Your advice please!

Hello everyone! I have been looking forward to joining Pet Talk, just waiting for all the kinks to be worked out. I am in real need of some advice with my five month old puppy, Kamble. He is a wonderful puppy, very intelligent, obedient, loves to cuddle and show affection. He loves to run, jump and play in the snow, off the leash. He is very good with entertaining himself, taking turns with all his toys from his toy box. He even learned very quickly to ring a bell when he needs to go out! The problem we run into is he picks and chooses between my husband, Trent, and I. He loves us both, but he would rather be with me over my husband. I am often at home with him alone during the day. It is hard to get any work done because he is in constant need of attention. When he feels he is being ignored he will become defiant, with repetitive barking and chewing. It gets exhausting. I’ve tried everything I can think of, interrupting the behavior, positive reinforcing, redirecting, timeouts, baby gates, and turning my back to him when he barks. My tactics only work temporally or not at all. I have even called Trent at work for at work for advice. At the end of the day when Trent comes home Kamble has just as much sweet puppy energy, however, he is on his best behavior, making me look like over exaggerate. He cuddles and plays with his daddy, however he still prefers me first. I just don’t know what to do I watch him do a complete 180 during the day. If you have any advice for me please help me! Just while trying to type this I was interrupted several times having to redirect Kamble :)

If you’ll completely ignore him when he’s barking, he will stop. Not right away., mind you. ;) It may take several days. If he’s destructive, confine him either in a crate in the room with you, or attach a leash to you, so that you are there to correct bad behavior, but otherwise simply ignore him. I know it’s very hard to do.

It seems as though he’s trained you well; he barks or otherwise interrupts you and you stop what you’re doing and pay attention to him. Doesn’t matter that it’s negative or positive, to him you stopped what you were doing and focused on him.

Give him the correct things to chew. Maybe fill a kong with kibble, broth and some chopped veggies, seal it with peanut butter and freeze it. Give it to him in his crate, or on a hard surface, because it can be a bit messy.

I think Micki hit the nail on the head so to speak. Sounds like Kamble is very sharp, and that's good... and bad in a way! "Bad" because he will quickly learn ways to try to get his way, and try to outfox Mommy while she's busy! You just have to try to convince him that his negative behavior is not going to get the results he's aiming for, which is your attention!

The only other thing I would add to Micki's suggestion is that if/when he IS laying quietly and entertaining himself that those are the times you might break off what you are doing for a few moments to praise and give him a few scratches.

Best of luck to you and Kamble. It sounds like you have a special, smart and sweet little boy :)

Piddle does this too, except he sits down and cries and cries and cries when I am busy :rolleyes:

He is VERY sooky, which is mostly my moms fault, here is a LIST of all the things Piddle cries over/for:
-Ice cream(cries by the fridge)
-Bones(treats--cries by the cupboard)
-To go in the car
-Just for attention
-If hes jealous(if jaspers in my arms...)
-If he cant get his toy(under the couch, up on shelf..etc)
-If one of the others take his toy
-If he wants a toy that one of the other dogs have...

And SO MANY more things, and we have ignored him! Alot, but he doesnt stop, he will go on and on, and its sad, his eyes get really watery, and most of the time we give in :o

Hi, Bets! Did you see all the welcome messages you got? hehe these people are so sweet!