POOR PUPPY - HOW TO HELP YOUR CRYING PUPPY; WHY YOU ***DON’T*** WANT TO WAIT IT OUT!
I had a recent client who, among other things, was asking me how to deal with her puppy’s nighttime crying. I was glad she asked.
Gone are the days when standard advice was to ignore a crying puppy. “Ignore him,” we said, “until he stops crying. If you go to him while he’s crying, you’ll reinforce him and teach him to cry more.” That’s horrid advice and I regret that ages ago I was guilty of saying it to clients.
Now that competent, educated dog training and behavior professionals have a much better understanding of the science of behavior and learning, we won’t tell you to ignore your pup’s cries. You must take action when your pup is in distress. That’s what his cries are – he’s communicating to you that he’s distressed – sometimes very distressed. (Note: This does not apply to “demand barking” – that requires a very different response.
While some puppies manage to survive having their cries ignored and grow into normal, healthy adult dogs, others suffer with stress-related behavioral issues for the rest of their lives, including separation related behaviors, due at least in part to not having their needs met when they were so desperate for help. So what should you do when your puppy cries? He’s crying for help. Help him.
A New World
When a puppy arrives at his new home, his world has turned upside down. His mother and siblings are gone. The familiar sights, sounds and smells of his birth home are gone – replaced with an alien environment. Even if he came from a responsible breeder who helped prepare him for this life change (sadly, a relatively small percentage of possible puppy sources) the stress of rehoming may still trigger distress behaviors.
It’s critically important to take things slowly. Your pup may have never been alone before, ever. Being left alone now could be horribly traumatic, especially if you ignore his pleas for help. Your best approach is prevention. Assume your pup has never been crated or left alone, and plan on staying near him at first. Even if he has been previously crate-trained, the stress of relocating to your home can contribute to panic attacks.
What To Do
Whether you are faced with a newly-arrived puppy or one who’s been in your home for a while, here’s what you need to do:
1. Determine why he is crying. What’s stressing him? After identifying his stressor(s), figure out how to make them go away. (Go to: https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/training/stressed-out/)
2. Anticipate when he’s likely to stress-cry and pre-empt the crying by engaging him in some other activity, food toy, or providing company.
3. Keep him near you and gradually acclimate him to being alone. Isolation is a huge stressor for a puppy!
4. Spend time acclimating him to his crate by playing crate games, preferably starting with his first day home (but it’s never too late).
5. If he is stressed by crating, use an exercise pen alternative (a collapsible wire pen) for confinement.
6. If you cannot determine his stressors and alleviate his crying, engage the services of a qualified professional force-free behavior consultant to help you, sooner, not later.
First Night
A pup’s first night home can be make-or-break time. (Also true for your newly-adopted adult dog!) If he adapted well to his crate during your first-day crate games, you can probably crate him in your room for the night. Do not, under any circumstances, crate him away in a room all by himself. You have to hear him when he cries to go to the bathroom or if he's telling you he’s alone and distressed. Get up and take him out if you think he needs to go. Crating him in your room saves him from feeling abandoned. If he’s stressed about the crate, use an exercise pen that you can set next to your bed with your arm draped over the edge if necessary, to assure him he’s not alone. (I’m speaking from the voice of experience here – I had to do this with our Pomeranian, Sunny, when we adopted him at the age of 11 months. For several weeks. And then gradually withdrew my arm and eventually, when he was ready, crated him at night.)
Give him a good bout of puppy playtime before bed, a last bathroom trip and time to settle before the two of you retire for the night. Have his crate or pen where he can see you. A microwave-heated towel can provide comfort for him. He may fuss for a moment or two. As long as it doesn’t escalate and he settles quickly, you can ignore brief fussing. If it persists or starts increase to distress crying, intervene. Hang your hand in front of his crate or into his pen so he has company. Over time (days, weeks) you should gradually be able to remove your hand without causing distress.
The same philosophy holds true for other times, long after your first night is behind you – in fact, for the rest of his life. A distressed, crying dog needs to be helped, not ignored. Figure out why he’s upset and determine what you need to do to alleviate his stress. Intervene when he’s distressed. He’s crying for help. Help him.
CAT BEHAVIOR MYSTERY
First let me say that I am a very strong advocate for keeping cats indoors. Twenty years working at the Marin Humane society in Novato, California, convinced me that outdoor cats tend to have short lives and all too often meet up with unhappy endings.
That said, we live on a farm, and feral cats randomly choose to move into our lower hay barn. In fact, about ten years ago, when my husband left his position as Executive Director of the local humane society, his replacement (trying to play the unfortunate “no-kill” game), was instructing shelter staff to dump feral cats around the county. When several ended up on our farm, all at the same time, we suspected it was part of this very misguided effort. As much as I believe in indoor cats, most of the time trying to bring truly feral cats indoors is a disaster,
We already had one barn cat – a beautiful dilute calico, Dorothy. She was not feral but moved in from the neighbor’s house and adapted life in the upper horse barn life very well. In fact, as the exception that proves the rule, she lived to the ripe old age of 16, and happily greeted many of our academy students and canine visitors as well as our horse boarders.
So – we trapped and sterilized the feral newcomers, and since we already had Dorothy we named them Munchkin, Scarecrow, Flying Monkey, Auntie Em, Kansas and Wizard.
Since they were very feral, there was no point in trying to bring
them indoors - they would have been miserable. We set them up in our lower hay barn. (Auntie Em, a lovely tuxedo girl turned out to not be feral, didn't adapt well to living in our house with our menagerie, and went to live with my niece in Indiana).
As outdoor cats do, they gradually passed on – and we don’t know why or how, although Munchkin may have been bitten by a copperhead snake, judging by the symptoms he displayed before vanishing. Generally they just disappear. In time, Flying Monkey (a small black shorthair), who had been wildest of the bunch, was the only one left, and I started a concerted effort to socialize him using Kellie Snider’s CAT procedure (Constructional Aggression Treatment). The effort was eventually successful.
He is now eleven (!!!), and for the last three years I have been able to pet him, pick him up and even vaccinate him! No one else can get near him, but I can. A new feral feline friend, Xander, moved into the lower barn a couple of years ago, and through the same process I am now able to pet him, pick him up and vaccinate him too. Xander has become a very regular presence – he is there almost every day and often prefers to come to me to be petted rather than rushing over to eat the food I put out for him.
But…
Around the middle of January, something happened. I don’t know what. Monkey came for morning feeding time, limping, with a wound on the inside of his left hind leg. It wasn’t awful – just looked like a scrape. He came close enough that I could touch it and look at it but was definitely wary of me. After that, although his leg healed quickly, he became more and more wary – staying at the back of the barn instead of coming up to greet me. And my little black Monkey who was usually there faithfully every single morning for breakfast began missing meals. I started keeping track, and as long as he showed up every two to three days, I wasn’t too concerned. Then he missed nine days in a row and I thought we’d lost him. But one day I saw him duck into the barn when I went down for something in the middle of the day. Yay – he was still here!
Two days later he was there for breakfast, came up and greeted me like old times. YAY – he’s back!! Fingers crossed, I expected to see his friendly self every day after that. Now after seven days again with no Monkey, this morning I saw him dart under the tractor shed next to the barn when I went down to feed. But no old-time happy greeting.
I would love to know what’s going on with him. Why was he spooked, then friendly, then vanished again? My husband thinks someone else somewhere did something bad to him. If there are any cat people out there – I would love to hear your theories!!
KELPIE PLAYTIME
We got our first Australian Kelpie some four decades ago. Keli was my Canine Field Agent at the Humane Society - he was trained to herd, rode with me in the truck, helped round up loose livestock and catch stray dogs, and did school Humane Education Programs with me.
We are now on our third (Kai) and fourth (KC) Kelpies - first time we have ever had two at once. KC stands for Kelpie Chaos...<G>. She's the liver-and-tan - and we adopted her from a hoarder case, so she came with a lot of behavior challenges. Yes, she is on Reconcile - doggy Prozac. It is great fun to watch the two of them play together. I'm still trying to get good video, but here are some still shots:
And
Two weeks in a row now I’ve gone for trail rides on Levi – working on fulfilling one of my New Year Goals…
More of my cases next time – promise!
Warm Woofs,
Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA
www.peaceablepaws.com ; info@peaceablepaws.com ; 301-582-9420