# Appropriate behaviour in the home



## God of Thunder (Oct 18, 2020)

Hey everyone,
My boy will be 18 weeks old tomorrow and his house manners are awful! I wonder if it's because we used a crate attached to a large pen since he was 8 weeks? But to be honest, we'd be lost without the pen as we'd never get a minutes peace!

Basically, his routine is wake up 6:30-6:45, out to potty (he goes straight to the door to be fair to him) then breakfast. After breakfast, depending on his mood, he'll either go back to sleep, play with his toys in his crate or have a massive tantrum 😂 if we let him out of his pen/crate, sometimes he'll sit with us on the sofa in the kitchen (we've had to bring one in to save our backs!) and he'll chew a yak chew for a bit but soon he'll get bored of it and start chewing our hands and arms instead or he'll run around the kitchen trying to get into everything he can find so usually when that happens we take him to potty, try again and if he's still not settling we'll put him back in his pen where it goes one of two ways - 9 times out of 10 he'll settle but other times he'll have a tantrum. 

At the moment we are walking him for at least an hour a day, sometimes more depending on weather and time, sometimes he comes home and goes straight to bed but other times he wants to play. When feeding, at least once a day we'll do training sessions and puzzle feeders to get his mind working and at the moment he is only ever left alone for 2-3 hours a day, one or two days a week he may be left for around 5 but he copes with this really well and sleeps - nothing gets destroyed in this time and his toilet accidents are almost to none now. I was just wondering if there are any suggestions of how we can have him out with us more but get his behaviour to a more acceptable level so that it's not crash, bang, wollop, bite every time! When he finally settles with us on the sofa it's lovely and I wish every evening could be like that! Maybe I'm asking too much of such a young pup? Or maybe after being in the pen (which takes up half of our large kitchen) he then feels like he can run crazy? I wonder if we've made a rod for our own back with the pen but he goes in willingly and has never seen it as a punishment - he's never protested at going in there and settles a lot better in there than he does out but we would love more cuddle time with him minus the teeth! 😂


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## A-arons Kodster (Sep 2, 2018)

God of Thunder said:


> Hey everyone,
> My boy will be 18 weeks old tomorrow and his house manners are awful! I wonder if it's because we used a crate attached to a large pen since he was 8 weeks? But to be honest, we'd be lost without the pen as we'd never get a minutes peace!
> 
> Basically, his routine is wake up 6:30-6:45, out to potty (he goes straight to the door to be fair to him) then breakfast. After breakfast, depending on his mood, he'll either go back to sleep, play with his toys in his crate or have a massive tantrum  if we let him out of his pen/crate, sometimes he'll sit with us on the sofa in the kitchen (we've had to bring one in to save our backs!) and he'll chew a yak chew for a bit but soon he'll get bored of it and start chewing our hands and arms instead or he'll run around the kitchen trying to get into everything he can find so usually when that happens we take him to potty, try again and if he's still not settling we'll put him back in his pen where it goes one of two ways - 9 times out of 10 he'll settle but other times he'll have a tantrum.
> ...


Video of the tantrums! 

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## God of Thunder (Oct 18, 2020)

A-arons Kodster said:


> Video of the tantrums!
> 
> Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk


It won't let me add videos, or I can't work out how in any case, but it usually consists of whining, barking, feet stamping, throwing toys in the air/shaking them while growling and then my favourite - trying to rip up his bed whilst growling and on occasion humping his bed. We've had to sew many holes in his bed and he has ripped holes in four different beds in the last two months 🙈😂


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## A-arons Kodster (Sep 2, 2018)

God of Thunder said:


> It won't let me add videos, or I can't work out how in any case, but it usually consists of whining, barking, feet stamping, throwing toys in the air/shaking them while growling and then my favourite - trying to rip up his bed whilst growling and on occasion humping his bed. We've had to sew many holes in his bed and he has ripped holes in four different beds in the last two months


My Doggo....Gets what I call Zoomies and just whips 360s and bounces off furniture. It is rather amusing i think* not often. But when he does its like a bottle rocket going off!

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## God of Thunder (Oct 18, 2020)

A-arons Kodster said:


> My Doggo....Gets what I call Zoomies and just whips 360s and bounces off furniture. It is rather amusing i think* not often. But when he does its like a bottle rocket going off!
> 
> Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk


He gets zoomies but luckily it's outdoors on walks 😂 it's mainly the biting for us that's the issue but I hear they eventually grow out of it so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! He's been particularly testing our patience the last couple of days after having a really good week with him last week - feels like we've taken a step back, but I guess that's to be expected.


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## A-arons Kodster (Sep 2, 2018)

God of Thunder said:


> He gets zoomies but luckily it's outdoors on walks  it's mainly the biting for us that's the issue but I hear they eventually grow out of it so I'm keeping my fingers crossed! He's been particularly testing our patience the last couple of days after having a really good week with him last week - feels like we've taken a step back, but I guess that's to be expected.


Mouthing/nipping as I call it has become less and less with Kody as time has moved on. He does it when he is really excited sometimes. But it has gotten better. He for some odd reason doesn't like long sleeves on shirts or sweaters as he will pull on them also. Its like his way of asking for attention and acknowledgment especially when we get back home from errands or activities.

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## gunnr (Aug 14, 2009)

Your expectations aren't too high, they're just a little bit to high for an 18 week old.
The pen setup is a two edge sword. It's nice that he has his own place he can rough house in, but very soon he is going to learn he can jump put of it at will, unless it is completely enclosed. 
He needs to explore your home. It's a total pain in the rear, but he has to have this opportunity. There needs to be the hundreds of time he has to be told "NO, LEAVE IT!" Everything you do not want him to get into needs to be put into totes, closets, or storage, until you get him past this phase. Any type of chemicals, need to be put away, so that he can safely explore, and be corrected. This is going to go on for the next 8-12 months. I'm sorry, but that is just the nature of the beast. Do not expect him to settle. It's not going to happen. However, these are all opportunities to train and modify his behaviors. It will take some weeks, and months before you see the changes, but they will start occurring. In the interim, it's crash, bang, wallop, bite, correct, repeat.
Some lucky folks get the little snuggle monkeys, some get the demon possessed little whirls of chaos, most are in between. I got the latter with Finn. There were very, very, few moments of cuddling and snuggling with Finn, until he was almost a year old. Every interaction became a wrestling event, with lots of biting. There was also a lot correction.
The biting will stop here in the next month or so. It will diminish, and then eventually stop. It's just a really frustrating period to get through.
In the house, he should have manners. This means leash work inside the house. Put the leash on him, and work with him in the house at the "Stay", "Come, "Heel" and "Walk", and most importantly "Leave It", "OUT"! and "Drop it!". There is no negotiation on the last two. these two commands could well save his life someday, should he get into any chemicals, or cleaners in the house.
Walk him around the house on the leash and set up "obstacle courses" of item to entice him, but for you to begin to work on the "leave it, drop it, and out" commands. Set him up for failure, so that you can build him up. Lots of positive praise, and repetition. 
Don't be afraid to leave the leash on him in the house. If he gets into something, or needs to be corrected, it's
much easier to get ahold of a trailing leash, than to catch him. The correction is applied much closer to the infraction and he learns more. Expect him to chew up that leash, so don't put a nice one on him.
It's a lot of work for the first 6-10 months, but then they "start to get it" on their own and it's much nicer to be around them.
Right now, from your post, I would say he needs to spend a lot more time with you directly under your control.
Keep at it. You'll get there.


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

After his first morning potty, and before his first meal, try a short praise/treat based training session.


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## Frida010 (Apr 24, 2020)

Fred is one of the more easy-going pups here, and even now at 8 months old she will never just settle unless tired / sleepy from excersize. Outside the crate needs a chewbone to stay occupied, otherwise she'll start demanding attention or will try and destroy stuff, or she just paces around and tries to climb on my lap. But we've never had a playpen and spend 1.000x telling her no. Now, if I say "No, Fred, No" she'll leave the christmas tree / pillows / shoes (difficult one) / etc. alone. 

When she is restless and I'm in a videoconference, I always put her in her crate. She falls asleep right away when being put in the crate. Other then that, I leave her out and well, live with it ;-) I have her crated from 9-11 a.m. and 14-16 p.m. at least.


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## God of Thunder (Oct 18, 2020)

Thank you for your replies. I have locked up all of our cleaning products and dangerous items, it's mainly shoes, coats hanging from the coat rack and throws/pillows that he targets, we tell him to leave it/drop but this seems to excite him as he realises that it is a high value item (leave it and drop works on walks now when he would try to eat everything in sight). I'm finding that he is over tired quite a bit as when he is put in his pen/crate he usually settles to sleep within 10-15 mins. I think his teething is also causing a lot of his behaviour - he seems quite grumpy and grizzly and if he's chewing his bed and I direct him to a toy he seems to be really annoyed at me for spoiling his 'fun'. To be fair, the biting is lessening to a point, but if he's chewing on his chew then drops it or gets bored he targets our hands or arms. 

I think putting the lead on him in the house is a good idea so I'll start trying that. I think we haven't really given him too much freedom so once he gets it he gets overexcited and possibly overwhelmed. My parents owned a Weimaraner when I was growing up and he had run of the kitchen, hallway and stairs/landing and he wrecked the house - he'd rip up the carpet, peel the wallpaper off the walls, empty the bins etc so I've been weary of giving too much freedom for this reason as well as him biting quite a bit from over-excitement. He's very food motivated so I'll try to factor his training into exploring the house a bit more. 

Thank you again for your replies. Every day seems to be different with him so it's very much trial and error depending on his mood that day.


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