Is there something wrong with my puppy?
We picked our puppy up 2 and a half weeks ago. I knew what I was getting myself into. I knew it was hard. But I’m concerned. He’s a cockapoo and he is nearly 15 weeks old. We picked him up when he was 12 weeks old.
When he came to us, there were a few issues. He wouldn’t really eat, obvs hated his crate at first, only ate treats,had worms, can’t stand us leaving the room for 5 seconds and was too scared to walk. This has been mostly resolved now. Worms have been treated, he is now VERY food motivated, eats regularly etc. the walking is still off. He won’t go further than half way down the road of our back alley street. His separation anxiety is also still awful. Won’t sleep unless we’re sat right next to his crate. Won’t even sleep when we’re sat on the sofa that’s less than a metre from his crate.
For the first week and a half, we could train him. We trained sit, leave it and crate trained him. None of it’s perfect of course because it was only a week of training. He sleeps in his crate (1 hour awake, 2 hours sleep), he sits on command pretty much every time.
Fast forward to the past week or so, he’s become imposible. Here are the issues we’re dealing with:
- barking and howling in his crate when we stand up to grab something that’s literally in the same room. Is constantly finding excuses to get out. We’ve fed him, gave him water, gone to the toilet. He’ll still find something to let us know about just to get out and play.
- takes us 4 hours sometimes to actually even get him to go to sleep.
- wakes up really easily when he sleeps. Any noise we make he wakes and struggles to get back to sleep.
- is an absolute maniac on walks. And when I say walks, I literally mean just past our driveway.
- wakes up after a 2 hour nap like he never napped at all. Biting us, running around like a crack head, grabbing anything he can find.
- training is out the window. Gets so frustrated for anything other than “sit”. Can’t even train him for 5 seconds with any kind of treat. He just starts lunging himself at me and biting me.
I know these kinds of things are just puppy behaviour. But there’s absolute no minute of calm. No lick mat or sniffer game calms him down. I do a “find it” game for him to find treats around a room to calm him down. It works during the game but he goes right back to it afterwards. I try to use our structure of train, play, walk, calm time, nap. But the train, play and walk is entirely taken up and ruined by him refusing to do anything. Last week it was hard but we managed to find those small gaps where we could train him and follow his structure. Now it’s just surviving the hour he’s awake.
I’m worried there’s something wrong with him. Like something physical that’s suddenly causing these changes where there’s no one second that he can be calm. I’ve tried tethering - he just flips himself around the lead. I’ve tried bonding with him - he sits for like 2 minutes and gets right back to it. I’ve tried a stuffed Kong - not interested unless the reward is instant. I’ve tried long lasting chews - he just gets bored and starts all over again. I’ve done every mental stimulation game you can think of. He is all of a sudden only interested in biting me and zooming around.
When my partner goes to work, I can’t shower, eat, go to the toilet, get dressed, NOTHING. Everything is taken over by him. I wouldn’t even say I have puppy blues as such. I love him and want the best for him and couldn’t dream of giving him back or taking him to a shelter. I’m just really stressed and worried that there’s another issue here? Could this all be down to teething?