Hi everyone,
My partner and I adopted a little Jack Russell cross Brittany Spaniel two days ago. He was born on 19th June (making him about 10 weeks old) and was living with his mum, a sister (from a litter of five), another dog, and a cat before we took him home.
On our side, this isn't our first dog. We lost our previous one nearly a year ago (a Pyrenean Sheepdog who lived to 15) and we have a small deaf cat who is about 3 or 4 years old (we rescued him as an adult).
We are using positive reinforcement, or at least we're trying our best, as we know he's a very high-energy breed. During the day, everything is going well; he is very bright, learns quickly, and things are going quite smoothly with our cat.
Commands like "sit", "no", and "bed" are currently being learned, as is walking on a lead. We are waiting for him to be fully jabbed before taking him out for proper walks, so for now, he has stayed in the house and garden.
Anyway, sorry for the long introduction (I'm new to the site!), but I wanted to get to the first problem we've encountered: the night-time.
We live in a house with an upstairs and we want to make that floor out of bounds (not to mention the fact that it's not recommended for puppies to go up and down stairs). The problem is, the little lad panics, howls, and cries as soon as we go up to bed. Again, nothing unusual for the first few days, except that he tries to follow us up.
We have a flimsy stair gate that worked for our old dog, but he just makes short work of it and manages to get upstairs anyway. And that's the point where we aren't sure how to react.
We've tried saying "No!" from the landing or once he's reached the top. We take him back down, either by carrying him or by the scruff, to lead him back to his bed. But nothing works. He howls, screams, and cries, to the point of having diarrhoea, and then he dashes back up again wagging his tail (whether from joy or stress).
The goal is to avoid him continuing this or associating it with a game at all costs. We don't know if we're going about it the right way. Originally, we planned to ignore his crying for a few days to start building his independence, but we didn't imagine our gate would be so useless. Even though he'll rarely be home alone for more than a few hours (my partner has a very light work schedule), we don't want him to become hyper-attached and suffer every time we go out.
Last night, I finally gave in and slept on the sofa, ignoring him completely, and that calmed him down. But it's not a long-term solution.
I'd really like some advice:
What are we doing wrong?
Is it too soon for him to sleep away from us?
Is it normal for him to be this attached to us after only 2 days?
What should we do when he comes upstairs when we've forbidden it?
Thanks in advance for your advice,
Adrien
