payoff later on. And if you recognize the signals where she is looking to pee/poo in the house, restrain your frustration and say "no" calmly and get her outdoors as quickly as possible.

Good luck!!!

Originally Posted by 2dogmom

I hope you don't mind me hogging the thread but I would hold off on the "lie down" (you may just want to use the word "down") until the other commands are reliable. The best you can hope for is teaching one new command a week (maybe more like a month depending on....whatever). The first one you have to teach is "sit". Then once she has that down pat you can put up your hand like a crossing guard and say "stay", back away from her and watch her, probably you will be lucky if you can get 5 ft away from her before she wants to bolt towards you. Once you have figured out where her comfort distance is you can back up to that distance and then say "come", This has the huge advantage that she wants to come to you so you are giving her a positive association with the "come" command.

Take her out about once an hour and have little teeny treats (cat treats will do, they are the perfect size!) ready for when she pees/poos. While she is doing her business use some kind of cue word (like 'go potty' or 'hurry up') that she can associate with it. Sing the Star and Stripes forever when she is done and reward her with a treat, this will have a big payoff later on. And if you recognize the signals where she is looking to pee/poo in the house, restrain your frustration and say "no" calmly and get her outdoors as quickly as possible.

Good luck!!!

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Lol, you're not hogging the thread, you're helping! And okay, I won't work on lie down for a while... right now she's doing pretty well with sit... we have her sit before meals, before toys, before treats... but we'll definitely work with what you said, the Sit, Stay, Come.

I wanted to know... do you have two commands for pee/poo? Or just one? Because right now we say 'go potty' every time we go outside and while she's going but I didn't know if we should have two different commands or just use one command. And I kinda slacked off on treating her after going, I'll have to leave the treats by the door to remind myself to treat her.

The thing with Lola is that she doesn't give that many signals that she has to go. I know some dogs sniff in circles, others sniff a lot... Lola sniffs for a second and then goes... barely any warning! For the most part we're doing okay... but I tend to panic every time she starts sniffing and take her outside, lol!

Thanks for your help and please, let me know if you have any other tips/suggestions!

Don't know if this will make you feel better or not, but just got Lei spayed. She is now a 6 month old German Shepherd, not an ounce of fat anywhere weighed in at 75.9 pounds! She also got her hernia repaired. Didn't slow her down at all- she routinely drags burnt pieces of wood and plastic out of the burn pile outside, chases the horses, tries to chase the cats. Eats our carpet (interesting kitty smells buried there dontchaknow?) She is run to the creek 4 times a day when the weather is nasty- loves to be outside in 30 degree weather, she has knocked Mike down more times than I can count- last time resulted in 4 fractured ribs! I can fend off her exuberance, but since he is poor health, he isn't so lucky.

We built her an agility course to try and get her calm, she is as calm as toast on a lead, once you get it on her that is, otherwise, her head is raised, she is licking and nibbling your hand......sigh.....

Our next course of action is to buy a pulling harness and let her help me haul hay, muck manure and do small chores here at the farm. We have a small pull cart with mud tires she can pull.

I know we have to make it till she is two years old, and sometimes, I wonder if we will? The cats are so much easier, because even on their most unruly of days, they will listen to me and stop their activities, but not Lei-

Ouch MA! And that sounds like a good idea, to have her do chores!

I never knew puppies acted like this for 2 years! Add that to the fact that my husband is not helpful at all (he's the dog lover, she was a Christmas present to him and yet I find myself doing all the work) and I'm tired. I would never take her back to the shelter but had I known all of this AND realized that my husband would be the way he's being... well, I would've put my foot down. It's pretty sad... he gets jealous that she always wants to come to me, that she gets upset when I leave the room... it's because she sees me, she goes on walks with me, I'm the one that feeds her, cleans up after her, plays with her, trains her... sigh.

On a happier note, I got her to "stay" for a split second... progress is being made. Hey every little bit counts!

Originally Posted by pinkdaisy226

I wanted to know... do you have two commands for pee/poo? Or just one? Because right now we say 'go potty' every time we go outside and while she's going but I didn't know if we should have two different commands or just use one command. And I kinda slacked off on treating her after going, I'll have to leave the treats by the door to remind myself to treat her.

The thing with Lola is that she doesn't give that many signals that she has to go. I know some dogs sniff in circles, others sniff a lot... Lola sniffs for a second and then goes... barely any warning! For the most part we're doing okay... but I tend to panic every time she starts sniffing and take her outside, lol!

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Well now that both dogs are 4 yrs old I don't use the commands at all. But when I was housebreaking/training, no I did not have two different commands.

Slacking off on the treating is not always a bad thing. At some point of course you stop the treats altogether. The object is to make sure that doggy knows that doing something makes you happy, in this case peeing/pooing outside, so you use a reward. Sometimes a scratch behind the ears or a cheerful, high pitched exclamation will work just as well. As a matter of fact it is a good idea to being alternating the type of reward so your dog does not expect a treat for every little thing.

As far as the sniffing goes, isn't Lola only about 9 wks? You are lucky if you get ANY warning! But you are doing the right thing by "panicing" and taking her outside I think. It is a lot easier and more pleasant to go outside and come back in than it is to clean up the mess because you missed the opportunity to whisk her outside.

Yes, she's, well she'll be 9 weeks on Wednesday or so. Actually we've set up a bell on the door to get her to indicate whether she needs to go outside or not. She's actually started catching on to ringing the bell to go outside and for the most part, she needs to pee so that's great. The downside is that sometimes she'll ring the bell just to go outside but then she'll just play... oh well.

Oh and yeah, she's already started trying to pick up and eat poop... ugh. Blegh.

We did differentiate between "go potty" and "go poops" with ours. They did learn the difference pretty quickly. I only use it on them now as adults if its rainy-icky outside and I want them to go quick so we can get back inside.

I had to gate off the snacking trays, er, litter boxes for a while. Fortunately they have mostly grown out of that.

The stay is a tough command and our trainer didn't start that until the late stage of puppy obedience training (which didn't start until they were 4 months old). Sit seems to be the easiest, and some trainers don't suggest going to down until they get sit. 9 weeks is really young for her to learn these types of commands. It is sometimes good enough to get them to tell you if they do have to go potty.

Amy - we're definitely going to gate off the litter boxes when she gets free reign of the house. Right now she's permantely leashed to us (unless she's in her room) since, well, to housetrain her and to prevent her from chasing Jordan (and getting hit by him).

As for training... we've been working on sit for... well we'll have had her for 2 weeks on Wednesday. She gets it pretty well... we have a verbal and hand signal for it and sometimes just one or the other gets her to do it. I'd say she obeys 99% of the time.

And I've read that it's never really too young to start training... and as long as I've got the treats and she's looking like she's having fun, I'll continue. My main focus right now is definitely Sit, house training and getting her not to pull on the leash when we walk. I'd like her to get Stay and Come but the first three are my main priority.

Hi again,
Don't say we didn't warn you about eating poo! I note that dog boards usually have a wide variety of puke / vomit smileys and this cat board is pretty shy on them.
Anyway, more of my free advice-train for short sessions several times a day. Maybe three times, morning, noon and evening, and no mroe than 10-15 minutes. It has to be FUN for the puppy otherwise it backfires. Also end on a high note. If you start with a command that the dog has mastered and then teach a new one, there will be days when the dog gets it and days when she does not. Don't let her end the training being frustrated. Finish up with the command she knows so that you can hug her and squeal and she will look forward to the next training session (aka positive attention) from you.

PS I did the bell thing at the door too. WHAT WAS I THINKING!! First the little stinker figured out that he could summon a human by ringing the bell (and I felt like an idiot opening the door and watching 5 mo old Zircon give me that NYA-NYA look). Then I said ok, BELL means OUT and if he rings it, his furry rear end is going out if we have to carry him. So what does he do, he makes a game out of THAT and runs as fast as his little legs can carry him to the back door and yips to be let in. This about 6 times an evrning. OK I said, this is a form of entertainment for him, after all, he can't watch TV now can he?