# 12 week old puppy separation anxiety and night troubles



## Nelly (Feb 7, 2013)

Hi everyone! As a first time V owner (of the beautiful Nelly) I'm really happy to have found vizsla forums. They are such a beautifully unique breed so it's very reassuring to have all the relevant info in one place.

We have a 12 week old female who we have had at home now since 2nd January. We have been through a couple of different phases with her already and it is very warming to see work and patience paying off with her - she really is a character! 

Having had contrasting breeds in the past however, (lab/collie, westie) it is a slight shock to the system despite my extensive research into the V - reading can only tell you so much!

In general she is a fantastic pup: getting there with housebreaking, bite inhibition work we have done is starting to take shape (although she has worked out hands were used for these lessons and still bites other body areas, hard!), knows to sit patiently and wait for a greeting when someone comes in, not at all food driven (food as in mealtime) so there have been no issues with guarding etc. However, we are having (and have been since Jan 2nd) a terrible time with sleeping at night and being in her crate/pen during the day. She is generally a very vocal girl but this takes it to another level and it is blood curdling! Barking, whining, crying and howling as well as another noise i can only describe as 'alien!'

She has never been crated during the day for more than 1 hour unless napping because it's just not possible. She gets herself into red zone panic and also tends to go to toilet, trod in it and drag it around everywhere in her pen/crate even though we are sure to take her right before (like a dirty protest). This causes havoc as she gets what she wants, one of us comes in to clean up all the mess and she has company.

I'm very conscious of our poor neighbours who have also suffered the day and night time barking and have commented (unfortunately one is not too enamoured by it!)

Throughout the night she is taken out to toilet twice from say midnight to 6.30. We say nothing, take her out, toilet and then straight back in - quite often she doesn't need to go though. Between these times she will bark and bark and bark at regular intervals, we do try toilet again but we absolutely can't be up 6/7 times during the night for seemingly no reason anymore. 

We have done the music, soft jumper of mine, heated cuddly toy, sheet over crate, in for short period of time throughout the day with treating when quiet and good, feeding in crate (trainer's suggestion) the problem with the treating when quiet is there is no moment of silence when she's in there. She has also got her mouth stuck in between the bars a couple of times so I am worried about her hurting herself.

Sorry this is so long but I wanted to try to explain everything, any suggestions would be very much appreciated!

Forgot to add that this little girl requires 4 short walks p/day to even be remotely calm! We give her 12 mins x3 and then a slightly longer 4th walk before bed.


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## lyra (Nov 2, 2012)

Hi Nelly and welcome to the forum 

Firstly, have you searched the forum for crate training because there is a lot of information about this here - probably one of the most challenging areas for Vizsla owners as the breed is so clingy and doesn't like being left alone.

I will make a couple of suggestions. 12 weeks is very young but a puppy of that age should be able to manage with one potty in the night. What you are describing sounds like a call for attention rather than the need to potty and there is no alternative than to be hard and try and ignore it as much as possible (allowing her one potty break of course!) Every time you reward her by responding to her call for attention you are one step further away from achieving what you want. Our one concession was to crate Lyra in our room at night originally with the intention of moving her out when she was older but I don't think we will bother now. We never had a problem with her at night, that may just be our dog (they do differ) or the fact that she knew we were there. By about 13 weeks she didn't need any potty in the night.

Crating while out is another story. At five months Lyra will still only tolerate about 40 minutes before she starts barking/whining. An improvement for us but hopefully she will get more tolerant as she gets older.


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## Nelly (Feb 7, 2013)

Hi Lyra and thank you very much for your reply! 

I have definitely been guilty of going to her previously even though i knew fine well i was reinforcing it, the selective memory syndrome you get with a new pup! 

Our puppy class leader also advised us she should only need potty once a night too. I wondered if eliminating the pen area at night time would be a good idea? 

I have wanted to bring her crate into the bedroom - i personally see no problem with it at all and only benefits but my partner is not keen on it due to the way he has raised pups in the past i.e bedroom off limits, i have to compromise somewhere! 

I actually put her in there for a short spell this morning to do some tasks and despite there still being a dirty protest she made not a sound. 

Hopefully this will just be the first step in improvement! 

Could I ask you how much you exercised Lyra when she was around 12 weeks? Obviously i don't want to do too much but just now Nelly is getting 3x 12 mins and 1x slightly longer p/day.

Thanks!


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## hotmischief (Mar 11, 2012)

Hi Nelly, and welcome to this wonderful forum.

Sounds like you are doing a splendid job. Don't beat yourselves up about the crate training. I had the same problem with my pup. He would get very distressed and go to toilet in the crate (I think that was why he was so distressed). In the end as we had the crate in our kitchen we just left the door open and he used it as his bed, fed him in it and later on we used to lock him in it for short periods if we needed to feed both dogs at the same time.

We have been fortunate that Boris is not destructive and has only ever chewed his own toys. If Nelly is destructive I would continue to work on the crate training as I do think that they can help keep the pup and your home safe in cases like that.


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## lyra (Nov 2, 2012)

I can understand your partner's position. I too 'want my own space' but in our case that was not allowing the dog in our bed. In a recent pole here, over 50% of the forum members that voted sleep with their dogs! Maybe if you suggest that to your partner he would be grateful to just have the crate in the bedroom ;D

I too was concerned that we were over-exercising our puppy and started a thread here: http://www.vizslaforums.com/index.php/topic,6654.0.html

The bottom line is there is no research about this and while lots of people have an opinion, nobody can give you a definitive answer. Read what people suggest and then make up your own mind.


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## Nelly (Feb 7, 2013)

Thank you both! 

Hotmischief, thank you for your kind words - little Nelly does have a tendency to be destructive when alone or out of sight so for her own safety we are sticking to confinement when she can't be hovered over! Can't blame her, so many interesting things in this big world! 

Lyra thank you for the fab thread link - she does let us know when she's had enough we've discovered, she starts to bite her lead and jump up on me so maybe I should let her call it at this stage. Otherwise she is very good at walking and very polite with other dogs. Haha! That is brilliant, to be honest if I was myself she would be right under the covers with me, I will be telling him about this stat!

I was wondering about one more thing - over just the last couple of days she has been doing a low bark when people pass by our gate outside. Now she loves humans to death, maybe more so than other dogs. Her body language when doing it doesn't suggest any sort of aggression, but it is a different tone of bark, veeeryyyy low. I don't want to over-correct barking because it is a natural thing, however I have tried to correct this after a couple of barks and redirect with something interesting. 

Has anyone experienced this?

Thanks!


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## Ozkar (Jul 4, 2011)

Yeah, she just doing her job. Letting you know something or someone is there. The low bark means nothing immediate, but I'm keeping my eyes, ears and nose on it...... 

I think Ian Dunbar has a piece on teaching "soosh", but it involves teaching "speak" first. Do a search in here on it, its been posted a few times. Or search Ian Dunbar's stuff.


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## mswhipple (Mar 7, 2011)

I have no additional advice, but just wanted to say that I think Nelly is adorable! A real cutie patootie!! ;D ;D


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## Nelly (Feb 7, 2013)

Thank you so much mswhipple!  Willie is also a stunner, love that name - there was a little boy in Nelly's litter I also fell in love with, very cute and cheeky, I saw him as a Willie! 

Thank you for the advice Ozkar, i read up on shoosh and speak - this worked wonders on my Mum's collie lab x and we have started it with Nelly now.

We actually had a bit of a breakthrough today - she has taken to dragging her soft bed into the washing basket when it's empty and will sleep and sleep and sleep in it. We put this in her pen today and she was silent, still is! I would still like her to sleep in her crate at night but I guess she sees the washing basket as her safe place. Just a shame she will only get her backside in it soon!  

I reckon with this progress we have solid foundations to just keep on improving and most importantly she feels safe and content in the mean time.

Thanks so much for everyone's help, this is a truly great site, I've actually become quite addicted! 

Does anyone know of a thread of 'Funny things your vizsla does' ? I searched for it to no a avail. If there isn't one i might start it off so we can talk about all their funny little idiosyncrocies


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