Tips on crazy puppy?

1/3

This here is a 10 week old puppy. He’s amazing, smart, funny, and we love him. We even slept through the night last night. But he’s bat shit.

We are training him, and officially start puppy obedience class in 2 weeks. We go to puppy socialization classes 2-3x/week. We both work from home, he gets lots of attention. Goes outside, plays outside, gets training, and try to put to nap.

But, he’s not food motivated, and I’m having trouble training him some things and keeping him occupied. I find it hard to train with toys.

He’s also CRAZY. He will go bonkers in the house. It takes total attention to redirect away from chewing on stuff he shouldnt. And because he’s not interested in food, we cannot crate train him. He just attacks the crate.

He loves humping my leg, and if I’m playing with a toy with him, he often starts jumping my arm. I walk away, praise him for stopping, but still!

Are we giving him too much exercise? Without it, he will never settle down.

Help??!

in BorderCollieby tictacotictaco

100%

2mo

Koochiru

2mo

At this age he should sleep about 18-20hrs a day, is he getting enough rest?

It is usually not easy to train a puppy but you have to keep at it, if he’s toy motivated try working on impulse control first.

Take away all toys except things he’s allowed to chew on like dogwood, teach him that when the toys come out the fun is to be had with you.

You should beacon of a part of the room around the crate with a puppy fence and reward when he settles. Don’t forget, he’s a dog, not a human. Don’t train him that his misbehaviour gets him attention negative or otherwise.

tictacotictaco

2mo

I agree he’s not getting enough sleep. He’s a very light sleeper, and will never go to sleep on his own. That’s part of the crazy puppy problem! We are working on crating, but he bites and screams at it. He even broke one of his canines, which I think happened biting the crate, so now we are going even slower with the crate, and with a soft one. We are working on play pen, but he also screams and bites at it, and learned how to climb out of it. I will go in there and lay down for him to nap, but he really doesn’t settle down for a nap anymore!

We are really focusing on settle, that's where lack of food motivation is a big negative, though. He actually really can settle, like we've taken him out to a couple restaurants to get him exposure, and he settles and goes to sleep. A toy will really rile him up. Tips on teaching impulse control with toys? When we play, we stop every 2-3 minutes to focus on leaving, look at me, drop it, sit/stay, etc. I took that from Dr Ian Dunbar's book, which I think is what you may be talking about?

HezzaE

2mo

Firstly, I agree with the other poster that your puppy might not be getting enough rest. The crate is a great space to enforce naps. Keep play/training sessions short, their attention span is short.

Try some different treats. Things I have used to treat my dog:

Carrots
Courgette
Cucumber
Plain ham
Cocktail sausages
Cheese
Plain chicken

As well as his favourite actual "dog treats" like dried sprats, homemade liver cake, and chicken and cheese bites.

I just chopped anything I used to treat him up really small when he was a puppy. If you're not sure what he'll like, raid your fridge and pull out a bunch of stuff that's safe for dogs and try him with different bits. Offer him a tasting plate and see what he gravitates towards!

Another thing - assuming he's eating his meals normally, you can use those meal times to train. Instead of putting a full bowl down in front of him, put a bowl with just a little bit of his food, and the rest of the food you've measured out separately. As he eats his food, put more in by hand, and see if he'll take any directly from your hand. That has a dual purpose of reducing any tendency to guard his food bowl, as well as teaching him to to take food from your hand.

EDIT: Was just remembering my dog's puppy days and I remembered that he used to be quite funny about some of his treats. We'd give him fish skin cubes, and until he was about 5 months old he used to hide them around the house (it really was a lovely time, finding stinky fish cubes down the back of sofa cushions 🤮). I think what with it being a new environment, it took him some time to understand that the supply of food here was safe and stable, nobody was going to take his food away, and whatever food he liked, there was always more of it to come. In a similar way, your puppy has probably only been with you about 2 weeks - so they don't know yet if they entirely trust you as a food source. That might manifest in not appearing overly food motivated at this point. You can't rush them into building that trust, you can just keep offering them stuff that smells good, and if they're hungry enough when you offer it to them they might just go for it. For now, just focus on getting him to take treats from your hand and tell him "good" or "yes", when he takes it. Once he's happy to take the treats, you can reverse that so that you first say "good" or "yes" and then he gets a treat, and once he understands that "good" or "yes" means a treat is coming, that's when you can start using treats to train.

dueltone

2mo

If you show interest in a thing, your BC might mirror the behaviour. We use cheese for difficult training because our pup is much more interested in human food than dog treats. As she's got older & calmer we transitoned to dog treats.

tictacotictaco

2mo

Unfortunately he does not eat his meals normally :[. A lot of the time, he wouldn't even really eat, and it takes me sitting him down and hand feeding him to eat his food. That's made it REALLY hard to get him to use kongs or licky mats. He'll lick a Kong, even with delicious fresh chicken, cheese, cheese wiz, wet dog food, etc, for like 2 minutes tops.

Our pup has no idea that food insecurity could even be a thing. He's a prince that lives in a food utopia. I don't think he thinks of me as a food insecure source because he will sometimes only eat from my hand.

HezzaE

2mo

Ah that is tricky then, because on the one hand - great, he's taking food from your hand and you can start using it as a lure and teaching him a marker word for desired behaviour like "yes" or "good".

But on the other hand - if he learns young that if he wants to be hand fed, all he has to do is not eat his food from his bowl, you're creating a problem for yourself down the line. So it might be worth prioritising that for now - and then when you give him a treat, that's the only food he gets to have hand-fed, and actually for him being hand-fed it is part of the incentive.

One thing to remember is that a puppy isn't going to starve himself when food is available. He might let himself get hungry because he really wants to be hand fed but he's not going to starve himself, he'll eat eventually. But with such a young puppy who is still adjusting to his home, I'd maybe try gradually moving him to eating from the bowl, slowly moving so your hand is directly above the bowl when he's eating, then your hand is in the bowl, then trying to take that step of putting the food, one bite at a time, in the bowl rather than letting him have it straight from your hand.

Are you in touch with the trainer who will be running the puppy classes already? It might be worth getting their view on this and they might be able to come and do a 1:1 session to help you figure out how to motivate and reward him in training sessions.

trippyfungus

2mo

Put a leash on him. Crate train him. Use better food. Maybe one day you just make a chartreuse board of human food and see what he likes the most then take that and hide it around the house for him to find. Put away the toys and Start off easy just like throw some food out in the open. For him to find. Then you can put it in a spot that's slightly harder to find and walk around with him trying to find it. Your interest will make him interested. Then you can throw it in the kennel door open and when he goes in to get it act very excited. Now you can do this with a toy as well throw the toy in leave door open and act happy when he goes in to get it. No pressure, gets a reward when he goes in then you can close the door for a split second, dont even give him a chance to freak out and then reward him. Build from there. Go very slow.

I like to explain it like this your puppy is like a child in that it takes time to build cognitive function. Children learn then have a snack take a nap then learn again. They don't just sit down and start reading a thousand page book. Your puppy needs very short training session on a daily basis. Once a day. They'll probably not have any attention spand but that doesn't mean their not learning, and if they're totally not into it then your done for now try again after a nap or snack. Slow down enjoy the bat shit because he'll be an old boy before you know it.

Zac George on YouTube he's got a million videos and if very informative about high energy wild dogs.

HezzaE

2mo

Zac George and also Kikopup - they have both done video series pretty much day by day as they worked through things with new border collie puppies. I watched both extensively before I brought my boy home and during the first few months and it was so useful.

Zac George I found really useful for things like crate training, not jumping up and trying to get food from kitchen surfaces (they grow big enough to do that faster than you expect!), and impulse control games. Kikopup I found really useful for capturing calmness, training "drop it", and some basic "trick" training.

tictacotictaco

2mo

Thanks I watched a lot of zack G. I’ll look into kilo pup.

-Kwambus-

2mo

Be cautious with YouTube dog training experts they have the luxury of editing to make things look easier than they are. Don’t lose patience if you don’t pull things off as they appear to do. My BC was difficult in the early days as we were frankly out of our depth, fabulous breed but they are not easy. She’s five now and wouldn’t swap her for the world, but we originally had all the same problems you do now. It’s not the dog, it’s the breed. Keep calm and keep at it, the rewards are wonderful. P.S. Enforce some downtime as others suggested - Your pup will just keep going and going if you do not.

Patton-Eve

2mo

Teaching collie types to settle is the most important thing.

My adult girl doesn’t have a create anymore (we are a quite household so she hogs the sofa and doesn’t need extra “security”) but for a puppy its a great tool to teach them to be quite.

Make a routine. Collies live for routine. For example 11am potty break then straight to the create. Cover some of the sides so its dark and put it somewhere out of the way so nothing exciting happens when its nap time. L

Engage the nose. At this age spreading meal time kibble out on the floor or on a nice day your lawn. When he is old enough sniffy walks where he is allowed to just sniff really help tire dogs out.

You will never physically tire a collie…you will just make a super athlete if you try.

You can get squeaky tennis balls…I will eat my hat if a collie isn’t motivated and engaged by that.

tictacotictaco

2mo

We are crate training, using the most high value food for only in crate (fresh boiled chicken). Do you have any tips on teaching a settle? We just do lots of high value treat rewards when he lays down and "settles".

HezzaE

2mo

Sounds right - if he's already choosing to settle around the house, you can just gently say "yes" and put a nice treat in front of his nose. He might look for more treats at first when you do this, I just showed my boy my hands were empty. After a while he'll get used to waking up to a nice treat in front of his nose, eating it, then going right back to sleep.

Basically, it's teaching him that you don't always have to do "something" to get a treat. Often, "nothing" will get you treats too. I still sometimes randomly give my now adult dog a treat if he's having a good snooze after some playtime.

[deleted]

2mo

Well he sure is cute.

tictacotictaco

2mo

Yes he’s precious

[deleted]

2mo

Mine is also crazy (Husky/Border Collie mix) but luckily he’s a little older (11 months) and less crazy now. Didn’t have him as a puppy so I can’t help but good luck!

Noirjyre

2mo

Get playpen and a house leash.

BC’s are smart, but he is ten weeks. Give him time, and you time to learn.

But for your sanity get a puppy playpen, it keeps him from getting into stuff when you can’t watch him. And the house leash help you train in the house.

tictacotictaco

2mo

Have a puppy play pen, crate, leash etc. he doesn’t get free access to the house. Watch Zach George’s like year long series on bringing his BC puppy home. He’s so smart, figures out how to climb out of it.

gooberdaisy

2mo

Curious, based on color of coat could the pup be an Australian shepherd? (Nothing wrong if so, just wondering)

Everyone else has said most of what I would say too, but will add on to make sure to train a “quiet” time as well. My border collie will never stop playing (she is almost 10!). Once we have taught her quiet time she will quiet down and become our cuddle monster lol. The other thing we have taught all dogs we have had is the “baby cradle”, we will take the dog and hold it like a baby, some will love it, others not so much. We will hold them for extended periods of time, usually no more than 20 minutes. Dogs who stay calm and lay there seem to listen a bit more to commands.

tictacotictaco

2mo