Hello again!
So here's where we're at...
Cendre is coming up to 10 weeks old. She arrived with us nearly two weeks ago. She's not the easiest to train, but we're holding firm and finding solutions that work for everyone. She seems hyperactive — she switches activity every five seconds, tears around everywhere, and demands constant attention. With biting, for example, the "dead hand" technique has been a real success: we simply stop playing and she gets the message. When she misbehaves, telling her off is completely useless — even raising our voices or holding her down does nothing, she just digs her heels in. So the gentle approach works far better than punishment. When she gets too wound up, whispering to her calms her down — whereas scolding her actually makes her even more excitable.
But we've got a serious problem now. She's sleeping less and less at night. During the day, we've set up a little shelter in the garden — the door is wide open so she gets sun all day but can move into the shade, and she has her bed, a large mat, all her toys, and food and water on demand (she regulates herself). When we come in for the evening, we keep her really busy: basic training (sit, down, come, stay...) with treats, letting her chew her toys, running around the garden, lots of cuddles and chat. She gets up to a bit of mischief, but that seems pretty normal to me.
The problem is she barely sleeps, and when she's not sleeping she cries, howls, barks, and scratches at the door so frantically that last night I genuinely thought she'd fallen down the stairs. To begin with, we had her sleeping with us — we're in a house share so there weren't many rooms to put her in. The trouble is, I don't have a proper bed frame; my mattress is on the floor (I've got a low-ceilinged sloped room, kind of Japanese-style), so she just takes over — she chews on both mine and my partner's hair, and even nips at my face! It's hard to keep her off the bed when we're essentially sleeping at her level, which is a real issue. So we've set up a little room for her just across from ours (a housemate moved out). It's not too big, fairly bare (so she can't get into too much trouble), with her bed, toys, and water. We settle her down before us as best we can, but the moment we close the door she cries and howls for at least 20 minutes.
Last night she howled almost non-stop. She probably slept an hour or two in total. Our house is semi-detached, so our neighbours and housemates aren't getting any sleep either. I'm absolutely shattered — I've been sleeping in one-hour chunks for several nights now, and it's really hard to keep your cool...
What are your best tips for helping my puppy feel less anxious at night and sleep for at least a few hours in a row? I don't mind getting up once or twice in the night, but eight or ten times is another matter — I just can't keep it up...
Thank you so much for any kind advice.
See you soon!
Kyrieh.
