Is this ok?
I have a golden retriever puppy, he is 3 months old. We take him on at least 2 20 minute walks per day, plus he usually gets at least 10-20 minutes of training etc. However, he is very mouthy and often gets in "crazy" moods, I think he just wants to play honestly but he will jump up and bite you (90% of the time when he bites it is not hard, but when he's in one of his moods he seems to lose his understanding of bite inhibition), steal socks and want you to chase him with them, it is super hard to manage so when the weather permits, we just put him outside in our large fenced in yard to burn off the excess steam, for like an hour or so, until he scratches at the door to be let back in, and then he falls asleep.
We puppy proofed the yard to the best of our ability and when he is outside we always have an eye on him.
Is it OK to let him run around and entertain himself outside when he gets crazy?
Posted Mar 2, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC
We have always let our girl in our fenced in backyard. As long as it’s ok temperature-wise and it’s not for super long periods of time you should be ok. Definitely keep as eye here and there, though!
You may want to consider doing enforced naps! We always found our girl was most crazy/mouthy/naughty when she was over tired as a puppy. A forced nap always helped us tolerate her craziness.
We have a room that we appropriated for him, and we use it as like one big crate basically. He IS often tired but just won't settle, so he has to go outside until he's exhausted himself completely to the point where there's no more crazy left in him. He'll scratch at the door for a good ten minutes before he finally calls it quits. And I hate shutting him in there, I feel like it'll just create a negative association with the room which I don't want, because that's where he sleeps at night and also where he stays when no one is at home. I have tried shutting him in there with a filled KONG or a chew, but after he is done with the KONG or the chew he will get right back up and start scratching and crying.
We have also tried putting him out in a place where he can see us (x-pen with crate) but that makes the problem way worse I think.
EDIT: Are the scratchy bitey zoomy crazies something that pups grow out of and that can be safely addressed just by outside playtime or is it rude behavior that needs to be formally trained out?
Have you tried naps in a covered crate? My adult dog would probably be thrown off by being closed in a whole bedroom! That’s a lot of space. Dogs are cave loving animals - they Like to be in cozy dark spaces, that’s where they usually feel safe and secure. If you haven’t tried actually crating him in the room with a light blanket over top, I’d try that. You pup truly just sounds over stimulated, and it sounds like you’re completely draining him before just passes out from exhaustion. Puppies are kind of like toddlers. When they Are over tired, they get cranky and can be very difficult to deal with. The crazy biting, zoomies, and excited behaviors are very much puppy behaviors, but all I can tell you is we found that our girl was MUCH easier to deal with if she had enough naps. Our girl is about 1.5 now and all of the crazy behavior has stopped....around 8 months or so was when we noticed a stark difference in all of those annoying behaviors.
Forced naps are truly a life saver - keep trying! Puppies need to sleep 18-20 hours a day on average.
It's not a whole bedroom, it's just the mudroom. So it's a very small space, big enough for just a washer and dryer and a small counter space and that's it. Between the washer and the counter he has his bed which is nice and cozy and when he's tired (ie lying on the ground head on paws slowly blinking) we'll put him in his room and he'll head straight for his bed. We tried putting the crate in there and he always preferred to sleep outside it on the tile lol.
Also 18-20 hours!!! (!!!!) my puppy doesn't get NEARLY that much, no wonder he gets so crazy all the time lol! I'll have to put him down for naps more often... Thanks for the advice!